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USS George Bancroft (SSBN 643)

USS GEORGE BANCROFT was the fourth BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - class nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarine and the fourth ship in the Navy named after George Bancroft. Generally similar to the LAFAYETTE - class, the twelve BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - class submarines had a quieter machinery design, and were thus considered a separate class.

The GEORGE BANCROFT was both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on September 21, 1993. She later entered the Navy’s Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program in Bremerton, Washington, and finished it on March 30, 1998.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS GEORGE BANCROFT. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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About the Ship's Name:

George Bancroft was born in Worcester, Mass., 3 October 1800. An eminent historian and politician, he wrote The History of the United States. In 1845 he was appointed Secretary of the Navy and founded the Naval Academy. He also fostered the work of the Washington Observatory and raised the standard of professional instruction. He was later minister to Great Britain, Prussia and the North German Federation, and the German Empire. He died in Washington in 1891 and was buried in Worcester, Mass.

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USS GEORGE BANCROFT History:

USS GEORGE BANCROFT was one of the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class fleet ballistic missile submarines, part of the last group of the original "41 for Freedom" boats that carried much of the United States' seaborne nuclear deterrent during the later decades of the Cold War. She was named for historian and statesman George Bancroft, a former Secretary of the Navy and the founder of the United States Naval Academy. Designed from the outset as a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, she combined the S5W reactor plant and general machinery layout of earlier Lafayette-series boats with incremental improvements in quieting, fire control and habitability, in order to sustain long submerged patrols far from land in support of strategic deterrence.

The contract to build USS GEORGE BANCROFT was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics at Groton, Connecticut, on November 1, 1962, in the midst of the early ballistic-missile-submarine build-up that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis and the deployment of Polaris missiles. Her keel was laid at Electric Boat on August 24, 1963, and she took shape in the yard's construction halls alongside other members of the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN series. GEORGE BANCROFT was launched at Groton on March 20, 1965, in a ceremony sponsored by two descendants of her namesake, and she was formally commissioned on January 22, 1966. At commissioning, she adopted the standard dual-crew structure used by U.S. fleet ballistic missile submarines: Captain Joseph Williams took command of the Blue Crew, and Commander Walter M. Douglass commanded the Gold Crew.

After commissioning in January 1966, GEORGE BANCROFT completed initial sea trials and shakedown training from New London and the U.S. East Coast, workups that included proving out her Polaris A-3 missile system at the Atlantic missile test range off Florida. Test-launch records indicate that she fired at least two Polaris A-3 missiles in April 1966 from the Eastern Test Range, with launches on April 7, 1966 and April 21, 1966 attributed to GEORGE BANCROFT's Blue crew. These firings, conducted from patrol-like conditions off Cape Canaveral, were part of the standard sequence of initial missile evaluation and crew certification that every new Polaris boat had to complete before entering regular deterrent patrol service.

Once her trials and post-shakedown availability were complete, GEORGE BANCROFT was assigned to Submarine Squadron 14 of Submarine Flotilla 6, with New London, Connecticut, as her nominal home port. Her first operational deployment began when she departed New London on July 26, 1966, manned by the Blue Crew, to commence her first Polaris deterrent patrol. After a submerged transit across the North Atlantic in the context of the ongoing Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union, she concluded that initial patrol at the forward base at Holy Loch, Scotland. There, soon after her arrival, the Gold Crew relieved the Blue Crew on board in accordance with the rotating-crew concept, with one crew taking the submarine back to sea while the other returned to the United States for rest, training and simulator work. GEORGE BANCROFT's second deterrent patrol, undertaken by the Gold Crew, ran into the closing months of 1966. Early in 1967, she began her third patrol, again manned by the Blue Crew, continuing the alternating-crew pattern that would characterize most of her career.

Between April 1966 and April 1971, GEORGE BANCROFT completed a total of nineteen Polaris deterrent patrols. During these years, she operated primarily with Squadron 14's forward-based force out of Holy Loch, conducting long submerged patrols in the North Atlantic and adjacent waters while her missile battery, fire control and navigation systems were maintained and reloaded alongside submarine tenders at the Scottish anchorage. Crew accounts and squadron histories describe Holy Loch as the pivot of the Atlantic Polaris operations, and a later Submarine Squadron Fourteen history notes that by late September 1966, GEORGE BANCROFT had already distinguished herself among the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class units assigned to the squadron, though the publicly available text does not elaborate on the specific recognition.

The broader geopolitical background of these early years included crises in Europe and the Middle East and the intensification of the Vietnam War, all under the overarching framework of U.S.-Soviet nuclear competition. As part of that environment, GEORGE BANCROFT's patrols contributed to the continuous at-sea deterrent posture that was intended to ensure a survivable second-strike capability. Within that deterrent system, Polaris boats like GEORGE BANCROFT typically spent two-thirds or more of each cycle at sea, with only relatively short refit periods in forward areas and shipyard time in the United States.

Test-launch data show that GEORGE BANCROFT continued to be used for missile evaluation as the Polaris era drew to a close. On March 24, 1971, she conducted at least two Polaris A-3 flight operations from the Eastern Test Range, recorded as flight-operational tests rather than developmental trials, indicating that an operational patrol crew was demonstrating the reliability of the system under near-patrol conditions. Later that same month, from March 1 through March 31, 1971, the submarine's crew performance and operational effectiveness were recognized with a Meritorious Unit Commendation, awarded for that specific period of service.

With the introduction of the larger-capacity Poseidon C-3 missile in the late 1960s, the Navy began upgrading Polaris boats to carry the new system. For GEORGE BANCROFT this transition began in April 1971, when she entered an extended overhaul and conversion period to receive the Poseidon weapon system. Association and technical sources agree that she underwent this conversion between April 1971 and August 1972, with work carried out at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, a yard heavily involved in ballistic missile submarine refits. The conversion required extensive modification of her missile compartment and fire-control equipment, together with other modernization and maintenance work associated with a mid-life overhaul. On July 31, 1972, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard reported that the conversion of GEORGE BANCROFT to Poseidon capability had been completed, making her the fourteenth ballistic missile submarine to be upgraded to the C-3 system.

Following post-overhaul trials, GEORGE BANCROFT and her crews conducted a formal Demonstration and Shakedown Operation (DASO) for the new missile system. On September 25, 1972, at the Eastern Test Range off the U.S. East Coast, the Blue Crew launched a Poseidon C-3 missile in a DASO shot associated with the boat. Missile-launch databases and Navy test-range summaries place this firing near 28.5°N, 79°W, off Cape Canaveral, and contemporaneous Naval Ordnance Test Unit material and later Navy imagery identify the submarine by name in connection with the event. The successful DASO demonstrated that both the submarine's upgraded systems and her crew were ready to resume operational deterrent patrols with the new missile.

From August 1972 through June 1980, GEORGE BANCROFT completed twenty-seven Poseidon deterrent patrols. During this period, she continued to serve in the Atlantic ballistic missile submarine force, at first still within the Holy Loch-centered deployment pattern and increasingly as part of a force that also operated from the forward support site at Rota, Spain.

The boat played a role in evaluating and proving the Poseidon system beyond the initial DASO shot. On February 3, 1976, test-range records attribute a sequence of three Poseidon C-3 flight operational tests to GEORGE BANCROFT, all conducted on the Eastern Test Range off Florida within a short period. These multiple shots, fired in quick succession from patrol-like conditions, were part of an operational test series designed to verify the reliability of in-service missiles and the performance of submarine crews under realistic constraints. Launch records also show two additional Poseidon operational test shots on May 25, 1977, again from GEORGE BANCROFT at the Eastern Test Range.

Logistical support patterns also evolved during the Poseidon era. On August 2, 1976, the Navy completed the first Extended Refit Period (ERP) for an SSBN at the Rota, Spain tender-refit site, and the boat associated with this milestone was USS GEORGE BANCROFT. The ERP concept involved performing a somewhat longer and more intensive refit alongside a submarine tender than the usual turnaround between patrols, reducing the need for frequent returns to U.S. yards while still allowing for more substantial maintenance and upgrades. By the mid- and late-1970s, according to crew accounts, GEORGE BANCROFT's deterrent patrols sometimes took her into the Mediterranean, with patrols of around seventy days submerged reported by sailors who served on board, again reflecting a deployment pattern tied to forward bases such as Rota.

Strategic arms developments and the desire for longer-range submarine-launched missiles led to another major refit at the end of the 1970s. GEORGE BANCROFT's association history records that she was converted from Poseidon to the newer Trident I (C-4) missile system between June 1980 and March 1982. Technical chronology data, in turn, specify that on March 5, 1982, the boat completed an overhaul and conversion to Trident I capability at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, with the yard noting her as the tenth Poseidon-armed submarine to be backfitted with Trident C-4 missiles. The protracted conversion period included extensive changes to fire-control, navigation and missile-handling equipment, as well as hull and machinery work and routine mid-life maintenance.

Following the conversion, GEORGE BANCROFT again had to prove both the new missile system and her crews. On April 24, 1982, she carried out a Trident I C-4 Demonstration and Shakedown Operation shot, firing a C-4 missile from patrol-like conditions at the Eastern Test Range. Launch-catalog data list this firing as a DASO event, again associated explicitly with SSBN 643 and located in the same general test area off Florida used for the earlier Polaris and Poseidon trials. One former Gold Crew member later recalled being on board during the yard period and subsequent DASO patrol in the early 1980s, corroborating the link between the Portsmouth conversion and the test-launch sequence.

In fleet service, GEORGE BANCROFT began her Trident era with a new series of strategic patrols. The association chronology notes that she completed twenty-four Trident C-4 deterrent patrols between July 1982 and March 1993. During this period, the U.S. Navy was introducing the larger OHIO-class SSBNs while still maintaining a substantial number of older boats, including the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class, in both Atlantic and Pacific roles. Documentary and marker texts state that GEORGE BANCROFT was homeported at Charleston, South Carolina, and later at Kings Bay, Georgia, as the Atlantic SSBN infrastructure shifted southward from its earlier concentration at New London and Holy Loch. At least some of her Trident patrols and refits appear to have been supported from these southeastern bases, while she remained part of the Atlantic strategic deterrent posture.

Throughout the early and mid-1980s, the submarine's operational performance was repeatedly recognized. The GEORGE BANCROFT association lists major awards that include Meritorious Unit Commendations in 1971 and 1984, Battle Efficiency Awards ("Battle E") in 1980, 1984, 1985 and 1991, and selection as Atlantic Fleet ballistic missile submarine of the year in 1984. An official Navy awards notice records a Meritorious Unit Commendation for GEORGE BANCROFT covering the period from March 1 to March 31, 1971, and another for the span from October 1, 1983 to October 1, 1984, together with Navy "E" efficiency awards for periods corresponding to fiscal years 1980, 1984 and 1985. Although the citations themselves remain classified or are not reproduced in detail, the dates indicate that the awards correspond to particularly successful patrol cycles and training and inspection periods during both Polaris/Poseidon and Trident service.

From June 1986 to December 1988, GEORGE BANCROFT underwent a major overhaul and reactor refueling, a standard late-life refit for nuclear-powered submarines that wished to maintain operational capability into the 1990s. The association history records this overhaul and refueling explicitly and notes that during it, and immediately afterward, certain milestones were observed. In particular, the association notes that the boat's 643rd combined dive and surface evolution took place on December 11-12, 1988, a numerically fitting milestone for hull number 643, which the crew commemorated. With the refueling complete, the boat returned to Trident patrol service, now with an extended reactor lifetime intended to carry her through the remaining years of the Cold War arms-control period.

Even during her later years, GEORGE BANCROFT continued to be used for missile test and evaluation work. Eastern Test Range data list a Trident C-4 DASO launch associated with the submarine on April 24, 1982, and a later Trident C-4 test attributed to her on February 4, 1989, again from the vicinity of 28.5°N, 79°W, off the Florida coast. The 1989 shot, cataloged as a DASO or operational test involving the JANUS experiment, indicates that GEORGE BANCROFT remained part of the fleet's formal missile-test program even after her main conversion work and refueling were complete, bridging the transition as the OHIO-class boats and Trident II D-5 missile entered service.

In September 1989, her homeport region was struck by Hurricane Hugo, which made landfall near Charleston, South Carolina, on September 21, 1989. Command histories and a concurrent resolution of the South Carolina General Assembly state that GEORGE BANCROFT and her crew assisted in post-storm relief efforts and that the submarine received the Humanitarian Service Medal for help with the Hurricane Hugo disaster in Charleston. A newspaper-style account of one crewman's awards notes that he and many of his fellow crew members from GEORGE BANCROFT unloaded food and supplies and distributed them to residents in the city in the aftermath of the storm. This humanitarian work, carried out while the boat herself remained in the region during or after the overhaul period at Charleston, added a non-combat dimension to her Cold War service record.

As Cold War arms-control agreements such as SALT II and the later START negotiations progressed, and as the OHIO-class SSBNs took over the primary strategic submarine role, the older BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class boats were gradually withdrawn from ballistic-missile service. GEORGE BANCROFT's association history states that she completed twenty-four Trident C-4 patrols between July 1982 and March 1993, and it records that her final test emergency blow from test depth took place on March 1, 1993, marking a ceremonial end to her diving-operations record. Soon afterward her missile-carrying role was concluded in line with fleet-wide reductions in C-4-armed submarines.

USS GEORGE BANCROFT was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on September 21, 1993. She then entered the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. The recycling process, which involved defueling the reactor, removing and disposing of the reactor compartment and cutting up the remainder of the hull for scrap, was completed on March 30, 1998. These dates match both the association's internal chronology and independent compilations of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class disposal dates.

Although the hull was dismantled, the Navy decided to preserve GEORGE BANCROFT's sail as a memorial. Her sail was transported to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia, where Seabees constructed a partial mock-up of a submarine hull and embedded the sail in a landscaped display near the base entrance. Base and regional information describe a walkway leading up to the sail, designed to give visitors the impression of walking onto the deck of a surfaced submarine. Construction work on the memorial structure ran from late 1999 into early 2000, and both the association and base sources state that the GEORGE BANCROFT sail memorial at Kings Bay was formally dedicated on April 7, 2000. Today the sail - visible from nearby roads and listed in regional tourism materials - serves as a reminder of the submarine's role in the Cold War deterrent and of the service of the crews who completed seventy deterrent patrols in Polaris, Poseidon and Trident configurations between 1966 and 1993.

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