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USS Memphis (SSN 691)

USS MEMPHIS was the fourth LOS ANGELES - class nuclear-powered attack submarine and the sixth ship in the Navy named after the city in Tennessee. The MEMPHIS was last homeported in Groton, Conn.

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Crew List:

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

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Accidents aboard USS MEMPHIS:

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USS MEMPHIS History:

USS MEMPHIS was ordered from Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Newport News, Virginia, on February 4, 1971, as one of the early units of the LOS ANGELES-class nuclear-powered attack submarines built for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in the later stages of the Cold War. Her keel was laid at Newport News on June 23, 1973; she was launched on April 3, 1976, with Catherine Beard, wife of congressman Robin L. Beard Jr., as sponsor, and she was commissioned at Norfolk, Virginia, on December 17, 1977, under the command of Commander G. Dennis Hicks.

Following commissioning, MEMPHIS completed post-shakedown work and joined the Atlantic Fleet. Open sources describe her first years only in general terms, but they indicate that she spent the late 1970s based on the U.S. East Coast, working up with her crew and taking part in standard exercises and training operations typical for a new attack submarine during the period of heightened East-West tension. In these years, she established a pattern of local operations, type-training, and periodic participation in larger antisubmarine warfare exercises while the Navy refined the tactics and systems of the LOS ANGELES-class.

The first clearly documented major deployment of MEMPHIS was an extended around-the-world cruise between September 1980 and March 1981. Under the command of Commander James W. Davis Jr., the submarine left Norfolk on September 9, 1980, for operations with both the U.S. Sixth and Seventh Fleets. She crossed the Atlantic and entered the Mediterranean, where she visited Naples, Italy, and conducted additional operations in support of U.S. and NATO commitments in the region, at a time when the alliance was monitoring Soviet activity and unrest in the Middle East. On October 20, she received orders to leave the Mediterranean for the Indian Ocean, not via the Suez Canal but by transiting the Strait of Gibraltar, crossing the equator west of Africa, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and proceeding east.

In the Indian Ocean, MEMPHIS carried out upkeep alongside the submarine tender EMORY S. LAND (AS 39) at Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory, completing this maintenance period on December 7, 1980. She then conducted antisubmarine operations under the operational control of Commander Task Force 74 into early 1981, supporting U.S. efforts to maintain a naval presence in the Indian Ocean in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On January 29, 1981, the submarine moored alongside the repair ship JASON (AR 8) for repairs, remaining there until February 1. Shortly afterward, she headed south and east to Australia, visiting the Royal Australian Navy's Fleet Base West at Garden Island, near Perth, from February 6 to 11. The voyage then took her back across the equator for a second time and into the Pacific. She transited the Panama Canal between March 2 and 7 and returned to Norfolk on March 7, 1981, having completed a global circumnavigation of more than 50,000 miles.

The public record for the early and mid-1980s is sparse, but MEMPHIS continued to operate with the Atlantic Fleet, exercising her core roles of antisubmarine and antisurface warfare, intelligence collection, and surveillance. She took part in routine deployments to the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, trained with carrier battle groups, and honed the tactics that LOS ANGELES-class submarines used against Soviet submarines and surface task forces. These activities were typical of U.S. attack submarines in the period and are referenced in general terms in official summaries and later technical histories, although specific dates and port visits are not publicly detailed.

More detailed information becomes available again in the late 1980s. On March 29, 1989, MEMPHIS departed Norfolk for a deployment to the North Atlantic. According to her command history and later compiled timelines, she operated with U.S. and allied forces in the eastern Atlantic and Norwegian Sea while visiting a series of ports that reflected the close naval cooperation among NATO partners. She called at Holy Loch, Scotland, from June 1 to 3, then visited Plymouth, England, and Haakonsvern near Bergen, Norway, before returning to Norfolk on July 9. These visits underlined the submarine's role in joint training with Royal Navy and Royal Norwegian Navy forces during the final years of the Cold War.

In addition to her operational duties, MEMPHIS increasingly became a platform for testing new technology. By 1990-1991, she was formally designated a research and development boat for "submarine applications", while remaining combat-capable. She was used to test composite hull structures, unmanned underwater vehicles, advanced sonar systems, hull-coating concepts for friction reduction, and improved combat-system components that would later influence upgrades to the LOS ANGELES-class and the design of the SEAWOLF- and VIRGINIA-classes.

A major milestone in this experimental role came in 1992, when MEMPHIS became the first U.S. submarine to receive a non-penetrating periscope, often referred to in later sources as an early "optronic" or "photonics" mast. Instead of a traditional optical periscope that pierced the pressure hull, the new mast carried electronic imaging sensors and relayed video via fiber-optic links to displays in the control room. The system was developed under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program and installed on MEMPHIS for at-sea validation, proving the concept that would later be adopted more broadly in the VIRGINIA-class attack submarines.

In February 1993, during operations off Dania Beach, Florida, MEMPHIS ran aground on a coral reef. The grounding caused both physical and biological damage to a Holocene-age coral community, and the incident led to scientific assessment and legal action. The State of Florida sued the U.S. Navy, seeking compensation for the reef damage. The case was settled with an award of $750,000 earmarked for mitigation and restoration work on the affected reef area. The episode became a case study in assessing and repairing environmental damage from naval groundings on coral ecosystems.

In January 1994, MEMPHIS entered Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine, for a refueling overhaul and further modifications to support her growing research-and-development mission. During this yard period, which extended into the mid-1990s, she received significant structural and systems changes. These included a glass-reinforced plastic "turtleback" fairing abaft the sail to accommodate remotely operated or unmanned vehicles, a towing winch and drum for experimental towed sonar arrays, additional vertical surfaces at the ends of the stern stabilizers to house sonar transducer arrays, a towed-array dispenser in the port fin, new hydraulic systems, a fiber-optic data bus, and standardized electronic equipment racks for test gear. These modifications increased her displacement by roughly 50 tons and visually distinguished her from other early Flight I LOS ANGELES-class boats.

Upon completion of the overhaul, MEMPHIS was assigned to Submarine Development Squadron 12 at New London, Connecticut. From the mid-1990s onward, she operated primarily from Groton as an experimental and development platform, while retaining the ability to deploy as an operational attack submarine. In 1998, she tested the Lockheed Martin Undersea Systems Universal Gravity Module (UGM), a passive bottom-profiling navigation system that used subtle variations in the Earth's gravity field and ocean-bottom features to supplement inertial navigation. These trials reflected the Navy's interest in gravity-aided navigation for submarines operating in GPS-denied environments.

Throughout the later 1990s, MEMPHIS continued a mix of technology trials and fleet support missions. She was associated with the early work on the Universal Modular Mast (UMM), a standardized mast system intended to house periscopes, photonics masts, communications antennas, and other sensors. Technical histories note that the first UMM installation was carried out on MEMPHIS, again leveraging her role as a test platform to inform the later configuration of the VIRGINIA-class boats.

At the turn of the century, MEMPHIS was operating in northern waters at the time of the Russian nuclear submarine K-141 KURSK disaster in August 2000. While much of the discussion surrounding that accident has been speculative, open sources indicate that MEMPHIS was among the NATO submarines monitoring Russian fleet exercises in the Barents Sea. Shortly after the sinking of KURSK on August 12, 2000, Norwegian authorities and later analyses reported that MEMPHIS made a routine port call at Bergen and the nearby Haakonsvern naval base, where the submarine was photographed and described as showing no visible damage. The visit, which began on August 18, had reportedly been scheduled in advance. The detailed command history for 1999-2000, as summarized in later compilations, lists MEMPHIS as arriving at Haakonsvern for an eight-day visit beginning on August 18, 2000, before sailing for her homeport at Groton.

In the early 2000s, she continued to support both development work and operational deployments. Photographic records show MEMPHIS in Souda Bay, Crete, in December 2003, a port frequently used by U.S. submarines operating with the Sixth Fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. By January 2004, she was again photographed at Naval Submarine Base New London, indicating a pattern of Mediterranean deployments followed by returns to Groton for maintenance and further trials.

On May 3, 2005, MEMPHIS departed on a deployment that included two transits of the Arctic polar region. She returned to New London on November 3, 2005, after completing this high-latitude cruise, which tested both the submarine and her crew in under-ice navigation and operations in extreme conditions. The same year, she was awarded the Battenberg Cup, recognizing her as the best all-around ship in the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, and she also received the Squadron 12 Battle Efficiency ("Battle E") award, indicating strong performance in tactical readiness inspections and exercises.

On May 6, 2006, MEMPHIS deployed again, this time to support operations in the U.S. Central Command area associated with ongoing military activities in Iraq. She operated in waters of strategic importance for Operation Iraqi Freedom and related missions, contributing covert intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities typical of attack submarines. The boat returned to New London on August 7, 2006, completing this three-month deployment.

In May 2007, photographs show MEMPHIS in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during events associated with Fleet Week Port Everglades, where U.S. and allied ships made port visits and hosted public tours to highlight naval operations and relationships with local communities. Later that year, on June 27, 2007, she entered Portsmouth Naval Shipyard once more, this time for a pre-inactivation restricted availability, during which systems were prepared for eventual decommissioning while the submarine remained capable of limited operations. On May 8, 2008, she returned to Groton, resuming local operations and continued training as her remaining service life was managed.

In November 2010, MEMPHIS became the focus of internal Navy attention when investigators uncovered widespread cheating on training examinations among members of her crew. Commander Charles Maher, who had taken command in January 2010, was relieved of command on November 18, 2010, by the commander of Submarine Development Squadron 12 for loss of confidence in his ability to command. Thirteen other crewmembers were also removed from their duties. The case drew wider coverage because it highlighted concerns about exam-cheating practices within parts of the submarine force.

Despite these internal issues, MEMPHIS undertook one final deployment before retirement. Assigned to Submarine Development Squadron 12 at New London, she sailed on January 10, 2011, for European waters. During this deployment, she participated in an encounter exercise in the Atlantic on January 28, 2011, in which she "stalked" the aircraft carrier ENTERPRISE (CVN 65) and the guided missile cruiser LEYTE GULF (CG 55), practicing antisubmarine tactics against a carrier strike group. She entered Rota, Spain, from January 31 to February 2 for repairs to her towed-array sonar system and ring-laser-gyro navigation equipment. On February 4, she took part as an opposing-force submarine in the NATO antisubmarine warfare exercise "Proud Manta" in the Mediterranean near Sicily, operating against allied ships and aircraft. MEMPHIS returned to New London on March 2, 2011, marking the end of her final overseas mission.

After this deployment, the Navy began the process of removing the submarine from active service. A decommissioning ceremony was held on April 1, 2011, at the Shepherd of the Sea Chapel at Naval Submarine Base New London, honoring the boat's 33 years of service and the crews who had served aboard her. On April 6, 2011, MEMPHIS departed Submarine Base New London and transited the Thames River for the final time, bound for Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine to begin inactivation. Photographs from this transit show her passing Ledge Light at the mouth of the river as she left Groton. Although operationally removed from the fleet after the April 2011 ceremony, MEMPHIS remained a commissioned unit administratively until January 20, 2012. On that date, she was formally decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, as recorded in Naval History and Heritage Command and Navy data compilations.

Parts from the decommissioned submarine were later earmarked to support repair efforts on the fire-damaged attack submarine MIAMI (SSN 755), although the decision was ultimately made in 2013 to cease work on MIAMI and scrap that boat instead.

After decommissioning, MEMPHIS entered the Navy's Ship-Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton, Wash., for eventual disposal, following the established process for nuclear-powered submarines in which the reactor compartment is removed and the remaining hull is recycled. Publicly available sources list her fate simply as "submarine recycling".

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USS MEMPHIS Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the MEMPHIS laid up at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., on October 13, 2017.

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