Connecticut’s submarine community gathered Tuesday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the commissioning of the nation’s first nuclear powered submarine. The U.S.S. Nautilus is now a historic state ship and a museum on the waterfront in Groton.
Hundreds of sailors and shipbuilders gathered at the ceremony, which remembered the beginning of 25 years of service for Nautilus.
The ship was built by Connecticut’s Electric Boat and Will Lennon, now head of engineering and design at EB, noted it was the first of more than 200 nuclear powered boats that have followed.
"The ability of the United States to project power and maintain the safety of the sea lanes dramatically changed the day Nautilus joined the fleet," he told the crowd." In a very real way, Nautilus ushered in a cornerstone capability of the nation's defense, which proved pivotal during the Cold War and is still vital to us today."
The director of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, Admiral John Richardson, said the leap forward represented by Nautilus was similar to that of the moon landing.
"Nautilus was the first use, a bold step in the atomic age, harnessing the power of nuclear fission for peaceful, non-weapons use," he said. "At the tactical level, Nautilus shattered all performance records of a submarine. Shattered speed and distance records." Nuclear propulsion allowed the ship to stay underwater indefinitely.
Nautilus put to sea for the first time in January 1955, signaling "underway on nuclear power." In 1958 she made an historic undersea transit of the North Pole, in a mission ordered by President Dwight Eisenhower. The boat logged more than 500,000 nautical miles before she was decommissioned in 1980. She was named a National Historic Landmark in 1982.
