After a final deployment marred by the deaths of two sailors and the transfer of its commander, the fast attack nuclear submarine USS Minneapolis-St. Paul is being decommissioned Friday.
After 23 years of service, Friday’s ceremony is a scheduled and routine inactivation for the submarine, and not the result of problems stemming from its last deployment to the North Atlantic, said Petty Officer 1st Class Christine Shaw, a Submarine Force spokeswoman.
Sailors and family were scheduled to gather at Pier 3 of Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia on Friday morning to bid farewell to the 21st Los Angeles class attack submarine. Afterward, the submarine will be placed in a shipyard and taken apart, Shaw said.
There will be no observance during the ceremony for Senior Chief Petty Officer Thomas Higgins and Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Holtz, who drowned Dec. 29 after being swept from the sub’s bridge during bad weather as the sub pulled out of port in Devonport, England. Two other sailors were injured.
“[Organizers] have closed that chapter,” Shaw said. “They will always be a part of the boat, but they don’t think this is the appropriate time to honor them.”
In late January, the Navy’s Submarine Force commander relieved Cmdr. Edwin Ruff of his post.
The incident, and a second, unrelated nonfatal sub collision 10 days later, led to an operational “stand-down” for all submarines, in which commanders were told to focus on getting back to basics of submarine operations.
The second incident happened Jan. 8, when the fast attack submarine USS Newport News collided with a Japanese oil tanker as the tanker passed over the submerged sub in the narrow Strait of Hormuz.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul, a $900 million, 360-foot submarine built by Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corp., in Groton, Conn., has made 12 deployments since it was commissioned March 10, 1984. It was operated by a crew of 12 officers and 115 enlisted sailors, according to the sub’s Web site.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul’s final six-month deployment to the North Atlantic included port visits to Brest, France; Rota, Spain; Plymouth, England; and Lisbon, Portugal. In all, the sub has visited 26 ports over its life span.
