SSN 680 Plan of the Day
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- Brad Williamson
Not to be confused with the ever-popular Dial-A-Sailor we remember from our days in Perth, W.A., the new Name-A-Sailor feature makes its debut on the website today.
For you SSN-680.org website fans, you all know that many of the photographs on the site don’t identify the individuals, mostly because my 59 year old memory is not as iron-clad as it used to be, but also because we are posting photos from thirty years of the U.S.S William H. Bates, and since I was only on-board for four of those, I can’t possibly know everyone by sight.
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- Brad Williamson
Erik D. Pietras generously gave us permission to include these photos of his on the site. Please help identify the shipmates in the photos and improve the captions by leaving comments here or on the page itself, or message me directly.
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- Brad Williamson
On a beautiful morning here in Michigan, in the sunshine and gentle breeze, it could be easy to forget.
On a day full of grilling and picnics, family reunions and baseball games, walks on the beach, boat rides on the lake, and a thousand other good things, we might not remember why we call it Memorial Day.
This day is special not because of the bar-b-cues and beach parties, but because on this particular day, we make a deliberate choice not to forget, but to remember.
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- Brad Williamson
May 5th, 1973.
It’s been 43 years since the USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680) was commissioned at Ingalls Shipbuilding Division, Pascagoula, Mississippi. Two years of construction, beginning on August 4, 1969, followed by the launching on December 11, 1971 and subsequent fitting out saw the completion of what would become one of the most sophisticated intelligence gathering tools to serve the U.S. Navy at the time.
In the nearly thirty years that followed, she would see service in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and serve with distinction in such exotic places as the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and of course, the Sea of None of Your Business!
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- Brad Williamson
Today is the 11th of April. We have reason to celebrate - it’s the 116th birthday of the United States Submarine Service! Today, as throughout history, the U.S. Submarine Service remains the premier submarine force on the planet. The quality of the submarines we sailed and that those who followed us continue to sail is, without question, unequaled.
As good as the iron we drove beneath the sea was and is, the true reason for 116 years of success lies in the men that sailed, and the men and women that continue to sail those silent prowlers of the depths.
There is no character equal to one forged on the anvil of submarine hull metal under the hammer of crisis and conflict, tempered by the depth and breadth of the unforgiving and endless sea..
