USS Spinax (SS-489)
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USS Spinax (SS-489)
USS ''Spinax'' (SS/SSR-489), a ''Tench''-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy named after the spinax, one of the spiny sharks (dogfish sharks) scientifically known as ''Squalidal''. Her keel was laid down on 14 May 1945 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 25 November 1945 sponsored by Mrs. Tom C. Clark, and commissioned on 20 September 1946. 1940s ''Spinax'' moved to New London, Connecticut, on 15 November and was assigned to Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet. On 15 December 1946, she sailed for the Caribbean Sea to begin her shakedown cruise which lasted until 28 January 1947. She returned to New London and participated in local operations until November when a fleet exercise took her north of the Arctic Circle near Labrador. In January 1948, designated a radar picket submarine, her hull classification symbol was changed from SS to SSR. After conducting operations in the Caribbean during the first part of the year, she returned to her ho ...
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Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, often called the Portsmouth Navy Yard, is a United States Navy shipyard in Kittery on the southern boundary of Maine near the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Founded in 1800, PNS is U.S. Navy's oldest continuously operating shipyard. Today, most of its work concerns the overhaul, repair, and modernization of submarines. As of November 2021, the shipyard employed more than 6,500 federal employees. As well, some of the work is performed by private corporations (e.g., Delphinius Engineering of Eddystone, Pennsylvania; Oceaneering International of Chesapeake, Virginia; Orbis Sibro of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; and Q.E.D. Systems Inc. of Virginia Beach, Virginia). History The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was established on June 12, 1800, during the administration of President John Adams. It sits on a cluster of conjoined islands called Seavey's Island in the Piscataqua River, whose swift tidal current prevents ice from blocking navigation to ...
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Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the northern coast of South America. The Gulf of Mexico lies to the northwest. The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, the numerous islands of the West Indies, and adjacent coasts are collectively known as the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas and has an area of about . The sea's deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays: the Gulf of Gonâve, Gulf of Venezuela, Gulf of Darién, Golfo de los Mosquitos, Gulf of Paria and Gulf of Honduras. The Caribbean Sea has ...
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San Francisco Naval Shipyard
The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was a United States Navy shipyard in San Francisco, California, located on of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city. Originally, Hunters Point was a commercial shipyard established in 1870, consisting of two graving docks. It was purchased and built up in the late 19th and early 20th century by the Union Iron Works company, later owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company and named Hunters Point Drydocks, located at Potrero Point. Known as "The World's Greatest Shipping Yard", President Theodore Roosevelt trusted his Great White Fleet of battleships to be serviced at Hunters Point in 1907 according to historical records. The shipyard was purchased by the Navy in 1940, a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It began operations the next year as the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, and operated until 1974 when it was deactivated and renamed Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Used commercially for a time, in 1986 it was taken ...
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San Diego, California
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States and the seat of San Diego County, the fifth most populous county in the United States, with 3,338,330 estimated residents as of 2019. The city is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches and parks, long association with the United States Navy, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology development center. San Diego is the second largest city in the state of California, after Los Angeles. Historically home to the Kumeyaay people, San Diego is frequently referred to as the "Birthplace of California", as it was the first site visited and settled by Europeans on what is now the U.S. west coast. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area for Spain, ...
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World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ...
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Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, and the 94th-largest city in the nation. Norfolk holds a strategic position as the historical, urban, financial, and cultural center of the Hampton Roads region, which has more than 1.8 million inhabitants and is the thirty-third largest Metropolitan Statistical area in the United States. Officially known as ''Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA'', the Hampton Roads region is sometimes called "Tidewater" and "Coastal Virginia"/"COVA," although these are broader terms that also include Virginia's Eastern Shore and entire coastal plain. Named for the eponymous natural harbor at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads has ten cities, including Norfolk; seven counties in Virginia; and two counties in No ...
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US 6th Fleet
The Sixth Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy operating as part of United States Naval Forces Europe. The Sixth Fleet is headquartered at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy. The officially stated mission of the Sixth Fleet in 2011 is that it "conducts the full range of Maritime Operations and Theater Security Cooperation missions, in concert with coalition, joint, interagency, and other parties, in order to advance security and stability in Europe and Africa." The current commander of the Sixth Fleet is Vice Admiral Thomas E. Ishee. The Sixth Fleet was established in February 1950 by redesignation of the former Sixth Task Fleet, which in turn was the 1948 redesignation of U S Naval Forces, Mediterranean. Since that time, it has been continually engaged in world affairs around the Mediterranean, and, on occasion, further afield. It was involved in numerous NATO maritime exercises, the U.S. Lebanese intervention of 1958, confrontation with the Soviets during t ...
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Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The Sea has played a central role in the history of Western civilization. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about , representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only wide. The Mediterranean Sea e ...
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USS Spinax (SSR-489) In 1947
USS ''Spinax'' (SS/SSR-489), a ''Tench''-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy named after the spinax, one of the spiny sharks (dogfish sharks) scientifically known as ''Squalidal''. Her keel was laid down on 14 May 1945 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 25 November 1945 sponsored by Mrs. Tom C. Clark, and commissioned on 20 September 1946. 1940s ''Spinax'' moved to New London, Connecticut, on 15 November and was assigned to Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet. On 15 December 1946, she sailed for the Caribbean Sea to begin her shakedown cruise which lasted until 28 January 1947. She returned to New London and participated in local operations until November when a fleet exercise took her north of the Arctic Circle near Labrador. In January 1948, designated a radar picket submarine, her hull classification symbol was changed from SS to SSR. After conducting operations in the Caribbean during the first part of the year, she returned to her h ...
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Submarine Snorkel
A submarine snorkel is a device which allows a submarine to operate submerged while still taking in air from above the surface. British Royal Navy personnel often refer to it as the snort. A concept devised by Dutch engineers, it was widely used on German U-boats during the last year of World War II and known to them as a ''Schnorchel''. History Until the advent of nuclear power, submarines were designed to operate on the surface most of the time and submerge only for evasion or for daylight attacks. Until the widespread use of radar after 1940, at night a submarine was safer on the surface than submerged, because sonar could detect boats underwater but was almost useless against a surface vessel. However, with continued radar improvement as the war progressed, submarines (notably, the German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic) were forced to spend more time underwater, running on electric motors that gave speeds of only a few knots and very limited range. An early submar ...
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Torpedo Tube
A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboard surface vessels. Deck-mounted torpedo launchers are usually designed for a specific type of torpedo, while submarine torpedo tubes are general-purpose launchers, and are often also capable of deploying naval mine, mines and cruise missiles. Most modern launchers are standardized on a diameter for light torpedoes (deck mounted aboard ship) or a diameter for heavy torpedoes (underwater tubes), although other sizes of torpedo tube have been used: see Torpedo#Classes and diameters, Torpedo classes and diameters. Submarine torpedo tube A submarine torpedo tube is a more complex mechanism than a torpedo tube on a surface ship, because the tube has to accomplish the function of moving the torpedo from the normal atmospheric pressure within t ...
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Hull Classification Symbol
The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol (sometimes called hull code or hull number) to identify their ships by type and by individual ship within a type. The system is analogous to the pennant number system that the Royal Navy and other European and Commonwealth navies use. History United States Navy The U.S. Navy began to assign unique Naval Registry Identification Numbers to its ships in the 1890s. The system was a simple one in which each ship received a number which was appended to its ship type, fully spelled out, and added parenthetically after the ship's name when deemed necessary to avoid confusion between ships. Under this system, for example, the battleship ''Indiana'' was USS ''Indiana'' (Battleship No. 1), the cruiser ''Olympia'' was USS ''Olympia'' (Cruiser No. 6), and so on. Beginning in 1907, some ships also were referred to alternatively ...
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