Bonus Feature 8:
Nathanael Greene
So
why is there a chunk of a former nuclear submarine sitting along the channel leading into and out of Port Canaveral?
That question is your official warning that Im about to head off into Bonus Feature Land. For those of you who have wisely been circumnavigating my various off-topic ramblings
now is the time to implement a strategic retreat. Id be doing it if I were you, because the consequences of remaining in the line of fire will include such atrocities as being forced to read up on pointless bits of minutia like: what exactly a strategic retreat is (and why it matters to us historically); or what kind of diabolical organization SRP might be (and just how that relates to those things sitting in Trench-94); or maybe even having to hear what any of this has to do with Midway (and that last one is a very tenuous connection at best)
this could get messy.
You still here?
OK
here we go, and (lucky you)
this is a two for one Bonus Feature.
What you see in that picture up there at the top of this post is a very fine watercolor depiction of the USS Nathanael Greene (SSBN-636), showing a rather interesting birds eye view of the sub underway. Heres a more recent view of that ships conning tower in her current location on the grounds of the Cape Canaveral AFS (and in plain site from any ship or boat the enters or leaves the port.
Its all that is left of a once mighty Boomer (well
almost all that is left). Before I tell you why its parked there (and why its almost all thats left), I think we should first discuss why the US Navy would see fit to name a ship Nathanael in the first place. Im sure that most of you didnt even have to jump onto Google for this one because you already know just exactly who this Greene dude is. Well
yall get extra special bonus points and are excused from the rest of this lesson so you can go outside and play for a while if youd like. As for the rest of us slackers
school is now in session.
First a question: Can anyone here name a successful American Revolution War General (that
did not go on to become president)? Anyone
anyone? Oh, wait
I heard someone in the back of the room
would you say that again?
Correct! This guy!
Nathanael Greene served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. At the beginning of that conflict, he was a buck private, but hed emerge with the reputation as Washington's most gifted and dependable officer. Yet, the dawning of a new nation would also leave him a somewhat tragic and forgotten figure.
Born the son of a Quaker family, Nathanael drew his first breath on a farm in Warwick, Rhode Island, August 7, 1742. As was often true during the period, he was mostly self-taught but was also tutored from time to time by several noted area scholars and his education maintained a heavy emphasis on mathematics and law. In 1770 Greene took over operations of the family-owned foundry in Coventry, Rhode Island. After establishing himself, he courted and married Catharine Littlefield in 1774.
A strong woman, Caty would find herself doing most of the work raising their five children and ultimately having to run their entire families affairs far more often then shed have liked (she would also have a hand in completely reshaping our young nation as well but in a very different way
and Ill get to that in a bit).
In that same year, Greene helped organize a local militia, and began to educate himself on military tactics and warfare. Shortly after the opening shots at Lexington and Concord, Nathanael was promoted from a private in his local militia to Brigadier General of the Rhode Island Army of Observation. A month after that, the Continental Congress appointed him as a brigadier for the fledgling Continental Army. As CnC, Washington then sent Greene to command forces in Boston after the Brits evacuated in March of 1776. Barely five months later, Washington would again promote Greene, this time to Major General. Nathanael would see service during most of the major battles starting with the Siege of Boston and including: Harlem Heights, Fort Washington, Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth.
When the British forces shifted their focus south and away form New England, the Congress initially appointed a number of different men to lead the southern resistance. By the summer of 1780 however, most of the south was under English control and those forces that remained were week and badly equipped. At this point, Congress decided (somewhat surprisingly) that just maybe another political choice was not exactly what was called for. Instead they entrust the appointment of the next leader in the south to Washington who immediately chose Greene.
The army Nathanael Green took charge of was exhausted, badly equipped and opposed by a vastly superior force under Lord Cornwallis. Being undeterred, he took this decided disadvantage and proceeded to continually re-prove to his British counterpart that winning a few victories, did not necessarily translate into winning a war. First Greene divided his own troops and thus forced divisions of the British as well to deal with the multiple threats. All this dividing lead to some marked successes among the smaller Continental forces including victories at Kings Mountain and Cowpens. Greene then reassembled his army in North Carolina and retreated toward the Virginia boarder. This is one of those moments in history where a retreat would ultimately be seen as a brilliant maneuver.
Greene's army was still out manned, and out gunned by the British, but he moved north and succeeded in staying just ahead of his adversaries while continually picking up additional troops and supplies as he went. This strategic retreat culminated when his forces crossed the Dan River into Virginia.
Cornwallis, who was determined to defeat this insignificant nuisance, would not hear of that move until late that evening. By which time the river was too high to ford, and every boat and ferry in the area was in Greenes possession on the farther shore. A week later, Greene re-crossed the Dan River and outflanked Cornwallis forcing him into battle at Guilford Court House.
On paper, this would be a British victory, but a pyrrhic one at best. Like every win that Cornwallis eked out, this one cost him dearly in men and materials. The mounting losses were so great by this time that he was forced to withdraw back to the coast for reinforcements.
Several weeks later, the British forces would start moving north. Greene simply ignored them and turned south to regain control of the Carolinas. Cornwallis would be allowed to continue on into Virginia where Greene knew greater forces were congregating. Ultimately the British would end up with their backs to the water and besieged at Yorktown, a campaign that would effectively end the war. For their part, Greenes army would fight its last battle at Eutaw Springs in South Carolina and force the remaining British regulars there to withdraw back to Charleston, where he penned them in until the end of the war.
Nathanael Greene was a singularly able and, like many other prominent leaders of the American cause, self-trained soldier. He was second only to Washington among the officers of the American army in military ability, and the only general, other than Washington and Henry Knox, to serve the entire eight years of the conflict. Like Washington, he had the great gift of using small means to the best advantage.
But the post war years were not to be kind to him. He expended his personal fortunes in support of his troops, and although he would be granted lands in both Carolinas and Georgia (and posthumously compensated), his debts were overly burdensome. He twice refused the post of Secretary of War, and chose to settle in 1785 on his Georgia estate, "Mulberry Grove," near Savannah. Here he would die tragically at only 43 years of age, a victim of sunstroke.
Theres an interesting coda to Nathanaels story. After his death, Caty Greene needed additional help to maintain their family and new plantation. In an odd twist of history, one of the people that she hired as a tutor for her children was a young inventor named Eli Whitney. Mrs. Greene would ultimately invite him to live on property and peruse his inventions along side his appointed duties as an educator. While working at Mulberry Grove, Eli would prefect the Cotton Gin (and there is some evidence that Caty played a role in refinement of the final design). Thus the Green family not only helped create the United States, they also had a hand in completely reshaping the countrys early industry and economy.
A surprising number of places in the United States are actually named for the General. There is a either a Greene or Green county is the states of: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. A number of cities, towns, and villages bear variations on his moniker as well including: Greene in Maine, New York and Rhode Island; Greensboro in, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania; Greensburg in Pennsylvania and Kentucky; Greenville in New York, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina; and Greeneville in Tennessee.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
OK, I think weve establish that just maybe
this fellow is a pretty good candidate for having a U.S. naval vessel name after him (well, actually this would be the third one). However, he was also an especially appropriate candidate because said vessel happened to be one of the 41 for Freedom ships.
The Cold War arms race really began to ramp up in the late 1950s with a rapid and prolific build up of weaponry in both the eastern and western hemispheres. As part of this build up the U.S. Navy rapidly designed and launched a total of 41 new subs between 1960 and 1966. These were also a new type of vessel: Ballistic Missal Submarines. Their crews would come to call these ships Boomers in reference to the nuclear barbed Polaris missiles they carried and that sobriquet is still in use today. Each of these subs was named for a figure from some part of American history. This was as much a sales tactic as an honorarium, because (and depending on your point of view) some of the names were chosen for strategic purposes in order to help elicit as much Congressional funding for the projects as possible.
The USS Nathanael Greene (SSBN-636) was one of these 41 ships. Built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, she was launched on 12 May of 1964 and entered service in December of that year.
The Greene served on the front lines of the Cold War through the sixties and then received significant upgrades in dry dock between 1970 and 1971. After this refit, she returned to regular patrols in US and later in European waters.
But its not the exemplary service of this ship that brings her to the Cape as a static display. As with all monuments, the intention may be to celebrate good works in life, but you generally dont do so until after a demise. On 13 March of 1986, the USS Nathanael Greene ran aground while operating in the Irish Sea. This was the first major accident involving an American Boomer. Although no lives were lost, the destruction to her lower rudders and ballast tanks was extensive. While details remain classified to this day, the damages (combined with a need to meet treaty requirements) were enough to cause the Navy to withdraw the sub from service well ahead of schedule. This image was taken during her decommissioning ceremony (The sub in the background is the USS Baltimore).
So this now begs the question: just what does one do with an unwanted nuclear powered navel vessel? It is not as simple as the current process for disposing of commercial vessels. Those are usually sold to a Ship Breaker in either India or Bangladesh, and then hauled up on a desolate beach to be slowly torn apart by desperately poor men in appalling conditions.
Google Alang, India sometime
its sad, disturbing and even grotesque at the same time and on many levels (its also worth its own dissertation, but these boards arent the place for such, so Ill just have to put it in one of my other writings).
Nope
that process wont do. When youre dealing with a combination of US navel hardware and fissionable material, a far more controlled formula for handling the ships demise is a necessity. You need something specifically designed to deal with this situation. This is where you turn the vessel over to the SRP at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA.
When a ship enters the Ship/Submarine Recycling Program (SRP) the first thing that happens is that the spent fuel is removed from her reactors and shipped by rail for reprocessing at the Naval Reactor Facility in Idaho Falls. Then everything that can be reused or easily dismantled is pulled out of the hull. The next step it to cut the ship into three or four pieces.
The forward and aft crew and engine compartments will then be scraped normally although portions may be removed for preservation. Missile compartments (in the case of a Boomer) are dismantled according to the provisions of the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty. This leaves the Reactor compartment. Even without fuel, this part of the ship is still considered to be a low-level radiation hazard (and rightly so). What you do with that bit is separate it and seal both ends
load it up on a barge
and ferry it up the Columbia River to the Department of Energy's Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.
Nice sign ehhhh
Once arriving at this facility, the reactor compartment is moved into a storage area known as Trench-94.
After this space has reached its full capacity, it will be filled in with clay (but that will be some distance into the future yet). In the mean time, you can take a gander at the trench for yourself with nothing more then Google maps. Its in plain site and currently houses the remains of 117 navel reactors (including the dormant S5W reactor that once powered the Nathanael Greene)
As the Greene was being broke up in Bremerton, her conning tower (thats the bit that sticks up out of a submarines pressure hull and gives it that unmistakable sub appearance) was removed as a single piece and set aside. This is a fairly common practice when submarines are broken up, and is done for a several reasons. First, this section of the ship is easy to sever as a single unit; secondly, it rarely contains any highly contaminated areas and being the most recognizable part of the ship, many of them are preserved as monuments. That is exactly what would become of the sail from the SSBN-636 (as youre by now clearly aware). The Naval Ordnance Test Unit (a facility within the Cape Canaveral AFS) acquired the Nathanael Greenes conning tower assembly in 1991 with the intention of erecting a monument on the base (which is also a port where the Greene had spent part of her operational life). It was stored for some time while funds were raised to refurbish the structure and build a mounting foundation. As configured, the monument is dedicated not only to General Greene (the man, the ship and all who served in her), but also to all the subs of the original ballistic missal fleet and finally to the work done at Canaveral to test and develop those original missile systems.
To add just a little additional significance to the site, the "formal dedication" took place on June 4, 2003 in conjunction with the commemoration of the sixty-first anniversary of the "The Battle of Midway" (I said it was a tenuous link). The conning tower (and her reactor compartment) are all that remain of this once proud ship, but it is seen by hundreds of people on a daily bases as freighters, pleasure craft, and cruise ships enter and leave the port (even if most of them dont quite know just exactly what theyre looking at).
(for today…)
).
