USS TAUTOG HISTORY

The USS Tautog (SSN-639) was built in January 1964 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and commissioned on August 17, 1968, officially joining the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered Pacific Fleet. After transiting the Panama Canal, she arrived in Pearl Harbor in September 1968 and became the flagship of Submarine Division 12. Over the next year, she completed post-commissioning trials, shakedown training, and a series of tests to prepare her for Pacific operations.

From 1969–1970, Tautog underwent additional repairs and evaluations before settling into regular operations out of Pearl Harbor. Her early missions focused heavily on torpedo practice, sonar tracking, and other anti-submarine warfare (ASW) skills. In October 1970, she began her first Western Pacific deployment, working closely with the 7th Fleet and even conducting joint training with the British cruiser HMS Aurora. During this tour she also visited major ports including Subic Bay, Hong Kong, Yokosuka, and Pusan.

This same year, her patrol was cut short when a Soviet Echo II–class submarine collided with and rode over Tautog, damaging her sail—one of the Cold War’s more notable underwater encounters.
Tautog returned to Hawaii in April 1971 and resumed a cycle of maintenance and ASW operations. She entered her first major overhaul at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard from 1973–1974, then continued deployments throughout the Pacific, including Guam and the Philippines. During the Uganda hostage crisis, Tautog operated off the Kenyan coast with the Enterprise carrier group, serving as a ready-response asset during the tense standoff.

Throughout the mid-1970s, she completed additional special operations, port visits, and extended periods of training. After returning to Pearl Harbor in 1979, Tautog departed for Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California for another major overhaul and nuclear refueling, a process that carried her into 1980.

The Tautog was finally decommissioned on March 31, 1997, and later scrapped, with several components—such as her sail—preserved by the Naval History and Heritage Command. In 2001, her sail was loaned to the Galveston Naval Museum, where it remains on display today as a tribute to her long service and the submariners who served aboard her.

Buy your own Piece
of History Today!