[V]ermont’s the landlocked New England state, but it has a naval history all the same. Lake Champlain has been the site of important battles, and this year, the Navy is putting the finishing touches on a $2.7 billion submarine, the third U.S. Navy vessel to be named after the Green Mountain State.
The Vermont III, a nuclear attack submarine, is undergoing finishing touches at General Dynamics plant in Groton, Connecticut. The ship is 377 feet long and has a beam, or width, of 34 feet, according to Bill Moore, president of the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce and the head of a committee organizing events to mark the submarine’s readiness for active duty next year. He said it will have a crew of 132 officers and enlisted people.
The contract for the submarine was awarded in 2014, and Secretary of the Navy Raymond E. Mabus Jr., announced the assignment of the name “Vermont” to her at a ceremony at the U.S. Navy Memorial at Burlington in September of that year. Since then, work has been underway on the submarine in Connecticut.
There was another ceremony in October when the craft was christened by former Assistant Navy Secretary Gloria Valdez, who broke a bottle of sparkling wine from Putney Mountain Winery on the bow.
Before the submarine can be launched for duty, it will undergo sea trials, follow-up adjustments and then commissioning, when it becomes an active naval vessel, said William Couch, who works in the Navy’s office of communications in Washington, D.C.
Moore and his committee are trying to raise $250,000 for the commissioning and to generate some public awareness of the event, which will happen in Groton.
“The important thing is to help promote a lifelong relationship between the state of Vermont and the crew and the ship,” said Moore. He expects 3,000 people to attend the event in Groton, including shipbuilders and their families and regular Vermonters who have ties to the Navy.
Vermont has a long naval history, thanks to its location on the shores of the 435-square-mile Lake Champlain, a body of water it shares with New York state and Quebec. One of the best-known naval events is the battle of Valcour Island in 1776, when British military forces drove the Americans from Lake Champlain. Another happened during the War of 1812 – again a conflict between Great Britain and the United States — near Plattsburgh, New York, on Lake Champlain.
The shipyard at the time was in Vergennes, said Art Cohn, a historian who co-founded the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in that city. Cohn added that Vermont was a major shipbuilding center back then.
“That’s where the ironworks were, the sawmills, and enough protection to shield them from the British burning the fleet when they were still building it,” said Cohn. “The bulk were built in a true naval arms race in the winter of 1814.”
The first Navy vessel named after Vermont was built at the Boston Navy Yard in 1818, according to the National Museum of the U.S. Navy. It was a 74-gun warship but it served mainly as a storage and supply ship. The next Vermont, a battleship, served from 1907 to 1923 and was active in World War I. Converted to a transport ship, the craft carried about 5,000 World War I service members from Europe to the U.S. when the war ended.
While the Vermont III is the third U.S. Navy ship named for the Green Mountain State, the Navy has named about 20 ships after Vermont cities and counties, including the USS Montpelier, the first submarine to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles in the U.S.-Iraq War that began in 2003. There are also two named after Ethan Allen, the revolutionary who helped capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775 and then worked for Vermont statehood. The type of submarines known to the Navy as “Virginia-class” like the Vermont III are built to operate for months in deep waters, according to the Navy.
“Their inherent stealth, endurance, mobility and firepower directly enable them to support five of the six maritime strategy core capabilities – sea control, power projection, forward presence, maritime security and deterrence,” the Navy said in a prepared statement.
