NationalInterest.org, August 18, 2017
Inside the USS Jimmy Carter: America's Most
Secret Attack Submarine Ever
Joseph Trevithick
The unit makes no mention of intelligence
gathering. But while the name implies a solely experimental function, the
sailing branch routinely uses these types of monikers for special or elite
groups. The near legendary terrorist-hunting SEAL Team Six is officially called
the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The service describes the spy
ships it runs together with the U.S. Air Force as “missile range
instrumentation ships.” The squadron responsible for flying around the
president and his staff is now simply called Marine Helicopter Squadron One,
but still uses the acronym HMX-1 — a nod to its “experimental” origins.
On Jan. 20, 2013, the Seawolf-class attack
submarine USS Jimmy Carter left her home port in Bangor, Washington. Less than
two months later, the submarine appeared at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii for repairs.
It was all quite mysterious. During her time at
sea, we don’t know where Jimmy Carter was or what her crew of nearly 150 were
precisely doing. The Seawolf class is one of the most secretive weapons in
America’s arsenal, and information about the Navy’s “Silent Service” is
difficult to discover … by design.
We know Jimmy Carter was on some kind of
mission, which the ship’s official annual history vaguely referred to as
Mission 7. “Performed under a wide range of adverse and extremely stressful
conditions without external support, this deployment continued USS Jimmy
Carter‘s tradition of excellence in pursuit of vital national security goals,”
the history stated In this vessel’s official chronology, the mission warrants
as much mention as a picnic in July and the crew’s Halloween party three months
later. But Mission 7 was enough to earn the sailors a Presidential Unit
Citation, which rewards “extraordinary heroism in action against an armed
enemy,” according to an official Navy description.
As the last of the Seawolf-class attack
submarines, Jimmy Carter is unique. During her construction, the Pentagon added
a special 100-foot-long, 2,500-ton module called the Multi-Mission Platform. By
the sailing branch’s own admission this space can accommodate undersea drones,
SEALs and much more.
More importantly, the hourglass-shaped section
might allow specially trained teams to find and tap undersea communications
lines and plant listening devices on the ocean floor. It’s more than likely
that the submarine is one of the Pentagon’s most stealthy spies.
Another clue is the Presidential Unit Citation
for Mission 7. For the sailing branch, this is akin to giving the boat itself a
Navy Cross, the service’s second highest award. The criteria makes it clear
that the mission must have been “extremely difficult and hazardous.” But the
Secretary of the Navy’s citation for the sub’s 2013 performance is equally
obtuse.
Along with sailors from the even more obscure
Detachment Undersea Research and Development, Jimmy Carter “successfully
completed extremely demanding and arduous independent submarine operations of
vital importance to the national security of the United States,” is how the
memo described the operation. Both units “overcame numerous obstacles to safely
execute these demanding and complex tasks without incident.”
Two pictures attached to the report show the
ship’s captain, Cmdr. Brian Elkowitz, and other officers holding the framed
citation and associated pennant. In both cases, Navy censors blacked out one
individual’s face, ostensibly for privacy reasons.
War Is Boring obtained these documents through
the Freedom of Information Act. Every year, all ships, subs, squadrons of
aircraft and commands on land are required to turn a historical report over to
the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C. But there’s no
requirement that the narrative go into any great or specific detail. And Jimmy
Carter‘s history is more a record of the secrecy surrounding the ship’s than
her actual activities.
While already guarded about submarines in
general, the Navy is especially tight-lipped about the Seawolf-class boats.
Originally intended to be the most advanced undersea attackers, Washington
slashed the program after the Cold War and the threat of equally high-tech
Soviet submarines appeared to evaporate.
Instead of a planned fleet of nearly 30 ships,
the Pentagon bought just three for more than $3 billion each. At more than 350
feet long and with a submerged displacement of more than 9,100 tons, the
Seawolf class is the most expensive attack submarine ever built and the second
most expensive undersea vessel of any type.
The sailing branch eventually grouped together
the USS Seawolf, Connecticut and Jimmy Carter as the core of Submarine
Development Squadron Five. The unit’s spartan website states it is responsible
for testing new undersea listening gear and remote-controlled submersibles,
either tethered to a larger sub or able to operate on their own.
The group is also in charge developing new
tactics for fighting in the Arctic, a region where submarines can easily hide
from their opponents. Despite their current mission, each ship still has eight
torpedo tubes, which can also fire Harpoon anti-ship and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The unit makes no mention of intelligence
gathering. But while the name implies a solely experimental function, the
sailing branch routinely uses these types of monikers for special or elite
groups. The near legendary terrorist-hunting SEAL Team Six is officially called
the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The service describes the spy
ships it runs together with the U.S. Air Force as “missile range
instrumentation ships.” The squadron responsible for flying around the
president and his staff is now simply called Marine Helicopter Squadron One,
but still uses the acronym HMX-1 — a nod to its “experimental” origins.
Further lending credibility to Jimmy Carter‘s
real spying mission, the Navy retired the equally shadowy USS Parche just four
months before putting the new submarine into action. The sailing branch says
Parche is the most decorated ship ever, with nine Presidential Unit Citations
among other awards.
Completed in 1974 as a Sturgeon-class attack
sub, the Pentagon specifically upgraded the Parche to break into Soviet
communications lines. Between 1978 and 1979, the submarine reportedly tapped
into cables in the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan as part of a mission dubbed
Operation Ivy Bells.
“The Navy, with strong input from the NSA, was
first sending Parche to Okhotsk to plant a second recording pod … to greatly
increase capacity at the tap site,” Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew wrote in
Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage. “She was
being sent, in part, to prove herself before anyone dared to send her to that
other, far more dangerous sea.“ Success at Okhotsk paved the way for missions
in the far more crowded — and therefore dangerous — Barents Sea. To hide from
Moscow’s sub-hunters, Parche hid under the cover of the Arctic ice as she
sneaked into congested shipping lanes.
Nearly a decade later, the Navy sent Parche off
for another overhaul. In 1991, the sailing branch sent the newly refurbished
sub to join Submarine Development Squadron Five.
Though their book was published before the
submarine was finished, Sontag and Drew explained that Jimmy Carter‘s expanded
mid-section was to make room for the same gear Parche had carried into Soviet
waters. No doubt the Navy and its partners at the NSA have made improvements
since then.
While General Dynamics Electric Boat was still
putting the submarine together in 2001, NSA director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden
laughed off claims about breaking into undersea cables in an interview with the
Wall Street Journal. “I’m not going to sit here and dissuade you from your
views,” Hayden said, before refusing to comment on Jimmy Carter‘s mission.
Two years later, the Journal again reported
that the submarine’s role suggested an undersea spook, citing “people
knowledgeable about it.” After more than a decade of apparently very active
service, little else has slipped out about the ship or her operations.
We could easily have to wait another decade or
more for there to be any real confirmation — likely from a book like Sontag and
Drew’s rather than the Navy — about Jimmy Carter‘s unique history and details
about Mission 7.
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