She was 425 feet (130 m) long, 33 feet (10 m) wide, and had a draft of 32 feet (9.8 m). She displaced 7,250 tonnes (7,140 long tons; 7,990 short tons) when surfaced, and 8,250 tonnes (8,120 long tons; 9,090 short tons) when submerged. Her top speed was above 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph), and she had a maximum depth of 1,300 feet (400 m). She had a complement of around 120 men, and was armed with 16 Polaris missiles and four 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes. She was propelled by a S5W Pressurized Water Nuclear Reactor powering two turbines which generated 15,000 shaft horsepower (11,000 kW), driving one propeller.[4]
Operational history
President Kennedy watching USS Andrew Jackson launch a Polaris A-2 missile.
Following commissioning, Andrew Jackson sailed via the Panama Canal to the United States East Coast. On 1 October and 11 October 1963, during shakedown training out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, she successfully launched Polaris A-2 ballistic missiles. On 26 October 1963, she sent Polaris A-3X missiles into space in the first submerged launching of its type; she repeated the feat on 11 November 1963. On 16 November 1963, six days before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy—embarked in the missile range instrumentation shipUSS Observation Island—observed Andrew Jackson launch another Polaris A-2 ballistic missile from a point off Cape Canaveral and congratulated Commander Wilson and his crew for "impressive teamwork."[3]
USS Liberty incident
There is speculation amongst survivors of the 1967 Israeli attack on USS Liberty and their supporters that a U.S. Navy submarine observed and filmed the attack through their periscope.[5] The working theory is that the submarine was either the Andrew Jackson or USS Amberjack. The Andrew Jackson was assigned to Submarine Squadron 16, Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet from 1964 to 1973, where she conducted patrols out of the American naval base at Rota, Spain.[6][7] This would mean she could, in theory, have been in the vicinity of the attack when it occurred. There is no confirmation of this theory and it remains speculative.
In 1988, the LBJ Presidential Library declassified and released a document from the Liberty archive with the “Top Secret—Eyes Only” security caveat (Document #12C sanitized and released 21DEC88 under review case 86–199).[5] This "Memorandum for the Record" dated 10 April 1967 reported a briefing of the "303 Committee" by General Ralph D. Steakley. According to the memo, General Steakley "briefed the committee on a sensitive DOD project known as FRONTLET 615," which is identified in a handwritten note on the original memorandum as "submarine within U.A.R. waters." Further Freedom of Information Act requests returned no information on any project called “FRONTLET 615.” This has lent credence to the theory that a U.S. Navy submarine was present during the attack.
The 1981 book Weapons by Russell Warren Howe says that Liberty was accompanied by the Andrew Jackson, which filmed the entire episode through its periscope but was unable to provide assistance.[8]
^ abcd
Adcock, Al. (1993), U.S. Ballistic Missile Submarines, Carrolltown, Texas: Squadron Signal, p. 22
^"Andrew Jackson (SSBN-619)". Naval History and Heritage Command. U.S. Navy. Retrieved 8 November 2022. Mrs. Estes Kefauver, the wife of Senator Kefauver of Tennessee
This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
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