USS GROWLER TRAILBLAZING SUBMARINE

USS Growler has for over two decades attracted countless visitors who have boarded her at Pier 86 in New York, where she is on permanent display alongside the much larger and perhaps better known aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. USS Growler’s significance as one of the United States’ original trail-blazing nuclear-missile-carrying submarines cannot be underestimated. A Grayback class submarine, she was the fourth US Naval vessel to carry the name Growler.

When USS was laid down in 1955 as the second of the US Navy’s Grayback submarines, the Cold War was at its height. She was one of the US Navy’s first attempts to offer a nuclear threat or deterrent against the Soviet Union from the seas, or more specifically from under the seas, after she was converted to carry the Regulus 1 guided missile. Prior to this, the US nuclear deterrent had been land-based and therefore close to population centres.