Requin

A species of sand shark.

(SS-481: dp. 1,570 (surf.), 2,414 (subm.); l. 311'8"; b. 2, 3"; dr. 16'5'; s. 20 k. (surf.), 9 k. (subm.); cpl. 76; a. 2 5", 2 40mm., 10 21" tt.; cl. Tench)

Requin (SS-481) was laid down on 24 August 1944 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Portsmouth, N.H.; launched on 1 January 1945; sponsored by Mrs. Slade D. Cutter; and commissioned on 28 April 1945, Comdr. Slade D. Cutter in command.

Following shakedown off the New England coast, Requin departed Portsmouth on 3 June 1945 en route to Hawaii. She joined the Pacific Fleet on 13 July at Balboa and at the end of the month reached Pearl Harbor. Two weeks after her arrival, however, World War II ended and Requin, by then en route to Guam, was recalled and ordered back to the Atlantic.

She arrived at Staten Island, N.Y., on 18 September; remained in that area through the year; and on 6 January 1946 sailed for Key West, where she joined Submarine Squadron 4 (SubRon 4). Later in the year she returned to Portsmouth, N.H., for conversion to a radar picket submarine.

After leaving the yard she resumed operations in the western Atlantic and in the fall of 1947 moved north for exercises north of the Arctic Circle. Reclassified SSR 481 in January 1948, Requin was transferred to SubRon 8 at New London in June and in May 1949 sailed east for her first deployment with the 6th Fleet. Arriving at Gibraltar on 14 May, she operated in the Mediterranean until 30 June.

Soon after her return to New London, Requin was transferred to Norfolk for duty with SubRon 6. Into the spring of 1950, she operated in the western Atlantic, ranging from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. Overhaul occupied most of the summer, and with the end of the year she prepared for another 6th Fleet tour. In the Mediterranean from mid-January to mid-May 1951, she resumed operations off the east coast and in the Caribbean on her return. In August 1952, she was back in European waters. During September, she visited the United Kingdom; then, in October the submarine transited the Straits of Gibraltar for her regular 6th Fleet duty.

In 1953, she maintained her schedule of 2d and 6th Fleet operations, but at the end of the year put into Philadelphia for an extensive modernization overhaul. On 2 May 1955, she sailed for her fifth Mediterranean deployment. Detached at the end of July, she returned to Norfolk and remained on the east coast, with cruises to the Caribbean, until November 1957 when she resumed duty with the 6th Fleet.

Returning to Norfolk in late January 1958, Requin, reclassified SS-481 on 15 August 1959, conducted local operations and cruised off the east coast and into the Caribbean until 7 January 1964. From then into May she operated with the 6th Fleet, then resumed her 2d Fleet duties which continued into 1968, interrupted only twice for extended deployments. Operation UNITAS VII in the fall of 1966 called for Requin to cruise around the South American continent for exercises with various South American navies; while her last 6th Fleet deployment sent her back to the Mediterranean for duty from 4 April to 27 July 1967.

In October 1968 Requin began inactivation at Norfolk. Decommissioned on 3 December 1968, she was sent to St. Petersburg, Fla., in February 1969 and served there as a Naval Reserve Training ship until struck from the Navy list 20 December 1971.

Richard B. Russell

Richard Brevard Russell was born 2 November 1897 in Winder, Ga. He graduated from Gordon Institute in Barnesville, Gal, in 1915 and received a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Georgia in 1918. He served in the enlisted ranks of the United States Naval Reserve Forces in 1918 and, in 1919, set up law practice in Winder. Prior to entering the United States Senate in 1933, Russell served as county attorney for Georgia's Barrow County, as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, its Speaker, and finally, he was Governor of Georgia from 1931 to 1933.

Richard B. Russell served in the United States Senate from 1933 to his death in 1971. He received an LL.D. from Mercer University in 1957. During the 91st Congress, he was president pro tempore of the Senate, a member and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, a member of the Space and Aeronautics Sciences Committee and of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. He was also a member of the commission which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While still in office, Senator Russell died 21 January 1971 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.