>From the “Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships,” 

(1981) Vol. 7, pp.78, 79.





TECUMSEH



	While still a youth, Tecumseh--a Shawnee Indian chief 

born near the present site of Springfield, Ohio, sometime in 

or around 1768--won renown as a brave and skillful warrior.  

He devoted his life to opposing the advance of white 

settlers.  Reasoning that land in North America--especially 

in the Ohio valley--belonged to all of the tribes in common, 

Tecumseh maintained that sales of territory by any single 

tribe to the United States were null and void.  After the 

Federal Government refused to recognize this principle, 

Tecumseh attempted to organize a great Indian Confederacy to 

stem the white tide.



	However, while he was in the South working to unite the 

tribes, Federal troops under Governor William Henry Harrison 

defeated and scattered Indian forces on 7 November 1811 in 

the battle of Tippecanoe.  This defeat doomed the Indian 

Confederacy.



	After Congress declared war on Great Britain the 

following year, Tecumseh accepted a commission as a 

brigadier general in the British army.  He cooperated with 

British troops to win a number of victories in the Great 

Lakes region, including the capture of Detroit.  However, 

Comdr. Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory on Lake Erie, late in 

the summer of 1813, cut British supply lines and prompted 

them to withdraw along the Thames Valley.  Tecumseh and his 

braves covered the British retirement until American troops 

led by Harrison--now a major general--caught up with them at 

Moraviantown.  Tecumseh was killed in the ensuing Battle of 

the Thames on 5 October 1813.



	In June 1930, a bronze replica of the figurehead of 

ship-of-the-line DELAWARE was presented by the Class of 1891 

to the United States Naval Academy.  This bust--perhaps the 

most famous relic on the campus--has been widely identified 

as Tecumseh.  However, when it adorned the American 

man-of-war, it commemorated not Tecumseh but Tamanend, the 

revered Delaware chief who welcomed William Penn to America 

when he arrived in Delaware country on 2 October 1682.





SSBN-628



Displacement:  

	Surfaced:  7,300 t.

	Submerged:  8,250 t.

Length:  425’

Beam:  33’

Draft:  31’4”

Speed:  

	Surfaced:  16 k.

	Submerged:  21 k.

Complement:  140

Armament:  16 Polaris missiles; 4 21” torpedo tubes

Class:  JAMES MADISON



	The fourth TECUMSEH (SSBN-628) was laid down on 1 June 

1962 at Groton, Conn., by the Electric Boat Division of the 

General Dynamics Corp.; launched on 22 June 1963; sponsored 

by Mrs. Robert L. F. Sikes; and was commissioned on 29 May 

1964, Comdr. Arnett B. Taylor (blue crew) and Comdr. Charles 

S. Carlisle (gold crew) in command.



	TECUMSEH soon departed the east coast, bound for 

Hawaii.  Based at Pearl Harbor, the nuclear-powered 

submarine deployed to the Marianas on 17 December 1964, 

arriving at Guam 12 days later to commence deterrent 

patrols.  Alternately manned by "blue" and "gold" crews, she 

conducted 21 of these missions into 1969.



	The submarine was then transferred to the Atlantic 

Fleet where she proceeded via Pearl Harbor and the Panama 

Canal to the east coast and arrived at Newport News, Va., on 

8 November 1969.  Soon thereafter, she entered the Newport 

News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company yards for a conversion 

which replaced her Polaris missiles system with its Poseidon 

counterpart.  Emerging from drydock on 9 May 1970, TECUMSEH 

underwent a thorough overhaul through that fall and winter 

before being assigned a new home port of Charleston, S.C., 

on 18 February 1971.



	She conducted sea trials and shakedown out of 

Charleston before conducting two deterrent patrols in late 

1971.  Subsequently deployed to Holy Loch, Scotland, 

TECUMSEH arrived in Scottish waters on 9 February 1972.  She 

conducted 18 more deterrent patrols out of Holy Loch through 

1976 and operates with the Atlantic Fleet into 1980.



	[Originally to be named WILLIAM PENN, the ship was 

renamed TECUMSEH on 11 April 1962.  



	Placed “in commission, in reserve,” on 15 February 

1993, TECUMSEH began the Navy’s Nuclear Powered Ship and 

Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton, Washington the 

same day.  Decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel 

Register on the following 23 July, she emerged from the 

recycling program on 1 April 1994 as scrapped.  She no 

longer existed as a complete ship.



Internet web site:

	United States Naval & Shipbuilding Museum

		www.uss-salem.org/worldnav/usa/decom.htm

K. Jack Bauer and Stephen S. Roberts, “Register of Ships of 

the U. S. Navy, 1775-1990,” p.295]





Transcribed by Michael Hansen

mhansen2@home.com