Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index insert image here insert caption here (insert link to larger image here) Career Awarded: 29 July 1963 Laid down: 24 August 1964 Launched: 14 August 1965 Commissioned: 15 June 1966 Fate: submarine recycling Stricken: 18 March 1993 General Characteristics Displacement: 7250 tons Length: 425 feet Beam: 33 feet Draft: 33 feet Powerplant: S5W reactor Speed: Complement: two crews of 100 oficers and men each Armament: 16 Polaris or Poseidon missiles, four 21-inch torpedo tubes USS George Washington Carver (SSBN/SSN-656), a Benjamin Franklin-class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the researcher and inventor. Her keel was laid down on 24 August 1964 by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. She was launched 14 August 1965; sponsored by Miss Marian Anderson; and commissioned 15 June 1966, Captain R. D. Donavan (blue crew) and Lieutenant Commander Carl J. Lidel (gold crew) in command. Following shakedown, George Washington Carver's first patrol began 12 December 1966. In 1991, George Washington Carver's missile tubes were disabled and she was redesignated an attack submarine with the [[hull classification symbol SSN-656. George Washington Carver was decommissioned on 18 March 1993 at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, where she was disposed of through the Ship and Submarine Recycling Program on 12 March 1994. See USS George Washington Carver for other ships of the same name. References This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.