The Third of the Name · SSN-750 · 1984–2026

The boat the city stood behind

The name did not end with the cruiser. In 1984 the keel of a Los Angeles-class submarine went down in the same yard, and in 1989 she was commissioned Newport News — the third U.S. Navy ship of the name. This page is about her crews and about the citizens of her namesake city, whose liaison committee has stood behind her for almost forty years.

Built on the same river

The Navy awarded her contract on 19 April 1982 to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company — the yard that had built the cruiser and still stood on the James. Her keel was laid 3 March 1984. On 15 March 1986 she entered the water before a crowd reported at some 30,000, sponsored by Mrs. Rosemary D. Trible, wife of Virginia's senator. She commissioned on 3 June 1989 at Naval Station Norfolk, tied astern of the submarine tender Hunley, with Senator John W. Warner speaking and Mayor Jessie M. Rattley presenting a commemorative plaque — which carried the poem "Newport News" by Ronald W. Bell.

An improved Los Angeles-class boat — one of the "688i" flight, with twelve vertical launch tubes for Tomahawk missiles fitted forward of her sail — she carried a motto chosen for her name: Magni Nominis Umbra, "under the shadow of a great name." The shadow was the cruiser's, and the yard's. In her thirty-six years she steamed more than half a million nautical miles.

The Committee — the heart of this page

Most commissioning committees dissolve a year or so after the ceremony. Newport News's did the opposite. The committee was created in the spring of 1987, two years before the boat was commissioned; in 1991 the City Council chartered it as a standing body: the USS Newport News Liaison Committee — citizens-at-large and city staff who became, in the Naval Submarine League's words, the crew's "home support team, managing homecomings, picnics, scholarship programs and holiday parties" for the submarine, her sailors, and their families.

It never stopped. For almost forty years the Committee has met monthly; it meets today under the City of Newport News's roster of boards and commissions — fourteen public members serving four-year terms without pay, joined as nonvoting ex-officio members by the boat's commanding officer, executive officer, chief of the boat, and ombudsman. Its scholarship fund has awarded more than $30,000 to crew members and their dependents. When the boat came home, the Committee helped make the pier a homecoming; when July 2014 marked twenty-five years since the commissioning, the city gathered at Huntington Park, where Mayor McKinley L. Price presented the proclamation to Commander J. Carl Hartsfield — a former Newport News commanding officer, accepting on behalf of Commander Christopher Tarsa and the crew, who were conducting local operations.

For the Committee's own chronology and the boat's reference record, see the USS Newport News Liaison Committee history and SSN-750 specifications and ship information.

The Committee's current home is the City of Newport News. Its public listing — purpose, membership, meeting times, and the City Clerk's contact — is maintained on the city's boards-and-commissions pages at nnva.gov. This site is not the Committee's website and is not affiliated with it; we link out because the Committee is the living institution this page honors.

The silver that crossed over

There is a physical bridge between this boat and the cruiser whose name she took. In 1949 the city's citizens — schoolchildren among them, in nickels and dimes — bought the cruiser a silver service (the story is told on The Builders). The service stayed aboard until 1975, was lent to the city for display, and in 1977 was reissued to the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. When the submarine commissioned on 3 June 1989, silversmiths restored a portion of the service, presented to her captain for the wardroom — the city's gift sailing on under the name, a second ship's wardroom set by its citizens. The cruiser-side of the trail is on The Keepers.

Her record, briefly

This page keeps the boat's data compact — she served where the record was classified as much as where it was published. What the public record shows:

• 1989–2009

  Front-line service from her Norfolk homeport: by her twentieth anniversary the House of Representatives' resolution text credited her with more than 500,000 nautical miles, Tomahawk-strike and intelligence support in Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 40 foreign port visits, and four Panama Canal transits.

• Apr 2003

  In Operation Iraqi Freedom she launched 19 Tomahawk cruise missiles — reported at the time as the largest submarine-launched Tomahawk strike of the war. Her commanding officer, Cmdr. Fred Capria, and two other submariners were awarded the Bronze Star for the deployment.

• 8 Jan 2007

  Submerged south of the Strait of Hormuz, she collided with the Japanese tanker Mogamigawa — told below.

• Feb–Mar 2016

  Arctic operations: Ice Exercise 2016, surfacing through the polar ice with USS Hartford.

• Oct 2018

  Returned to Norfolk from a seven-month deployment.

• Jul 2020

  Returned from a seven-month deployment made under pandemic conditions: 137 continuous days underway, roughly 45,000 nautical miles, an at-sea replenishment, and the boat's 1,000th dive — Cmdr. Dave Fassel in command.

• Jan 2023

  Homecoming at Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, after a six-month deployment under Cmdr. Joseph A. Fontenot — and awarded the Battle "E" for 2022.

• 9 Jul 2025

  First nuclear-powered vessel to make a port visit to Iceland — the crew standing watch into Reykjavík.

• 23 Jan 2026

  Her last homecoming: returned to Naval Station Norfolk, homeport shifted back from Groton for her final week.

• 31 Jan 2026

  Inactivated at Norfolk, bound for the Navy's recycling program at Puget Sound — below.

The night of Mogamigawa

On the evening of 8 January 2007, at about 10:15 local time, the boat was transiting submerged south of the Strait of Hormuz when she and the Japanese-flagged tanker Mogamigawa collided. No one was injured aboard either vessel; no oil leaked; the submarine's propulsion plant was unaffected. Damage to the boat was confined to her bow, and she reached Bahrain under her own power for evaluation and repair — the tanker, its port-side hull bottom and propeller damaged, continued to the nearest port for survey. The Navy's account, as reported at the time, was that the tanker passing over the submerged submarine created a suction — the venturi effect — that drew the boat upward into the ship.

In the autumn the Navy reached a settlement with the tanker's owner, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha — announced 2 October 2007 — under which the Navy would pay for the tanker's repairs and her downtime during them. The amount was not disclosed. Personnel consequences of the incident are reported elsewhere in the public record; this page keeps to the ships and the settlement.

Homecomings

A submarine's whole life is measured in homecomings — and managing them is one of the Committee's chartered duties. These are U.S. Navy photographs, in order, from her six-month return after the Mogamigawa deployment to her last.

Where she stands now

As of 2026, she is out of commission. Long homeported at Norfolk, then serving from Groton under Submarine Squadron 12, she returned to Naval Station Norfolk on 23 January 2026 and was inactivated there on 31 January — announced by NAVADMIN 034/26 — bound for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to be defueled and recycled under the Navy's Ship-Submarine Recycling Program. The Liaison Committee, meanwhile, remains a chartered body of the City of Newport News: the city's name outlasts the hull, as it did once before.

The boat, in one table