USS William H. Bates

USS William H. Bates (SSN-680) with a Dry Deck Shelter on her deck abaft her sail.
History
United States
Name	USS William H. Bates (SSN-680)
Namesake	William H. Bates (1917–1969), U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 6th Congressional District (1950–1969)
Ordered	25 June 1968
Builder	Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi General Dynamics Electric Boat
Laid down	4 August 1969
Launched	11 December 1971
Sponsored by	Mrs. Andrew R. Grainger
Commissioned	5 May 1973
Decommissioned	11 February 2000
Stricken	11 February 2000
Motto	A Spirit Unquell'd
Fate	Scrapping via Ship and Submarine Recycling Program begun 1 October 2002, completed 30 October 2002
Badge
General characteristics
Class and type	Sturgeon-class attack submarine
Displacement	3,978 long tons (4,042 t) light 4,270 long tons (4,339 t) full 292 long tons (297 t) dead
Length	302 ft 3 in (92.13 m)
Beam	31 ft 8 in (9.65 m)
Draft	28 ft 8 in (8.74 m)
Installed power	15,000 shaft horsepower (11.2 megawatts)
Propulsion	One S5W nuclear reactor, two steam turbines, one screw
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) surfaced 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) submerged
Test depth	1,300 feet (400 meters)
Complement	126 (14 officers, 112 enlisted men)
Armament	4 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes

USS William H. Bates (SSN-680), a Sturgeon-class attack submarine, was planned to be the second U.S. Navy ship to be named USS Redfish—for the redfish, a variety of salmon —when the contract to build her was awarded to Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 25 June 1968. However, upon the 22 June 1969 death of William H. Bates (1917–1969), the U.S. representative from Massachusetts's 6th congressional district (1950–1969) known for his staunch support of nuclear propulsion in the U.S. Navy, she was renamed William H. Bates and was laid down on 4 August 1969 as the only ship of the U.S. Navy to have borne the name. The reason for her naming by then-Secretary of the Navy John Chafee, breaking with a long-standing Navy tradition of naming U.S. Navy attack submarines for sea creatures, was best summed up by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the then-director of the Navy's nuclear reactors program, with the pithy comment that, "Fish don't vote!"^[1]