The Pearl Harbor waterfront will say farewell to the Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS La Jolla (SSN 701) in an Aloha Ceremony at 11 a.m. on Oct. 14, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
La Jolla is scheduled for decommissioning later this year, and will subsequently be converted to a Moored Training Ship (MTS) that will be permanently moored at Nuclear Power Training Unit, Charleston, S.C.
Guest speaker for the Aloha Ceremony will be Rear Adm. Phil Sawyer, Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet.
La Jolla is the 14th ship of the Los Angeles-class fast attack submarines and the first of her class to be converted to a Moored Training Ship.
La Jolla has been assigned to Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, since her arrival to San Diego in March 1982, and has been home-ported out of Pearl Harbor since Dec. 23, 2000.
The submarine is named for La Jolla, Calif., and is the first warship named after this township. Its keel was laid Oct. 16, 1976, and was commissioned Oct. 24, 1981.
During her 33 years of patrolling the world’s oceans, La Jolla completed 13 overseas deployments and several first-in-class distinctions such as the first to be fitted for the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle and the first to successfully test fire a Tomahawk cruise missile while submerged.
The submarine is 360-feet long, displaces 6,900 tons, and can be armed with sophisticated Mark-48 ADCAP anti-submarine torpedoes and Tomahawk guided cruise missiles.
[mappress] Press Release, October 09, 2014; Image: US Navy