Two Navy attack subs moving to Puget Sound

SEATTLE – The U.S. Navy will move two of its fastest attack submarines to Washington by next summer as it shifts defenses from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said Monday.

Once the USS Seawolf and the USS Connecticut arrive in Puget Sound, the Seattle area will be home to all three of the Navy’s Seawolf class of subs – huge, deep-diving boats the Pentagon ordered as the Cold War neared its end in the early 1990s.

Dicks said the Seawolf and Connecticut will leave their current home port at New London, Conn., and arrive at Naval Base Kitsap, which includes bases in Bremerton and Bangor, between July and August 2007.

Dicks told the Associated Press that Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter also briefed him about three other ships that will be moving to the Pacific over the next three years: two to San Diego and one to Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor.

The shift will put 60 percent of the Navy’s submarine fleet in the Pacific and about 40 percent in the Atlantic by 2010, Dicks said. Today submarines are evenly divided between the two oceans.

Dicks applauded the Navy’s decision, saying it underscores concerns about military threats posed by China and North Korea.

“Having more assets in the Pacific Northwest makes sense,” Dicks said.

Each of the high-speed subs will bring a crew of 140 and will keep a steady supply of maintenance and overhaul work at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Dicks said.

The Navy’s third Seawolf sub, the USS Carter, moved to Naval Submarine Base Bangor, on the Kitsap peninsula northwest of Seattle, last year. It’s the most heavily armed submarine ever built and the last of the Seawolf class of attack subs the Pentagon ordered.

Dicks, a member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said the Navy has yet to decide whether the Seawolf and Connecticut will be based in Bremerton, on the northeastern edge of the Kitsap peninsula, or Bangor, on the northwestern shore.

Each 353-foot, 9,150-ton sub cost about $2.5 billion to build. Billed as the word’s quietest submarines, they can dive to depths of more than 800 feet.