Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
On Dec. 7, 1941 — a date that, as predicted, continues to “live on in infamy” — the USS Utah was sunk by Japanese torpedoes during the attack on Pearl Harbor. To this day, the battleship still sits in that same spot. Now, nearly 84 years later, a new USS Utah has been christened and will soon become an active part of the U.S. Navy. The original USS Utah was a Florida-class battleship, commissioned in 1911, while the new USS Utah is a Virginia-class fast-attack submarine set to join active duty in 2027. The nuclear-powered submarine was christened on Saturday, Oct. 25, at the General Dynamics Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. This traditional ceremony featured the breaking of a bottle, a prayer, the parade of colors and other elements to celebrate the new naval vessel. The new USS Utah is the first U.S. Navy vessel to bear the name Utah since the battleship that sank at Pearl Harbor. Even as Utah and the Navy prepare for the new USS Utah to take to the seas, the old one has not been forgotten. Ron Fox, a historian on the USS Utah commissioning committee, had gathered a collection of old photos and other things relating to the old battleship. He gave this collection to the submarine’s commanding officer, connecting the old USS Utah with the new one. “There’s a lot of meaning to the youth that we had here today, to the future of Utah, to Utah being part of the Navy once again. We’ve not had a ship in the seas since Dec. 7, 1941,” said Fox, who helped organize a watch party for the christening at Utah’s Capitol. The new USS Utah was years in the making The new USS Utah was officially announced in 2015, when then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus came to Utah’s Capitol and “announced that the state would be honored once again by having a ship, a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine,” Fox said. Construction of the submarine began six years later in 2021. Virginia-class submarines are nuclear-powered and are designed for speed and stealth to provide defense against enemy submarines, gather intelligence and conduct covert missions. They are equipped with torpedoes, Tomahawk cruise missiles, advanced surveillance systems and the capability to deploy special operations forces onto hostile shores. The USS Utah is 377 feet long and will carry 15 officers and 120 enlisted sailors. The submarine carries a price tag of over $3.5 billion. The hull number for the USS Utah submarine is SSN-801, which is the area code of Salt Lake City and much of the Wasatch Front. It was initially assigned the hull number SSN-799 but Utah lawmakers requested it be designated SSN-801 because of the connection to Utah, according to The National Interest. Originally, the mascot for the submarine was to be a honeybee, which is the state insect, but the crew voted for a change. The mascot will now be the Utah raptor, the state’s official dinosaur. The submarine is expected to be commissioned and begin active duty in 2027. A crew has already been assembled and assigned to serve on the submarine once it is active. The christening of the USS Utah “The ceremony symbolizes the transition from a hull to a ship with spirit and honors the shipbuilders and crew who brought her to life,” according to a press release from the USS Utah Commissioning Committee. Involved in the christening were the ship’s co-sponsors, Sharon Lee, wife of U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, and Mary Kaye Huntsman, wife of former Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman. The latter has two sons who are active-duty naval officers, while her father-in-law also served in the Navy. “Those sponsors have a relationship with the ship for the life of the ship,” Fox said. “They’re honored and they are invited and they participate with the ship on other occasions.” During the christening, the co-sponsors broke a bottle of sparkling cyser, a honey and apple cider wine from Slide Ridge Winery of Mendon, Utah, with a special blessing for the submarine. A prayer was also offered to watch over the 135 sailors who will travel through deep water aboard the submarine, per Fox 13. The christening also included the parade of colors, the national anthem and remarks by Navy and Electric Boat officials. To celebrate the christening, a remote watch party held in the Utah state Capitol Presentation Room gave many Utahns the opportunity to watch. For ships joining the military, there are three major ceremonies that take place. The first is the keel laying, which is when builders lay down the first piece of metal for a ship. The christening is done just prior to the ship going into the water and involves a champagne bottle being broken over the ship’s bow. Last is the commissioning, which is when the boat is fully complete, has completed all of its sea trials and is ready to go into service. Remembering the original USS Utah and the lives lost The original USS Utah was the first ship struck by torpedoes during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Fifty-eight crew members of the USS Utah died that day, and the ship was never salvaged. There were 461 crew members who survived the attack. The last survivor of the original USS Utah, Warren Upton, died last year in Los Gatos, California, at the age of 105, according to The New York Times. Upton had been serving as a radioman aboard the USS Utah and was below deck reaching for his shaving kit when the ship was struck by two torpedoes at about 8 a.m. “It was quite an inferno,” he said in an interview in 2021, per The New York Times. He added, “I went over the side then and slid down the side of the ship as she rolled over.” The ship sank within minutes. Upton and other crew members left the ship and swam to Ford Island. Upton helped another shipmate who couldn’t swim make it to the shore. Those who had escaped the ship took cover in a ditch that had been dug for sewer pipes. The USS Utah battleship is still in the water in Pearl Harbor where it was sunk. Fox said the military tried to resurrect it right after the bombing, but was unsuccessful. The ship is now part of the Pearl Harbor National Monument along with the USS Arizona, and there have been multiple memorials erected in honor of the lives lost on the ship. There is a pier at Pearl Harbor that allows people to walk out near the front of the sunken USS Utah. The life of the USS Utah battleship before Pearl Harbor At the time the original USS Utah was built, battleships were named after states because they were the biggest ships built at the time. “That changed when we started making aircraft carriers, which are much larger, and they’re now named after presidents. And submarines now have been named after states,” Fox said. He added that cruisers used to be named after cities and there was a USS Salt Lake City in World War II. The old USS Utah was christened on Dec. 23, 1909, and the ship was commissioned on Aug. 31, 1911. The USS Utah served with distinction in the Mexican Revolution. During World War I, it was the flagship for the American Navy in Europe. In 1931, the ship was modernized and recommissioned as an auxiliary ship that assisted other ships in target practice. Fox said the ship had a “great history” and “was a fine ship. It served its purpose.”
