| The nuclear-powered
attack submarine Charlotte is the fourth U.S. Navy ship to
bear the name. The first CHARLOTTE was a 70 ton schooner
used by the Confederate forces in the Civil War. The ship
was captured by Union forces off Mobile, Alabama in April
1862 and joined the Union Navy in November of the same year.
The schooner Charlotte served in the West Gulf Blockade
Squadron and was sold five years later in Pensacola, Florida.
The cruiser NORTH CAROLINA,
commissioned in 1908, was renamed CHARLOTTE in June 1920 to
allow for a new battleship which was to be christened NORTH
CAROLINA. CHARLOTTE had a short and relatively peaceful
career. After shakedown, the ship carried President-elect
William H. Taft on an inspection trip to the Panama Canal,
then made a Mediterranean cruise. While serving as a station
ship in Pensacola, the cruiser became the first ship in
history to launch an aircraft by catapult while underway.
The cruiser CHARLOTTE was decomissioned in 1921, and the
name stricken from the rolls in 1930.
The third ship to bear the name
CHARLOTTE was manned by the Coast Guard during World War Two.
Designated as a patrol frigate (PF-60), CHARLOTTE served as
a weather observation station off the coast of Newfoundland,
and also assisted in rescuing downed pilots. CHARLOTTE was
decomissioned at Norfolk, Virginia in 1946.
CHARLOTTE (SSN 766) was christened
on October 3, 1992 at Newport News Shipbuilding by Mrs. Mary
McCormack, the ship's sponsor. Charlotte was commisioned on
September 16, 1994 at Norfolk, Virginia.
Charlotte returned from sea in May
2003 after completing an operational evaluation for the
Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) after many months of
at-sea training. The ASDS is a mini combatant submersible
that rides piggyback onboard a Los Angeles class submarine.
The ASDS allows navy SEALs and Special Operations Forces
(SOF) to be clandestinely inserted into areas of interest in
a dry environment, minimizing their exposure time in a wet
environment. USS Charlotte is one of only two host
submarines. |
