The next VIRGINIA-class submarine will be named after the state of North Dakota.
The delegation and the governor met with Navy Secretary Donald Winter in June. Pomeroy said the meeting was well-timed because the new submarines had not yet been named.
Pomeroy said the group conveyed that the state would be a “supportive community” to the sailors on the ship.
“We’re not looking at this as just a name on the hull,” he said.
The new ship is expected to be commissioned in 2014 and is currently under construction in Groton, Conn., the delegation and Hoeven said. A Naval spokesman would not confirm the naming Monday.
There has only been one USS North Dakota, a vessel that was commissioned as a battleship in 1910 and was a gunnery and engineering training ship during World War I. It was decommissioned in 1923 and sold for scrap in 1931.
I wonder if their underway ballcaps will say “USS SOUTH CANADA”??
update: NORTH DAKOTA will be SSN 784, SSN 783 will be the USS MINNESOTA.
It will be proudly referred to as the USS Formerly Known As Canada. Or, USS Nowhere, by those who don’t know about North Dakota.