SWFLANT, King's Bay, Georgia
King's Bay, Georgia, is near St. Mary's, Camden County, Georgia, on an arm of Cumberland Sound, 35 - 40 miles north of Jacksonville, Florida. The base encompasses approximately 16,000 acres. Military and civilian personnel, including contract personnel, number more than 9,000.
In 1954, the Army began to acquire land at King's Bay, on which it planned to build a military ocean terminal which would be used to ship ammunition in the event of a national emergency. Construction activity began in 1956 and was completed in 1958 at a cost of $11 million. Because there was not immediate operational need for the installation, it was placed in an inactive ready status.
A Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was being drafted with Spain in 1976. It would require withdrawal of Submarine Squadron Sixteen from Rota, Spain, by July 1979. As a result, the CNO ordered, in 1976, a study to select a new site for relocating the SSBN tender from Rota to the East Coast. A site selection steering group evaluated sites along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
On 30 November 1976, the SECNAV announced that King's Bay, Georgia, has been identified for further study as the preferred alternative location for the possible construction of an East Coast FBM Tender refit site. It was on 26 January 1978 that the SECNAV announced that King's Bay, Georgia, would be the new location of the submarine tender to support Submarine Squadron Sixteen.
Preparations were started for an orderly transfer of the property from the Army to the Navy, and the actual transfer took place on 1 July 1978. Throughout the remainder of 1978 and into 1979, preparations for the arrival of the submarine squadron went forward with haste.
On 2 July 1979, the commander of Submarine Squadron Sixteen, embarked in the submarine tender USS Simon Lake (AS-33), arrived at King's Bay. Four days later, the USS James Monroe (SSBN-622) entered King's Bay and moored alongside the USS Simon Lake's (AS-33) starboard side to begin a routine refit in preparation for another deterrent patrol.
In May 1979, the SSBN tender refit site at King's Bay was selected by the Navy as its preferred site for an East Coast strategic TRIDENT submarine facility in the Atlantic, similar to SWFPAC at Bangor, Washington. Following environmental impact studies, in October 1980, SECNAV Edward Hidalgo announced the decision: King's Bay would become the Atlantic home for the new Ohio-class submarines.
On 1 April 1982, the title of the base was changed from Naval Submarine Support Base to Naval Submarine Base to reflect the growing significance of King's Bay.
Facilities at the base enable King's Bay to serve as a homeport, refit site, and training facility for the Navy people that operate and maintain the Ohio-class strategic submarines. The original facilities here, to refit between patrols SSBNs which were homeported elsewhere, cost approximately $125 million. The TRIDENT basing decision touched off a building project of vastly-larger magnitude. Through the 1980's, the Navy spent more than $1.7 billion in the military construction effort alone.
The first Trident submarine, USS Tennessee (SSBN 734), arrived Jan. 15, 1989. Tennessee was followed by USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735), USS West Virginia (SSBN 736), USS Kentucky (SSBN 737) , USS Maryland (SSBN 738), USS Nebraska (SSBN 739), USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740), USS Maine (SSBN 741), and USS Wyoming. The final submarine, USS Louisiana, arrived in the summer of 1997.
Kings Bay, Georgia lies in marshy, flat terrain behind a long, low barrier island which separates it from the open ocean. Submarines reach their base at Kings Bay via a long channel which has been cut through the shallow coastal shelf and muddy tidal sound. The only natural shelter from winds is provided by forest and the development of a hurricane anchorage is precluded by the poor holding quality of the bottom in the sounds. Furthermore, the deeply cut access channel would be subject to sudden shoaling under certain circumstances of a hurricane strike.
The Kings Bay submarine base is evidently extremely vulnerable to the effects of a hurricane strike. Despite this potential vulnerability, the risk of submarine operations being disrupted is reduced considerably by the rarity of direct landfalling hurricanes along the neighboring coast. The more commonplace threats are posed by hurricanes which pass close offshore without making landfall or after exiting along the Florida coast to the south of the St. Marys Entrance. These hurricanes have remarkably little impact at Kings Bay and would not merit the sortie of the submarine squadron. However, sortie of ocean-going Navy units would be justified for the rare direct landfalling hurricane and more commonly, for those hurricanes approaching overland which, instead of exiting to the south, threaten to pass close to the west of Kings Bay or make a direct strike.
BRAC 2005
In its 2005 BRAC Recommendations, DoD recommended to close Naval Submarine Base New London, CT. Its recommendations called for some facilities to relocate to Kings Bay. The base's assigned submarines, Auxiliary Repair Dock 4 (ARDM-4), and Nuclear Research Submarine 1 (NR-1) along with their dedicated personnel, equipment and support would relocate to both Kings Bay and Naval Station Norfolk, VA. DoD also recommended to relocate the Naval Submarine School and Center for Submarine Learning to Submarine Base Kings Bay. It would also relocate the intermediate submarine repair function to Shore Intermediate Repair Activity Norfolk, at Naval Shipyard Norfolk, VA, and Trident Refit Facility at Kings Bay. A portion of the intermediate submarine repair function would be relocated to King' Bay's Trident Refit Facility in support of the relocating submarines. Sufficient capacity and fleet dispersal would be maintained with the East Coast submarine fleet homeports of Naval Station Norfolk and Submarine Base Kings Bay, without affecting operational capability. Submarine Base Kings Bay, GA, was in Attainment. There would be potential impacts for dredging; marine mammals, resources, or sanctuaries; threatened and endangered species; and water resources.
