Under Commander Chester Mack, tracked a Soviet Yankee-class ballistic missile submarine for 47 consecutive days in 1969-1970. Gathered intelligence on Soviet missile submarine patrol patterns and acoustic signatures that shaped ASW doctrine for a decade. Mack received the Navy Cross.

Collided with a Soviet submarine in 1974 during close-approach intelligence operations in the Pacific. Classified for years. Characteristic of the risks American submarines accepted as routine when trailing Soviet boats at close quarters. Both submarines survived.

Pacific Fleet Cold War operations during maximum Soviet Pacific Fleet expansion. Maintained surveillance on Soviet submarines operating out of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk through the period when the Soviet Navy was building toward its Cold War peak strength.

Arctic under-ice operations 1971. Declassified photographs of that mission. showing the ice canopy from below and the blue-green light of the polar ocean. became widely circulated online. Atlantic and Pacific deployments through Cold War service.

Atlantic Fleet. North Atlantic Cold War ASW operations. Primary response to the Soviet submarine threat against NATO's Atlantic sea lanes. The lifelines that would have supplied Europe in any conventional war with the Warsaw Pact ran through Bluefish's operating area.

Atlantic Fleet Cold War anti-submarine warfare. Sturgeon class remained the most capable American fast-attack design through most of the 1970s. Billfish and her sisters bridged the gap between the Permit class and the Aegis era.

Named for SS-228. most intact surviving WWII American submarine, preserved at Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama. The original Drum: 12 war patrols, 15 Japanese ships sunk. SSN-677 carried that name into three decades of Cold War nuclear service.

Named for SS-311, which on 29 November 1944 sank the Japanese carrier Shinano. Largest warship ever sunk by a submarine. Shinano had been in service less than 24 hours. SSN-678 carried that name into three decades of Cold War service.

Named for SS-236, second-highest scoring American WWII submarine. 23 ships sunk on 14 war patrols. Original Silversides preserved at the Great Lakes Naval Memorial in Muskegon, Michigan. SSN-679 carried the name into the nuclear era.

Named for the Massachusetts congressman whose career on the House Armed Services Committee funded the nuclear submarine fleet. Naming a submarine for a congressman was unusual. Naming one for the man who spent his career building the Navy that built submarines was appropriate.

Named for SS-310, which sank three Japanese submarines in four days in February 1945. Most submarines sunk by any single American submarine in the war. Original Batfish preserved at Muskogee War Memorial Park in Oklahoma. SSN-681 carried that anti-submarine warfare legacy into the Cold War.

Named for SS-282, modified in the 1950s to carry Loon missiles. an early experiment with submarine-launched cruise missiles. SSN-682 operated in a fleet where submarine-launched missiles had become standard equipment. Pacific Fleet Cold War service.

Most decorated American submarine of the Cold War. Nine Presidential Unit Citations. Multiple Navy Unit Commendations. Missions almost entirely classified to this day. Underwater cable tapping and intelligence collection operations. More decorations than any other submarine in American history. The specifics may never be fully declassified.

Named for SS-244, which on 19 June 1944 sank the Japanese carrier Shokaku during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Shokaku had participated in the Pearl Harbor attack. SSN-684 carried that name into Cold War nuclear service across multiple decades.

Named for the South Carolina congressman who chaired the House Armed Services Committee 1965-1971. Most powerful congressional advocate for military spending of his era. Said if the Pentagon asked for a dollar he would give them two. Named a nuclear submarine for him because he earned it.

Last Sturgeon-class submarine. Named for the Georgia senator who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee through the Cold War's most critical decades. SSN-687 was the final boat of a class of 37 that bore the primary burden of American undersea operations through the Cold War.