LETTER – TO THE CHARLESTON POST & COURIER TUESDAY, 11 MAY 2004

/Our country lost a real hero and patriot when retired Navy Rear Admiral James B. Osborn died Mach 301h in Summer ville. A brilliant man and inspirational leader, Admiral Osborn had a distinguished naval career that included service in three wars (World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War). During the last of these, he was in command at Danang in 1968 during the notorious Tet Offensive.

Of particular significance, he was one of the earliest pioneers in the Navy’s submarine guided missile program in the early 1950s and commanded the first guided missile submarine, USS TUNNY (SSG 282). In the late 1950s, when the decision had been made to marry the nuclear-armed ballistic missile to the new nuclear-powered submarine, he was selected from a host of highly qualified submariners to be the first commanding officer of the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (SSBN 598), our first ballistic missile (FBM) submarine, better known then as Polaris submarine, then being built at the Electric Boat Co. in Groton, Conn.

What is little known today is what an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking that new Polaris program was. Every element of the Polaris weapon system-missile propulsion, missile guidance, missile checkout, fire control, navigation, launcher and ship control-was based on state-of-the-art technology that had never gone to sea before, much less in a submarine. Today it takes more than a decade to place even an improved weapon system in operation. From conception to at sea on patrol, it took less than four years for the GEORGE WASHINGTON.

This was a monumental achievement, and the man most responsible for its early success at the shipboard level was Admiral Osborn. He conducted the first ever launch of a missile from a submerged submarine, then went on to take GEORGE WASHINGTON on the first Polaris patrol from Charleston in November 1960. In conducting that first patrol, Admiral Osborn and his crew were required to overcome a myriad of difficult technical problems. The U.S. Submarine Force has conducted more than 3,000 ballistic missile patrols since then, many out of Charleston, and they have become almost routine about those early patrols.

Many observers credit the U.S. Navy’s FBM submarine fleet with being the primary factor in our victory over the Soviet Union in the long Cold War the Soviets tried relentlessly to locate and/or neutralize our FBM submarine deterrent, but were never remotely successful. Admiral Osborn deserves great credit for his significant part in that great victory.

Admiral Osborn was a hero to a generation of submariners. His many devoted shipmates will always remember him and will miss him greatly.