USS Pintado (SSN-672)

USS Pintado (SSN-672), a short hull Sturgeon-class attack submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the pintado, a large mackerel-like fish, whose elongated spots suggested the Spanish language word meaning "painted."

Construction and commissioning

The contract to build Pintado was awarded to Mare Island Naval Shipyard, at Vallejo, California, on 29 December 1965, and her keel was laid down there on 27 October 1967. She was launched on 16 August 1969, sponsored by Mrs. Bernard A. Clarey, the wife of the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Bernard A. "Chick" Clarey (1912–1996), and commissioned on 11 September 1971.

Service history

Pintado was assigned San Diego, California, as her home port. She commenced her first operational deployment to the United States Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific in November 1972, returning to San Diego, in February 1973. Pintado conducted her second operational deployment from April to September 1974.

In May 1974 Pintado collided with a Soviet Navy YANKEE class ballistic missile submarine in the approaches to the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky naval base on the Soviet Union's Kamchatka Peninsula. The collision smashed much of Pintado's sonar sphere, jammed one of her a starboard-side torpedo hatches shut, and moderately damaging one of her diving planes. The commanding officer, then-Commander J. Guy Reynolds, later retired as a vice admiral. The Soviet submarine surfaced immediately, but the extent of damage to her was not known.