Last December, on a bitterly cold and snowy Saturday, thousands of people packed Canalside to welcome the new USS Little Rock into the Navy.
Next month, near a naval base across the country, sailors and civilians will hold a wake for another ship with close ties to Buffalo.
The USS Buffalo, a Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine that launched in 1982, has concluded its service with the Navy.
It’s a somber final act for a sub whose name provided a badly needed shot of hometown pride. The ship carried the Queen City’s name to the other side of the world, completing key missions from the Cold War to the War on Terror.
“Buffalo, in its true spirit, went overboard at the launch and everything else,” said James F. Dentinger, the local developer whose late father, Fred, was a key link between naval officials and this area for many years.
Workers now are carefully removing the Buffalo’s nuclear reactor and, following its decommissioning, will scrap the ship.
But before that happens, a group of Western New Yorkers will join crew members past and present in July in Washington State to eulogize the USS Buffalo.
“It completes the circle in a very dignified way,” said Maurice L. “Moe” Naylon III, chairman of the local USS Little Rock Commissioning Committee.
This submarine is the third U.S. ship named after Buffalo, according to Navy history. The first served as a patrol vessel and flotilla flagship during the War of 1812. The second served in the early 20th century and as a destroyer tender during World War I before its decommissioning in 1922.
Jack Kemp, for many years as an influential Republican member of Congress from Hamburg, is credited with winning the Defense Department’s approval to name another ship after Buffalo.
The keel for the 360-foot-long sub was laid in 1980 at the Newport News Shipbuilding Yard in Newport News, Va. Construction was finished two years later at a cost of an estimated $333 million, or more than $868 million today.
Several thousand people traveled from this area to Newport News for the launch on May 8, 1982. Guests included then-Buffalo Mayor Jimmy Griffin and then-Erie County Executive Edward Rutkowski.
Joanne Kemp, the congressman’s wife and ship’s sponsor, broke a bottle of champagne on the ship as it slipped into the water while their son, Jimmy, then 11 years old, stood on the sub’s sail, or tower.
“There was no doubt that this was a really special day and a big deal,” said Jimmy Kemp, now president of the foundation named after his late father.
For Rutkowski and the rest of the local delegation, naming the sub was a boost to a region reeling from a series of blows. The Courier-Express newspaper folded in 1982; Bethlehem Steel Corp. announced it would close its massive plant in Lackawanna; and the Bills that season started a run of six years without making the playoffs.
“That really was a tough time,” Rutkowski said. “It meant an awful lot to us.”
On the sub, Buffalo pride
The USS Buffalo, with the motto “Silent Thunder,” was commissioned on Nov. 5, 1983, at the height of “The Hunt for Red October” days of the Cold War.
Los Angeles-class fast-attack subs like the Buffalo are prepared to wage war against other subs and surface ships, launch mines and gliders and conduct surveillance and reconnaissance, according to the Navy.
“Attack submarines are very versatile,” said Mike Hewitt, a retired Navy captain and the Buffalo’s first commander.
A part of the Pacific Fleet’s submarine force, the USS Buffalo was stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Guam.
Buffalo embraced the sub. The original crew received “Talking Proud” bumper stickers. Bills- and other Buffalo-themed memorabilia filled the ship.
“There was a Kittinger rocking chair that was given to each skipper for their house that still exists,” James Dentinger said.
