For 25 years, the decommissioned submarine tender ex-USS McKee (AS 41) was not only a part of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) waterfront, but also a testament to a legacy of brothers that stretched over eighty years. This time on Heritage Hour, we look back at the McKee brothers who both contributed to the history of NNSY in very different ways.
To start at the beginning of their NNSY story, we must look to August 1953 when Rear Adm. Logan McKee took over as shipyard commander from Capt. Leahy in a modest ceremony outside Building 33, arriving with praise and a pledge of support for all the shipyard’s personnel. He was often quoted saying “Service to the Fleet [was the] best and most appropriate slogan possible” and vowed to have it be his guiding principle for as long as he served. In his time as shipyard commander, Rear Adm. McKee oversaw many visits from Washington D.C. officials, including the Secretary of the Navy and Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. By September 1956, he received orders that moved him to San Francisco where he served as Inspector General for the Bureau of Ships, a bureau that eventually became the much more recognizable: Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).
Twenty-five years later in August of 1981, USS McKee was commissioned in Seattle, Washington and named for Rear Adm. Logan McKee’s older brother Rear Adm. Andrew McKee. The elder McKee, found unfit for sea duty after an accident early in his naval career, devoted his life to the development of submarines. Serving at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Mare Island Naval Shipyard and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, McKee oversaw the design of USS Dolphin (AGSS 555) and the introduction of the all-welded pressure hull. He became the shipyard commander of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in August 1945 before retiring in 1947. However, his contributions to the Navy continues when he joined General Dynamic’s Electric Boat Division where he worked as a research and design engineer and later a senior technical advisor until 1974. Sadly, he passed away before the ship that bore his name launched.
USS Mckee served as part of the Pacific Fleet submarines for 18 years and received multiple recognitions including four Battle Efficiency “E” awards, the last of which was awarded following a deployment to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. Decommissioned in 1999 and sent to NNSY, the tender was finally struck from the Naval Register in 2006. While the tender has now departed and the McKee brothers have both passed on, their legacy will always be remembered in the pages of NNSY’s history. One as the commanding officer of NNSY, the other as a testament to the development of submarines repaired and modernized by the workforce to this day.
Date Taken: | 08.01.2024 |
Date Posted: | 08.30.2024 14:14 |
Story ID: | 479876 |
Location: | PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA, US |
Web Views: | 113 |
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