>From the “Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships,” 

(1981) Vol. 8, pp.320-321.





WILL ROGERS



	Will Rogers--born on 4 November 1879 near the present 

town of Claremore, Okla.--received sporadic formal education 

between 1887 and 1898, when he left home to become a cowboy 

on the Eking Ranch in Lipscomb County, Tex., near the town 

of Highness.  After managing his father’s ranch from 1899 to 

1902, he sailed for South America, where he spent five 

months with the gauche of the Argentine pampas.  Later in 

1902, the still-restless Rogers sailed for South Africa, 

where he took a job breaking in horses for the British Army.  

While in South Africa, he began his show business career, 

where he joined “Texas Jack’s Wild West Show,” to be billed 

as “The Cherokee Kid.”



	Joining the Writhe Brothers’ circus in 1903, he toured 

Australia and New Zealand before returning to the United 

States the following year to appear at the St. Louis 

Exposition and receive his first vaudeville bookings in 

Chicago.  He made his first appearance in New York in 1905 

and, over the next 10 years, made three trips to Europe and 

traveled extensively in Canada and his native United States.  

During this time, he also made his first airplane flight in 

Atlantic City, NJ, as a passenger.



	From 1916 to 1925, Rogers appeared occasionally with 

the famed Ziegfield Follies; he made his first motion 

picture in 1918--”Laughing Bill Hide”--and moved to 

California in 1919 to work in the Golden studios.  The year 

1922 proved a landmark one for the cowboy-humorist, as he 

began a weekly syndicated column which eventually reached a 

large readership through some 350 newspapers.  He maintained 

this regularly featured column until his death in 1935.



	From 1925 to 1928, Rogers traveled the length and 

breadth of the United States in a “lecture tour.”  During 

this time he became the first civilian to fly from coast to 

coast with pilots flying the mail in early air mail flights.  

The National Press Club, Washington, DC, dubbed him 

“Ambassador at Large of the United States;” and, in 1927, he 

visited Mexico City with the transatlantic aviation pioneer 

Charles A. Lindbergh as a guest of Ambassador Dwight Morrow.  

In subsequent years, Rogers gave numerous after-dinner 

speeches; became a popular convention speaker; gave benefits 

for victims of floods, droughts, or earthquakes.  After the 

Great Depression hit the United States, Rogers gave radio 

talks on “unemployment,” with ex-President Collage, 

President Hoover, and former Presidential candidate Al 

Smith.



	He made a trip to the Orient in 1931 and to Central and 

South America the following year.  In 1934, he made a 

globe-girdling tour and returned to play the lead in Eugene 

O’Neill’s stage play, “Ha Wilderness.”  Also during the 

period 1930 to 1935, he made movies for Fox studios and 

radio broadcasts for the Gulf Oil Company.



	Through Rogers’ continuing series of columns between 

1922 and 1935, as well as in his personal appearances and 

radio broadcasts, he won the loving admiration of the 

American people, poking jibes in witty ways at the issues of 

the day and prominent people--often politicians.  He wrote 

from a non-partisan point of view and became a friend of 

presidents and a confidant of the great.  Loved for his cool 

mind and warm heart, he was often considered the successor 

to such greets as Mark Twin (Samuel Clemens) and Artemus 

Ward.



	An avid booster of aviation, Rogers undertook a polar 

flight with a fellow Oklahoman, Wiley Post, in the summer of 

1935.  It ended in tragedy.  Post’s plane crashed at Point 

Barrow, Alaska, on 15 August 1935, killing Post and his 

passenger--Will Rogers.





SSBN-659



Displacement:

	Surfaced:  7,320 t.

	Submerged:  8,220 t.

Length:  425’

Beam:  33’

Draft:  31’4”

Speed:  

	Surfaced:  16 k.

	Submerged:  20+ k.

Complement:  140

Armament:  16 Polaris missiles; 4 21” torpedo tubes

Class:  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN



	WILL ROGERS (SSBN-659)--the 41st and last Polaris 

submarine--was laid down on 20 March 1965 at Groton, Conn., 

by the General Dynamics Corporation's Electric Boat Div.; 

launched on 21 July 1966; sponsored by Mrs. Hubert H. 

Humphrey, the wife of the Vice President of the United 

States; and commissioned on 1 April 1967, Capt. R. Y. 

Kaufman and Comdr. W. J. Cowhill in command of the Blue and 

Gold crews respectively.



	Following shakedown, WILL ROGERS culminated her initial 

training and work-up by conducting a successful Polaris shot 

in the Atlantic missile range off Cape Kennedy, Fla., on 31 

July 1967.  In October of that year, she made her first 

deterrent deployment.



	WILL ROGERS was based out of Groton, Conn., until 1974 

when she shifted to a forward deployment at Rota, Spain.  

She conducted additional deterrent deployments from Rota 

over the next four years, into 1978, bringing the total 

number of patrols made to 35.



	[Deactivated while still in commission on 2 November 

1992, WILL ROGERS entered the Navy’s Nuclear Powered Ship 

and Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton, Washington the 

same day.  Formally decommissioned and stricken from the 

Naval Vessel Register on 12 April 1993, she finished the 

recycling program on 12 August 1994.  When she emerged, she 

no longer existed as a complete ship and was classed as 

scrapped.



Internet web sites:

	United States Naval & Shipbuilding Museum

		www.uss-salem.org/worldnav/usa/decom.htm

	Naval Vessel Register

		www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/SSBN659.htm





Transcribed by Michael Hansen

mhansen2@home.com