Naval Submarine Base New London Groton Connecticut Patch

Submarines first tied up on the Thames River at Groton on 18 October 1915, and the next year the Navy named the place its first submarine base. It carries the New London name, but the base sits in Groton, directly across the river from the city. The land goes back to 1868, when Connecticut gave the Navy 112 acres along the Thames for a naval station. Submariners know it as the Home of the Submarine Force. Enlisted sailors headed for the boats start here with Basic Enlisted Submarine School, an eight-week course at the Naval Submarine School.

From 1930 to 1994 the 100-foot Escape Training Tank stood on the base, where trainees made buoyant ascents from as deep as 80 feet with the Momsen lung and the Steinke hood. That job went to the Submarine Escape Trainer in 2007. On 13 May 2005 the Pentagon recommended closing the base, and on 24 August 2005 the Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted to take it off the list. Today it is home port to 16 attack submarines. USS Nautilus SSN-571, the first nuclear-powered submarine, is preserved at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton.

The patch is a 4 inch round with a black merrowed edge and a double ring of gold twisted rope. Between the ropes, black letters on white read "NAVAL SUBMARINE BASE NEW LONDON" across the top and "GROTON, CONN." along the bottom, with a small gold star on each side. In the center a grey submarine rides blue water past a green point of shore, with a tall lattice tower rising behind her. A gold atomic orbit loops around the hull, the mark of the nuclear Navy. Black rays fan out across the white sky above.

Groton is where a submarine career begins and where many crews come back between patrols. The base is quiet by nature, no flight deck and no parade of hardware, just piers, schoolhouses and the river. It trained submariners through two world wars and the whole of the Cold War, from the escape tank years to the nuclear boats. In 2005 it came off the closure list, and it is still the place the Submarine Force calls home. A submariner who spent time on the Thames will know this patch on sight.

It fits a shadow box beside a set of dolphins and a boat photo, or a jacket worn to a submarine veterans' reunion. It is also a good gift for a son or daughter who wants to know where the old man learned the boats. Measures 4 x 4 inches with a merrowed edge and iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on. For a lot of submariners, this is where it started.