For U.S. Navy veteran and Waverly High School graduate David Farran the April 5 commissioning of the new U.S. Navy submarine, the U.S.S. Iowa, is a proud moment for not only himself, but all Iowans.
Farran, a six-year Navy veteran who served a total of three years on a nuclear submarine in the 1960s, has been traveling around Waverly and Bremer County in recent weeks to promote and invite people to a watch party at the Waverly Area Veterans Post the morning of Saturday, April 5.
That watch party at the WAVP is one of more than a dozen planned across the Hawkeye State on April 5 as excited and proud military veterans and others gather to watch the official commissioning of the U.S.S. Iowa.
“It will be a great event,” Farran said of the watch party, for which doors open at 8 a.m. and the live stream of ceremonies begins at 9 a.m. The affair will be hosted in the lower level of the WAVP, and attendees are encouraged to arrive early.
“It is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Not many states get to have a ship commissioned in the state’s name,” he added. “Being able to be a part of this event, even remotely, is something someone living today will likely never be able to experience again in their life. There will not be another U.S.S. Iowa in our lifetimes.”
The submarine is – per U.S. Navy information on the new warship – technically U.S.S. Iowa SSN 797, a Virginia-class nuclear-power stealth submarine with the most modern technology in existence. It is being commissioned during a ceremony in Groton, Connecticut.
“There are three major events for a new ship or submarine. There is the keel-laying, then they do the christening – which is the bottle breaking on the bow,” Farran explained. “Then there is the commissioning, which is the point when the ship ownership transfers from the shipyard that constructed it to the Navy. Once commissioned, the ship then becomes a member of the Navy fleet.”
According to Navy press releases on the new submarine, it is named in honor of the previous U.S.S. Iowa, an Iowa-class battleship that was launched in 1942 and served with distinction in World War II, the Korean War and throughout much of the Cold War.
Farran, who is in his late 80s, has been visiting businesses and the Waverly Newspapers newsroom for the past several weeks, always with his new U.S.S. Iowa SSN 797 baseball cap on, which has his “earned” submariner’s double dolphins gold pin proudly centered for all to see.
Those outreach efforts are the final stages in his 15 years of advocacy in collaboration with hundreds of other Iowans who served in the Navy and military. Their goal was to get a new Navy ship or submarine named after the state of Iowa, efforts that began, he said, in 2009. Those lobbying actions led to – on Sept. 9, 2015 – the official naming of the new submarine as the U.S.S. Iowa.
The new submarine had its keel laid on Aug. 19, 2019, and the next day, submarine sponsor and former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack signed the keel in a ceremony intended to make her initials a part of the ship forever, Navy officials stated on the submarine’s informational webpage.
On June 17, 2023, the new submarine was christened by Christie Vilsack in a ceremony attended by more than 3,000 people and dignitaries. The submarine has been constructed by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics.
Farran said his dedication to the new submarine stems from his proud service in the U.S. Navy as a submariner but also because of the namesake state – Iowa – which he has called home since he relocated to the Waverly-Shell Rock area in 1951 at age 14.
Born in Missouri, Farran’s family relocated to the region for his freshman year at the former Waverly High School in 1951. He later graduated, briefly attended college and then enlisted in the Navy in 1960.
“I am from Iowa. I like Iowa. I think it is a pretty good place,” Farran said. “I was in the Navy at the beginning of the nuclear ship era.”
After successfully graduating from Navy boot camp, completing the Electronic Technician “A” school; passing out of submarine school and then doing a final nuclear submarine training school, Farran was deployed to a submarine in late 1962.
Submariners, he said, are special people. Those who serve in the underwater warships have to have many abilities, including the mental and physical fortitude to live in a small place and in close proximity to other sailors, but also to do many jobs beyond their own.
“If you are out at sea and the guy that is running the reactor has a heart attack and dies, you can’t just park the submarine and call for help,” he explained. “You have to have somebody else who can do that job.”
Farran said an estimated 2% of personnel in the Navy serve on a submarine, and he is especially proud of his time on a submarine.
Pointing to his golden “Submariner’s Dolphins” pin – which has two elaborately detailed dolphins on each side looking at each other with a submarine in the middle, he sternly said, “you have to earn them.”
The statement in the Navy is “dolphins are earned, not given,’” Farran added.
As for the Saturday, April 5, watch party planned at the WAVP, Farran said he hopes as many people as possible can come to watch.
“The WAVP could hold up to 150, I think, in the lower level,” he said. “But, if it gets much larger, we may need to move it partially outdoors. I have a ticket to the ceremony in Connecticut sitting at home. I wish I could go, but I physically can’t make it.”