USS Skate (SSN-578)

USS Skate (SSN-578) was the lead ship of the Skate class of nuclear submarines of the United States Navy and the third nuclear submarine commissioned. The Electric Boat division of General Dynamics received the contract on 18 July 1955 and laid her keel at Groton, Connecticut, three days later; she was launched on 16 May 1957 and commissioned on 23 December 1957 under Commander James F. Calvert. In 1958 she made the first completely submerged trans-Atlantic crossing by a submarine, reached the North Pole as the second submarine to do so, and later became the first to surface there. She was decommissioned on 12 September 1986, struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 October 1986, and disposed of by submarine recycling at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 1995.