Oxford News

Connecticut sub center has sinking feeling

GROTON, Conn. — Nothing's sacred and nobody's exempt in eastern Connecticut's battle to save the country's oldest submarine base from closing and moving many of its men and machines 1,047 miles south to Kings Bay, Ga.

Preachers beseech the Almighty for spiritual intervention to keep open Naval Submarine Base New London. Politicians bluster about fairness, patriotism and economic ruin.

Ex-sailors now commissioned as community leaders exhort the citizenry to wave flags, buy "Save Our Sub Base" T-shirts and turn out in large numbers to show support for the Thames River base.

Schoolchildren have been enlisted. And Connecticut officials have dispatched spies to Georgia to size up their rival.

Today, Georgia will reinforce its case for Kings Bay at a Base Realignment and Closure Commission hearing in Atlanta. Connecticut will have its say Wednesday in Boston.

The Pentagon announced May 13 that the Navy's shrinking East Coast submarine fleet would be better served if operations were consolidated at Kings Bay and Norfolk, Va. No community would be hit as hard as Groton, population 40,000, across the Thames from New London. With 8,600 military and civilian jobs and an annual payroll of $452 million, the New London base is the Pentagon's largest target in this round of closings.

The Defense Department estimates that transferring the base's 18 fast-attack subs and support services would translate into $1.6 billion in savings over 20 years. It notes that Kings Bay possesses ample room to grow and is better located strategically in the post-Cold War era than New London, a Navy yard since 1868.

A study commissioned by the state of Connecticut concludes that 31,500 jobs and $3.3 billion in economic activity would ultimately vanish if the base, its submarine school and the nearby Electric Boat submarine-building factory close. Gov. M. Jodi Rell established a base-saving "strike force" and the legislature put up $1.5 million to fight the Pentagon. State lawmakers also approved $10 million in upgrades, if needed, to deepen the Thames.

'Kind of rural down there'

Rell questions whether coastal Georgia offers enough jobs, schools, doctors and video stores. Her spokesman, Rich Harris, was quoted as saying: "When you look at a map, it's kind of rural down there."

Connecticut sent three emloyees to Camden County earlier this month to gauge Georgia's ability to handle the growth. Walt Yourstone, executive director of the nonprofit Camden Partnership, says he was surprised by the Northerners' surreptitious visit. "I don't know why they were being so secretive," said Yourstone, a former commander of the Kings Bay Naval Base. "The mere fact that they seem to be grasping for a straw tells me they are desperate."

James Abromaitis, Connecticut's economic development commissioner, said the fact-finding mission's goal was to verify Pentagon data on housing, schools, hospitals and more.

"Why would [the Pentagon] want to rebuild what's already in place at Groton base?" he asked.

If experience counts

Experience might be Groton's best weapon. The Pentagon tried three times in the 1990s to close or downsize the base. John Markowicz, an ex-submariner partial to quoting Winston Churchill and Admiral Nelson, helped win the battle each time.

"My focus, basically, is take no prisoners," said Markowicz, executive director of the Southeastern Connecticut Enterprise Region in New London. "Don't give up the ship and all that. Because, overall, the impact would be quite devastating."

But some locals seem resigned this time to the base's demise.

"I had a young man in his 30s who has worked at the base for 17 years come to me the day the announcement was made. He was just really depressed. It seemed final to him," recalled Jim Schneider, pastor of Pleasant Valley Community of Prayer and Praise. "The community is fearful."

Schneider worries about filling the parish's food closet and Christmas baskets if the base closes.

Business suffers

Sharlene Aspinwall frets about selling her $375,000 colonial house in nearby Waterford. "The first two days on the market, the real estate guy said, 'I don't think it will last the weekend,' " Aspinwall recalled. "Now, ever since the sub base announcement, I'll get one [inquiry] a week and during a recent open house only one person came."

Her father owns Pop's Kitchen, Pop's Car Wash and Mum's Washtub Laundromat in a strip of shops along Route 12 leading to the base. Business was off 30 percent in May, says Pop, also known as Norbert "Bud" Fay.

A handmade sign in the laundromat, drawn by schoolchildren from nearby Ledyard, reads: "Don't close the navy base. We really do care. It affects us kids too you know."

Pulling out the stops

Fay, 77, knows. Which is why he cajoled a printer into making 9,000 placards, a nearby casino into providing buses for a rally and the local Coca-Cola bottler into donating water.

His enthusiasm is contagious. The Groton utility department donates space for Fay's war room equipped with computers and telephones. A T-shirt shop printed 8,000 "Save Our Sub Base" shirts at cost.

Fay knows, though, that historically only one base in 10 escapes the base-closing list.

But Groton will persevere. It has since the dark days of the Revolutionary War, when a turncoat named Benedict Arnold led British troops against the patriots in the Battle of Groton Heights.

It was Sept. 6, 1781, when the redcoats sailed up the Thames and laid siege to Fort Griswold.

"We will not give up the fort," said Col. William Ledyard, "let the consequences be what they may."

Ledyard and 88 men died in battle.

The fort was lost.

Dan Chapman writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: dchapman@ajc.com