According to the U.S. Naval Institute, the first warship built in North America occurred while Britain was in charge of the 13 colonies.  It was the 54-gun frigate Falkland.  Constructed for the Royal Navy, she was launched in 1690 on Fernald’s Island, between the Maine and New Hampshire shores at the mouth of the Piscataqua River (surprisingly only 70 years after my wife’s great-grandparents arrived on the Mayflower).  In the intervening years, ships continued to be built on Fernald’s Island for the Royal Navy, and then the Continental Navy (during the American Revolution), and ultimately the U. S. Navy.  Fernald’s Island was joined over time with adjacent islands becoming the current site of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.  From its dedication to the U.S. Navy in 1800 until today, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has been an incredible asset to the United States.  It has supported both the construction and maintenance of numerous U.S. naval ships and submarines.  My first introduction to it was as a topside watch standing in front of the sail on Billfish in a freezing rain in the late Fall of 1974.  I was shivering from the cold, but my ears were kept somewhat warm by the sound powered phone headset I was wearing as I monitored Billfish’s approach to the shipyard’s docks.  Billfish spent about a year there in a complete equipment overhaul.  I finished my submarine quals and earned my dolphins while still there.  And in my off hours I played in a band made up of other Billfish crew members and played multiple gigs at the base’s Chiefs Club.  We were called “Spirit of ‘76” which was Billfish’s motto after her hull number (SSN-676).  A recording of the band and the names of the members can be found on my website gjreed.com.   One thing I didn’t know at the time was that the previous Billfish submarine (SS-286) had been built and later overhauled at the same Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that the more modern Billfish was being overhauled.  It turns out that because of the attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the U.S. entered World War II and began a significant military build-up.  This resulted in the first Billfish submarine being built in a four month period in 1942 (see picture below).  Of course she was a lot smaller than the Billfish I served on, and she didn’t have either nuclear propulsion or nuclear weapons – neither of which had been invented yet.  But she and her sister subs helped America and her allies win the war and return the world to a more peaceful existence.  Knowing this now makes me all the more fond of the memories I have about the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, an amazing historical site.