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Saturday, July 3, 1999



Navy submarine returns
from last undersea Arctic
scientific voyage

USS Hawkbill, based at Pearl Harbor,
took UH scientists under the ice

Star-Bulletin staff

Tapa

The submarine USS Hawkbill has returned to Pearl Harbor after completing the fifth and last science expedition to the Arctic ocean in a joint venture between the Navy and National Science Foundation.

Submarines have been taking University of Hawaii and other scientists to the Arctic Ocean to collect data and increase military and scientific understanding of the region. The program ended because of a lack of submarines.

Rear Adm. Al Konetzni Jr., commander of the Pacific Submarine Force in Pearl Harbor, said the fleet has shrunk from 96 submarines in 1990 to a projected 50 by the year 2003.

"Planners are already being asked which valid missions the remaining submarines can fulfill and which missions will go unfulfilled," he said.

The Hawkbill, being inactivated next month, was the first Sturgeon-class submarine to travel under the ice in the Bering Strait in 1973.

It left here March 18 on its last trip and entered the edge of the ice pack off the Alaskan coast about a week later. It remained in the Arctic until May.

Among their goals, researchers wanted to evidence on whether climactic changes are part of a natural cycle or caused by mankind.



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