Orangeburg U.S. Navy veteran Dane Moseley spent his 3-1/2 years of military service several hundred feet below the ocean’s surface on the USS Francis Scott Key.
As a torpedoman on the nuclear submarine, Moseley knew the power at his fingertips.
He is thankful he never had to use it.
“Our job was to go out and try to remain undetected so if anything ever happened we could push the button and everybody would be … gone,” Moseley said, noting back then each submarine would carry about 16 warheads with one warhead being more powerful than an atomic bomb.
“You do the math, that is a lot of bomb there,” Moseley said. “That is one submarine, and at the time, there were 43 of them just like it. It is a deterrent because everybody is scared to use it. You do this and we do that and nobody wins.”
Moseley said for the most part, his service in the Navy on the 425-foot, 7,300-ton submarine was “peaceful,” but there were some disconcerting moments.
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“It only happened like twice the whole time I was there when another submarine detects you — you can tell it because their sonar sends out a ping,” Moseley said. “You can hear it hit the submarine. That is a weird feeling because you know someone has found you.”
“And you know it is not an American,” he continued. “Things can happen, things can disappear, you know. Nobody really knows. The submarines — they are always called the silent service because nobody talks about it.”
“That is a bad feeling, bo,” Moseley continued. “Ping! Oh hell. You don’t know who it is.”
Prior to embarking upon the sub in October 1977, Moseley first had to live his childhood and young teenage years as most do.
A son of a U.S. Navy veteran, Moseley graduated from Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School in 1973.
With his father being in the Navy, Moseley said perhaps military service was in the back of his mind all along, but it was not something he consciously thought about.
“One day, I was riding around and I said you know what I think I would join the Navy,” Moseley said. “It was kind of ut of the blue. I had been out of high school about a year been at Tech (Oraongeburg-Calhoun Technical College) for a while and kind of bored and I said, ‘Hey, I am going to join the Navy and that was it.”
Moseley joined the U.S. Navy in December 1974 as a seaman recruiter E1. He went to boot camp or basic training at the Naval Training Center in Orlando, Florida.
He would then leave Orlando to Groton, Connecticut, for submarine school before being introduced to Francis Scott Key. The submarine was a part of Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) 16 based in Rota, Spain.
“We would go over there (Rota, Spain) and get on the boat and go out for three months,” Moseley said. “Then come back in, fly back to Charleston and three months later fly back over and do the same thing. We would go out to sea for about 70 days and come back. The other crew would take over and they would go out.”
“I stayed in the torpedo room and just kind of kept an eye on everything to make sure everything was good and nothing blew up,” Moseley continued. “It was really kind of a peaceful experience. We basically kept the torpedo room clean and in order and ready to roll.”
Moseley said one of the most memorable times is when he went to Cocoa Beach, Florida, and participated in the test run of the Trident missile.
“We shot the first successful Trident missile,” Moseley said. “They always had Polaris missiles on a submarines and back that time, they went to the Trident missile, which was supposed to be bigger and better for the new Trident submarines.”
“We were down in Cocoa Beach for a few months where they back-fitted our boats and we went out and shot a couple of those missiles to make sure they were tested before they went into production with it,” Moseley said.
For Moseley, spending three months on a submarine was a different experience. Despite being away from family and friends, the 150 individuals on the sub in tight quarters quickly became friends.
“You have good friends carry on conversations, read books, listen to a lot of music,” Moseley recalled. “Basically, you passed away time.”
Of course, when he was not passing time, Moseley was standing watch for eight hour shifts.
Moseley said being under water for three months at a time did not bother him.
“When I went to submarine school, they run you through all kinds of tests,” Moseley said. “They kind of weed out the people.”
He said when he started the class, there were about 52 people, and when he graduated, there were 14.
There were a number of physical and mental tests that he and his fellow naval colleagues went through.
One was having to be placed in a small tank with seven other men
“You probably lost about a third of them in that exercise,” Moseley said. “Some of the people couldn’t comprehend the whole system of a submarine.”
He said there was also a 100-foot silo structure that the men would need to go into. The chamber would fill up with water, requiring all to have to swim out.
“A good many of them balked at that,” he said. “I think that exercise was to see if people would follow through what you were told to do.”
The tests proved beneficial for life on a submarine.
“Most people on a submarine are pretty relaxed, and every once in a while, somebody had a little crack up,” Moseley said. “That very rarely if ever happened. I think they do a good job of screening people.”
Moseley said the sub was pretty well self-contained with staff on board who could treat minor injuries and attend to basic medical needs.
“The only reason it ever has to come back up is you run out of food,” Moseley said. “You make your own water. You make your own oxygen.”
Moseley would end up being discharged from the Navy in December 1979 as a third-class petty officer. He was fully certified in submarines and received the Battle “E” award for Battle Efficiency a few times.
The criterion to receive the award is an overall readiness of the command to carry assigned wartime tasks. To win, a ship or unit must demonstrate the highest state of battle readiness.
“I enjoyed it,” Moseley said. “I learned a lot, but it was time to come home.”
Upon leaving the Navy, Moseley went to Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College on the GI bill, where he got an associate degree in business.
Moseley would end up getting married having two children and working in the manufacturing and car dealership fields.
Though he retired a little over a year ago, Moseley says he continues to be involved in veterans groups, specifically the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Moseley was the athletic director for American Legion Post 4 for about 20 years before leaving that position about two years ago.
“Both organizations do things for the community people don’t know about, Moseley said. “Plus, they represent the veterans to our Congress.”
Moseley said he keeps in touch with one of his sub colleagues through social media, but the others are all over the country.
“You make good friends and then ‘Hey, he gets out of the Navy and goes to Oregon and this one goes to Louisiana,” Moseley said. “You do make really good friends while you are in there because they are people you depend on and trust, but like everything else, life changes.”
For Moseley, he is enjoying life.
“Now I like to fish all the time and cut my grass,” he said. “That is about it.”
