U.S. Navy Commissions First Sub With Female Enlisted Crewmembers

The U.S. Navy has commissioned its first attack sub capable of accommodating both male and female enlisted personnel, USS New Jersey. Female officers have served aboard U.S. Navy subs since 2011, but it has taken longer to adapt the berthing section for the rest of the crew. Construction on USS New Jersey began in 2015, and this first gender-integrated boat entered service nine years later.

"This is really the first time the Navy is truly planning for the future regarding manning and taking advantage of the entire population, for finding those rare humans who can be and should be submariners," said one crewmember in a promotional video released Saturday. 

????? USS New Jersey (SSN 796) is now commissioned and ready for service! The Navy's latest Virginia-class submarine joins the fleet. Watch the video to learn more about the Navy's newest sub. #USSNewJersey #USNavy #Submarine #NavalPower pic.twitter.com/PEGlDaWRMw

— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) September 14, 2024

The Navy faces a profound manning shortfall, and it can now fill openings in the "silent service" by recruiting from a larger pool of available candidates. Since the majority of U.S. citizens are female, the surface fleet has long benefited from the ability to recruit from the full pool of eligible candidates for enlisted roles. About 20 percent of all Navy enlisted personnel are women, higher than the average for all of the armed forces. 

Though the submarine force has not been able to recruit female enlisteds for frontline roles until recently, it has benefited from the recruitment of female commissioned officers over the past decade. Because of the technical demands of the job, the selection process requires a large number of potential recruits to produce a small number of qualified personnel.

"The integration of women on submarines served to increase the talent pool,” said Lt. Sabrina Reyes-Dods, the Women in Submarines (WIS) coordinator at Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic in 2021. "Women make up 57 percent of all degree-seeking college students and earn half of all science and engineering-based bachelor degrees. Twenty percent of U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen and 28 percent of NROTC midshipmen are women. With the ongoing challenge of recruiting highly trained officers, integrating women allowed the Submarine Force to attract the nation’s best and brightest."

The Navy quickly leveraged the symbolism of USS New Jersey for recruiting purposes, releasing a video featuring female submariners. "[New Jersey] isn’t just a powerhouse beneath the waves, it’s a symbol of progress breaking barriers as it protects our shores," a narrator for the video suggests. "The future of Navy warfare starts here, and it’s more inclusive, stronger and more capable than ever."