operator uss griffin 
USS Griffin ( AS - 13 ) , originally Mormacpenn , a United States Maritime Commission Type C3 pre - war cargo ship , was launched by Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock , Chester , Pennsylvania , 11 October 1939 . She served briefly with Moore - McConnack , Inc . , was acquired by the Navy in 1940 , renamed Griffin ( AS - 13 ) and converted to a submarine tender at Robbins Dry Dock and Repair Company , Brooklyn , N . Y . Griffin commissioned 31 July 1941 , Comdr . S . D . Jupp in command . Her conversion completed in September 1941 , Griffin conducted shakedown off the East Coast and sailed with a sub squadron to Newfoundland 22 November 1941 . Recalled to Newport , Rhode Island , after Pearl Harbor , the ship was assigned to the United States Pacific Fleet , and departed 14 February 1942 for Australia . Griffin arrived Brisbane 15 April 1942 to tend Submarine Squadron 5 . Early in the war , the United States developed a major submarine base in Australia ; and submarines tended by Griffin struck hard at Japanese shipping while surface forces strengthened themselves for the first Pacific offensives . During this period Griffin also repaired merchant ships at a time of great need . The tender departed Brisbane for the Fiji Islands 11 November 1942 and 1 December 1942 sailed to Bora Bora to escort Submarine Division 53 to the Panama Canal Zone . Arriving Balboa 7 January 1943 , Griffin continued north to Oakland , California , arriving 20 January 1943 . After repairs at San Diego , California , Griffin again departed for the Pacific , sailing 27 April 1943 . She arrived Pearl Harbor 4 May 1943 to take up her vital support duties , and remained until 3 January 1944 . The ship performed refits , battle repairs , and general upkeep on submarines before sailing to Mare Island to arrive 10 January 1944 . Griffin returned to Pearl Harbor 17 March 1944 , and departed 8 April 1944 for the great submarine base at Fremantle , Western Australia . She arrived 8 May and immediately set about servicing the growing submarine fleet . The tender remained at Fremantle until 20 November 1944 , during her Stay founding a rubber fabrication shop which solved one of the great shortages on board the submarines . She then moved closer to the Japanese shipping lanes at Mios Woendi , New Guinea , arriving 9 December 1944 . There she tended submarines , surface craft of all kinds , and even lent her repair equipment to shore facilities . Griffin remained at Mios Woendi until 1 February 1945 when she sailed for Subic Bay , via Leyte . Arriving 10 February 1945 , Griffin set up one of the initial submarine repair facilities in the Philippines since 1942 . She also helped to salvage damaged destroyer La Vallette ( DD - 448 ) . Shifting base , the tender sailed 22 March 1945 via Leyte , and arrived in the Hawaiian Islands 10 April 1945 . After a brief stay at Pearl she departed 10 May 1945 for Midway , arrived 4 days later , and set up another repair facility for submarines . By that time submarines supported by Griffin had practically annihilated Japanese merchant shipping and had played a decisive role in the great Pacific offensive . She remained at Midway until 10 September 1945 , then sailed to Pearl Harbor and San Francisco , entering the bay 24 September . Decommissioned at Mare Island 12 October 1945 , the ship was placed in reserve . Later she transferred to the Stockton group , Pacific Reserve Fleet , where she remained in reserve , in service , tending reserve submarines , until at least 1967 . She was stricken in 1972 and transferred to MARAD . She was sold in 1973 . The United States Maritime Commission ( MARCOM ) was an independent executive agency of the U . S . federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 , passed by Congress on June 29 , 1936 , and replaced the United States Shipping Board which had existed since World War I . It was intended to formulate a merchant shipbuilding program to design and build five hundred modern merchant cargo ships to replace the World War I vintage vessels that comprised the bulk of the United States Merchant Marine , and to administer a subsidy system authorized by the Act to offset the cost differential between building in the U . S . and operating ships under the American flag . It also formed the United States Maritime Service for the training of seagoing ship ' s officers to man the new fleet . The City of New York , often called New York City or simply New York , is the most populous city in the United States . With an estimated 2015 population of 8 , 550 , 405 distributed over a land area of just , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States . Located at the ___MASK60___ tip of the state of New York , the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area , one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world . A global power city , New York City exerts a significant impact upon commerce , finance , media , art , fashion , research , technology , education , and entertainment , its fast pace defining the term " New York minute ". Home to the headquarters of the United Nations , New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world . The United States Merchant Marine refers to either United States civilian mariners , or to U . S . civilian and federally owned merchant vessels . Both the civilian mariners , and the merchant vessels , are managed by a combination of the government and private sectors , and engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States . The Merchant Marine primarily transports cargo and passengers during peacetime ; in times of war , the Merchant Marine can be an auxiliary to the ___MASK78___ , and can be called upon to deliver military personnel and materiel for the military . Merchant Marine officers may also be commissioned as military officers by the Department of Defense . This is commonly achieved by commissioning unlimited tonnage Merchant Marine officers as Strategic Sealift Officers in the Naval Reserves . Long Island is an island located just off the northeast coast of the United States and a region within the U . S . state of New York . Stretching east - northeast from New York Harbor into the Atlantic Ocean , the island comprises four counties : Kings and Queens ( which comprise the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens , respectively ) to the west ; then Nassau and Suffolk to the east . However , many people in the New York metropolitan area ( even those living in Brooklyn and Queens ) colloquially use the term " Long Island " ( or " The Island ") exclusively to ___MASK65___ to the Nassau  Suffolk county area collectively , which is mainly suburban in character . More generally , " Long Island " may also ___MASK65___ collectively both to the main Island as well as its nearby , surrounding outer barrier islands . North of the island is the Long Island Sound , across from which lie the states of Connecticut and a small part of Rhode Island across the Block Island Sound . Across the Sound , to the northwest , lies Westchester County on mainland New York . To the west , Long Island is separated from the Bronx and the island of Manhattan by the East River . To the extreme southwest , it is separated from the New York City borough of Staten Island and the U . S . state of New Jersey by Upper New York Bay , the Narrows , and Lower New York Bay . To the east lie Block Island and numerous smaller islands . A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater . It differs from a submersible , which has more limited underwater capability . The term most commonly refers to a large , crewed vessel . It is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to ___MASK65___ to remotely operated vehicles and robots , as well as medium - sized or smaller vessels , such as the midget submarine and the wet sub . Used as an adjective in phrases such as " submarine cable ", " submarine " means " under the sea ". The noun " submarine " evolved as a shortened form of " submarine boat " ( and is often further shortened to " sub "). For reasons of naval tradition , submarines are usually referred to as " boats " rather than as " ships ", regardless of their size . The United States Maritime Service ( USMS ) was established in 1938 under the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 . The mission of the organization is to train people to become officers and crewmembers on merchant ships that form the United States Merchant Marine per Title 46 U . S . Code 51701 . Heavily utilized during ___MASK29___ , the USMS has since been largely dissolved and / or absorbed into other federal departments , but its commissioned officers continue to function as administrators and instructors at the United States Merchant Marine Academy and the several maritime academies . Chester is a city in Delaware County , Pennsylvania , United States , with a population of 33 , 972 at the 2010 census . Chester is situated on the Delaware River , between the cities of ___MASK56___ and Wilmington , Delaware . The current mayor of Chester is Thaddeus Kirkland , elected on November 3 , 2015 and served his first day in office on January 4 , 2016 . A submarine tender is a type of ship that supplies and supports submarines . Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City , with a Census - estimated 2 , 636 , 735 residents in 2015 . It borders the borough of Queens at the southwestern end of Long Island . Since 1896 , Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County , the most populous county in the U . S . state of New York , and the second - most densely populated county in the United States , after the county of New York ( which is coextensive with the borough of Manhattan ). ___MASK56___ is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the fifth - most populous city in the United States , with an estimated population of 1 , 567 , 442 and more than 6 million in the seventh - largest metropolitan statistical area , . ___MASK56___ is the economic and cultural anchor of the Delaware Valleya region located in the Northeastern United States at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers with 7 . 2 million people residing in the eighth - largest combined statistical area in the United States . Pennsylvania ( Pennsylvania German : " Pennsylvaani "), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , is a state located in the northeastern and Mid - Atlantic regions of the United States . The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle . The commonwealth borders Delaware to the southeast , Maryland to the south , West Virginia to the southwest , Ohio to the west , Lake Erie and the Canadian province of ___MASK52___ to the northwest , New York to the north , and New Jersey to the east . A U . S . state is a constituent political entity of the ___MASK57___ . There are 50 states , which are bound together in a union with each other . Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a defined geographic territory , and shares its sovereignty with the United States federal government . Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the federal government , Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside . State citizenship and residency are flexible , and no government approval is required to move between states , except for persons covered by certain types of court orders ( e . g ., paroled convicts and children of divorced spouses who are sharing custody ).