Rear Admiral Griffith was my CO (Cdr. then) on the USS CASIMIR PULASKI SSBN-633(B) (His tour was 1971/1973.) He was personally selected by Rickover to be the first OIC of the NR-1 through 3 years of it's construction at EB followed by subsequent NR-1 operations until he was assigned to duty on the boomers. (NR-1 is not a commissioned vessel, hence no CO). Image left:   D.O.Griffith NR-1/OIC shown on the NR-1 CLICK for full screen Image 08/22/02 Image was copied from the new NR-1 Book website.   Link to book website ~~NR-1 images via NavSource ~~Link to Jason Project & NR-1 Has drawings too. ~~DARK WATERS book review by Robert Hamilton: The Day Online

Some of the info below was provided to me by Mrs. Griffith and some I lifted from his obituary which was sent to me two years ago when he died.

Rear Admiral Griffith was a native of Shoshone, Idaho and a graduate of the Univ. of Idaho. He spent nearly all of his naval career in submarines or submarine related assignments. He left the PULASKI as a result of being diagnosed with Hodgkins disease in April of 1974. During the follow-on extensive cancer treatments he was assigned as the Director of officer training at the Sub School NLon.

In 1978, with the cancer in remission, he was deemed fit-for-command and he took command of the submarine tender, USS CANOPUS in Rota Spain. Following CANOPUS, he served on the CNO staff from 1980 to 1983. In 1983 he was named deep submergence systems director and was promoted to RADM in 1985 and retired in 1991. He served from 1991 until 1994 as the civilian director of the Navy's deep submergence systems division and special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy.

My personal remembrances of then "Captain" Griffith on the PULASKI, was that he personified the very opposite of the Hollywood stereotype of a submarine skipper. An extremely competent, quiet professional that rarely raised his voice. An officer who was unpretentious and always had time to talk with subordinates and never talked down to them. He was rarely without his pipe so you always knew he was "there" without having to turn around. Also I recall the "unanswered questions". If he asked a question and you didn't know the answer he would just ease that pipe into his mouth, nod and walk away. You were expected to find the answer and show up at his stateroom door with it... and soon. That applied to everyone on board from E2 and up.

D.O. Griffith looms large in my memory as one of the more outstanding officers I ever served under. [  Me and CDR GRIFFITH on the Conn. SSBN-633 in 1972
Tim Tribble EMC(SS) and Dick Ostrander FTCS(SS) in background  ]

I will be contacting some others whose names were provided to me by Mrs. Griffith and will provide any corrections or additions to the draft shown above. She was a bit shocked at the fact that NR-1 actually had a web page in light of it's secretive past. She said that when he was OIC not even he could take a visitor on board (even his boss) without the approval of Code 08.

Admiral Griffith was also instrumental in greasing the skids for Dr. Robert Ballard to utilize the NR-1 for his current research.

I remember standing on the pier in Groton looking "down" at what appeared to be a toy submarine. Some toy.
D.O. Griffith died in 1996.