The looks on the faces of officials at Tuesday's 100th birthday celebration for Naval Submarine Base New London will be the exact opposite of those worn by Connecticut's governor and congressional delegation on May 13, 2005.

That day, with the announcement that the Pentagon had listed the 89-year-old Groton base for closure, a shocked Gov. M. Jodi Rell, U.S. Sen Joe Lieberman and Second Congressional District Rep. Rob Simmons stood before microphones at a downtown New London hotel and gave the bad news. Their grim, stunned expressions, captured by news photographers, made clear that they had been caught off guard.

Today, after a decade of rebuilding its infrastructure with help from the state of Connecticut, and with the addition of the new Undersea Warfighting Development Center, the base will start its second century as an anchor for the nation's security, the state's economy, and the region's identity. 

In a morning ceremony at the Submarine Force Museum and Library outside the gates, the Navy will ring out the first 100 years and ring in the second for the base and the Naval Submarine School. This time the governor, Rell's successor, Dannel P. Malloy, and the district's congressman, Joe Courtney, can smile.

The date marks exactly a century since the New London Submarine Flotilla and the sub school officially became the first permanent submarine base in the continental United States.

As America entered World War I, the school had been training submariners for about a year. As the country fought the Second World War on both the Pacific and Atlantic fronts, the base was training crews and deploying submarines around the globe. The first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus (SSN 571), and its sister ships joined the Groton-based fleet during the Cold War and greatly shaped the keeping of the peace. Subsequent classes of submarines — mostly built downriver at Electric Boat — took over patrol and continue to keep the United States dominant under the seas.

With about 10,000 military and civilian employees, Sub Base New London has an estimated economic impact of $5 billion. But that is only part of its regional effect. For a century submariners and their families have brought their talents, principles, tastes and faiths to this region, diversifying local communities with people from other parts of the United States and its territories. Retired submariners have made this their permanent homeport and gone on to elected office in Groton, New London, Ledyard and other towns; become submarine builders at EB; and operated the nuclear power plants at Millstone, among other contributions.

Connecticut continues to partner with the Navy to modernize the base's infrastructure. Of $40 million authorized by the General Assembly two years after BRAC, about $14 million has gone into security enhancement, design of an electric microgrid, demolition of old facilities and construction of new ones, as part of a $250 million modernization by the federal government.

The state Office of Military Affairs, created by Rell after BRAC and now led by Navy veteran and former Salem First Selectman Robert Ross, works with the Navy to identify future projects for state involvement.

One cliffhanger after another marked that summer of 2005 as a local coalition of elected and community leaders, in concert with Rell and the congressional delegation, rallied and convinced the federal Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission that the facility was too valuable to lose. 

From the urgency of making the case for the base grew a broader, more sophisticated appreciation of its state and local impact. The region's economy, which has struggled to recover from the Great Recession, would have been far more devastated had the base closed. Submarine manufacturer Electric Boat, rather than expanding, might now be reducing operations locally or have already left.

The new century will offer challenges and opportunities that the first Groton submariners couldn't have imagined: melting polar ice, rising seas, deployment of special forces, electronic intelligence gathering. Entering its second century the submarine service has a new asset: the women who now train at the sub school and are joining the submarine force in growing numbers.

Connecticut's Submarine Century, a year-long celebration proclaimed by Gov. Malloy last October, will be in birthday party mode with congratulatory public events all week in Groton.

Many happy returns.