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December of 1941 found USS SEALION (SS-195), commissioned in 1939 and the veteran of one war patrol, in the midst of a routine overhaul at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines. But she would never make it back to sea. [...]

Three days after they attacked Pearl Harbor, the Japanese occupied the Gilbert Islands, sixteen small atolls in the Pacific Ocean which comprise the main part of the Republic of Kiribati. This was a strategically brilliant move. It quickly became clear [...]

Just over a week after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, USS SILVERSIDES (SS-236) set out for Hawaii, eager to get into the fight. The very first page of her very first patrol report details the boat’s maiden encounter with [...]

At the end of every World-War-II patrol report, submarine commanding officers included an addendum in which they analyzed different aspects of the patrol, including attacks, weather, and defects and damage. Two other sections—typically entitled “Personnel” and “Health, Food, and Habitability”—discussed [...]

The fifth war patrol of USS SEAL (SS-183), which began on 24 October 1942, took her to the waters around Palau, a Pacific-island nation that lies about 500 miles east of the Philippines and 2,000 miles south of Japan. [...]

In the spring of 1972, journalist Patrick J. Sloyan of the San Antonio Light rode along with USS SAM RAYBURN (SSBN-635) for part of one of her deployments, then penned a series of pieces about life aboard the ballistic-missile submarine. [...]

  Just after 7 PM on 4 December 1965, astronauts Frank F. Borman, II, and James A. Lovell, Jr., were carried into outer space on Gemini VII. America’s twelfth manned space flight would last nearly fourteen days and carry Borman [...]

USS PORPOISE (SS-7) was laid down at Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, NJ, on 13 December 1900, just eight months after the United States Submarine Force was born. After her commissioning on 19 September 1903, PORPOISE experimented with the launching of [...]

On 10 January 1944, USS SKIPJACK (SS-184) headed out on her ninth war patrol in the central Pacific. On the morning of 25 January she came upon a convoy of two merchant ships and a destroyer. SKIPJACK’s crew tracked the [...]

On 11 February 1989, USS PASADENA (SSN-752) was commissioned. Little did her builders know that the boat’s crew would consist of more than just human beings. What follows is a newspaper article, written by JO2 Peter Hyde, that appeared in [...]