Submarine History

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the American colonies in 1777. Just 20 years old, the French nobleman had become caught up in the cause of American [...]

On 11 February 1943, USS GRAMPUS (SS-207) and USS GRAYBACK (SS-208) stood out from Brisbane, Australia. It was GRAMPUS’s sixth war patrol and the one from which she would never return. […]

During the early months of 1942, the Japanese, fresh from their successful attack on Pearl Harbor, began gobbling up territory in southeast Asia. An invasion of Java was imminent. Several American submarines were dispatched to attempt to prevent it, including [...]

Thirty-four years ago today, on 3 March 1980, USS NAUTILUS (SSN-571), was decommissioned after 25 years of service as the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. […]

On 8 February 1944, USS TROUT (SS-202), fresh from an overhaul, departed Pearl Harbor on her eleventh war patrol. She filled her fuel tanks at Midway eight days later and then headed for the East China Sea. She never returned [...]

USS GRAYBACK (SS-208) left Pearl Harbor for her tenth war patrol on 28 January 1944. She topped off with fuel at Midway and then headed for the strait that separates Luzon in the Philippines from Taiwan, then known as Formosa. [...]

15 April 2003 was a big day for the crew of USS TOLEDO (SSN-769), and not because the men were scrambling to file last-minute tax returns. Early in the afternoon, TOLEDO made her way up the Thames River to her [...]

May and June of 1945 found USS TIGRONE (SS-419) on lifeguard duty off the coast of Honshu, Japan. It was the second war patrol the boat had ever set off on, having been commissioned only the previous October. [...]

In the late summer of 1952, a strange pair of Navy vehicles arrived at Naval Air Station Key West on Boca Chica Key in Florida: the submarine USS SEA POACHER (SS-406) towing a giant blimp called K-86. Dan Summitt, an [...]

Ever since submarines began diving beneath the waves, there have been concerns about whether or not crewmen could be rescued if a boat found itself unable to return to the surface. In the 15 April 1958 edition of Our Navy [...]