Submarine History

1 March 1959 found USS HARDER (SS-568), a conventionally-powered (meaning non-nuclear) submarine participating in SUBICEX off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada along with USS TROUT (SS-566) and USS SKATE (SSN-578). […]

USS BARBEL (SS-316) departed Fremantle, Australia, for her fourth war patrol on 5 January 1945; she was bound for the South China Sea. Eight days later she teamed up with USS BLUEGILL (SS-242) and USS BREAM (SS-243) to cover the [...]

Richard Hetherington O’Kane was born in Dover, New Hampshire, on 2 February 1911. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1934 and spent his first four years in the navy on surface vessels. In 1938 he went to submarine school [...]

In March 2001, Smithsonian Magazine published an account, only recently declassified, of an underwater game of cat and mouse. The twist: the mouse didn’t know it was playing. What follows is Thomas B. Allen’s article, “Run Silent, Run Deep.” [...]

On 17 June 1945, PCU [Pre-Commissioning Unit] CUBERA (SS-347) was launched at Electric Boat Company in Groton, CT. Although she joined the fleet too late to take part in World War II, she made her mark on the silver screen [...]

About 30 minutes before sunset on 11 May 1944, USS CREVALLE (SS-291) surfaced off Negros Island in the Philippines. Her mission: to bring supplies to guerillas fighting the Japanese and pick up refugees. CREVALLE’s commanding officer, Frank Walker, remembers, “My [...]

Over the course of her World-War-II service, USS CREVALLE (SS-291) completed seven war patrols, won five battle stars and four Navy Unit Commendations, and sank close to 52,000 tons of shipping. During her first two war patrols, CREVALLE was commanded [...]

From the second war patrol report of USS DEVILFISH (SS-292). […]

As night fell on Balboa, Panama Canal Zone, on 24 January 1942, USS S-26 (SS-131) set out for a war patrol in the company of three other submarines—USS S-21 (SS-126), USS S-29 (SS-134), and USS S-44 (SS-155). A sub chaser, [...]

The hours just after midnight on the morning of 14 April 1945 found USS TIRANTE (SS-420), commanded by Lieutenant Commander George Street, in the waters off the northwestern coast of Quelpart (also known as Cheju) Island in the East China [...]