Submarine History

Commissioned on 4 April 1923, USS S-36 (SS-141) spent most of the first eighteen years of her life operating on what was referred to as the “Asiatic Station,” wintering in the Philippines and spending the summer and fall in Chinese [...]

Fifty-nine years ago today, USS NAUTILUS (SSN-571) became the first submarine to get “underway on nuclear power.” On the fiftieth anniversary of the event, Wilkinson gave a speech in which he described the lead-up to the transmission of those now-famous [...]

Lawson Paterson Ramage, nicknamed “Red” because of the color of his hair, was born in Monroe Bridge, Massachusetts, on 19 January 1909. He attended the Naval Academy, where he injured his right eye in a wrestling match. Nevertheless, he was [...]

On 4 February 1999, the freighter M/V New Carissa, bound for the Port of Coos Bay to pick up a load of wood chips, found herself in the midst of a major storm only a few miles off the coast [...]

From the patrol report of USS HOE (SS-258) on 24 February 1945 at 1700: “While at 60 foot, speed 1.8 kts, course north, Lat. 13-30.9 N, Long. 109-29.1 E. struck what I thought to be a rock. Ship took a [...]

After her commissioning on 22 July 1939 at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, CA, USS SWORDFISH (SS-193) shifted to San Diego for a time before leaving for Pearl Harbor at the beginning of 1941. She, along with three other [...]

In April of 1928, the U.S. Navy commissioned one of the largest non-nuclear subs it would ever built, the 2,700-ton (surfaced displacement) minelayer USS V-4 (SM-1/APS-1/SS-166). (By way of comparison, USS NAUTILUS (SSN-571) has a surfaced displacement of about 3,000 [...]

The first few months of 1989 were supposed to be full of good news for USS TENNESSEE (SSBN-734). Commissioned on 17 December 1988, the ballistic-missile boat soon set off on a journey to Kings Bay, Georgia. On 15 January, throngs [...]

On 17 December 1917, USS F-1 (SS-20) and USS F-3 (SS-22), both running on the surface, collided during exercises off San Diego, California. F-3 gouged a giant hole in her sister ship’s port side and F-1 sank beneath the waves [...]

Reinhardt John Keppler was born in Ralston, Washington, on 22 January 1918. He enlisted in the Navy shortly after graduating from high school, in 1936, and, after leaving for a brief period, rejoined on 25 April 1940. He was assigned [...]