Gato class submarine
Encyclopedia
The United States Navy Gato class submarine formed the core of the submarine service that was largely responsible for the destruction of the Japanese merchant marine and a large portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II
. Named after the first vessel of this design, , the Gato class and its successors, the Balao
and Tench
classes, formed the majority of the United States Navy's WWII submarine fleet. Gatos name comes from a species of small catshark
. Like most other U.S. Navy submarines of the period, the Gato class were given the names of marine creatures.
By 1931, the experimental phase of fleet submarine development was over and the Navy began to make solid progress towards what would eventually be the Gato class. By 1940, a much better developed industrial base and experience gained from the Porpoise-
, Salmon-
, & Sargo
-class boats resulted in the Tambor
& Gar classes. Finally, the USN had hit the right combination of factors and now had the long desired fleet submarine.
Timing, however conspired against the actual use of these boats in their assigned role. The attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 destroyed the Pacific Fleet battle line and along with it the concept of the battleship-led gun battle. In one fell swoop the Japanese overturned 20 years of strategic concept development and left the fleet submarine without a mission. Fortunately, the very same qualities designed into the submarines that enabled them to operate with the fleet made them superbly outfitted for their new mission of commerce raiding against the Japanese Empire
The Gato-class design was a near duplicate of the preceding Tambor-
& Gar-class boats. The only significant difference was five feet in length added to the engine room section to allow the addition of a watertight bulkhead, dividing the one large engine room in two, with two diesel generator sets in each room. The Gatos, along with nearly all of the USN fleet-type submarines of World War II were of partial double hull construction. The inner pressure resisting hull was wrapped by an outer hydrodynamic hull. The void areas between the two hulls provided space for fuel and ballast tanks. The outer hull merged with the pressure hull at both ends in the area of the torpedo room bulkheads, thus the "partial" double hull. Operational experience with earlier boats led the naval architects and engineers at the Navy's Bureau of Construction & Repair to believe that they had been overly conservative in their estimates of hull strength. Without changing the construction or thickness of the pressure hull steel, they decided that the Gato-class boats would be fully capable of routinely operating at 300 feet, a 50 foot increase in test depth over the preceding classes.
The Gatos were slow divers when compared to some German and British designs, but that was mostly due to the fact that the Gatos were significantly larger boats. Sufficient fuel bunkerage to provide the range necessary for 75 day patrols from Hawaii to Japan and back could only be obtained with a large boat, which will take longer to submerge than a smaller one. Acknowledging this limitation, the Bureau designers incorporated a negative (sometimes called a "down express") tank into the design which provided a large amount of negative buoyancy at the start of the dive. Normally kept full or nearly full at the surface, the tank was emptied to a certain mark after the boat was submerged to restore neutral buoyancy. At the start of the war these boats could go from fully surfaced to periscope depth in approximately 45–50 seconds. The superstructure that sat atop the pressure hull provided the main walking deck when the boat was surfaced and was free flooding and full of water when the boat was submerged. When the dive began the boat would "hang" for a few extra seconds while this superstructure filled with water. In an attempt to speed this process, additional limber, or free flooding holes were drilled and cut into the superstructure to allow it to flood faster. By mid war, these measures combined with improved crew training got dive times down to 30–35 seconds, very fast for such a large boat and acceptable to the boat's crew.
The large size of these boats did negatively impact both surfaced and underwater maneuverability when compared to smaller submarines. There was no practical fix for this due to the limitations of the installed hydraulic systems that were used to move the rudder. Although a point of concern, turning radius was still good enough to be acceptable. After the war, a few fleet boats were fitted with an additional rudder topside at the very stern.
These boats all had air conditioning, refrigerated storage for food, fresh water distilling units, clothes washers, and bunks for nearly every crew member; luxuries virtually unheard of in other navies. The Bureau designers felt that if a crew of 60-80 men were to be expected to conduct 75 day patrols in the warm waters of the Pacific, these types of features were vital to the health and efficiency of the crew. They could be added without impact to the boat's war fighting abilities due to the extra room of the big fleet boat. However, one feature in particular had a very practical side to it. Submerge a submarine for any length of time and the heat generated by the recently shut down engines, electronic gear, and 70 warm bodies will quickly raise internal temperatures into the 100's Fahrenheit. High humidity generated by tropical waters will quickly condense and begin dripping into equipment, eventually causing electrical shorts and fires. Air conditioning, acting mostly as a dehumidifier, virtually eliminates this problem and greatly increases mechanical and electrical reliability. It proved to be a key factor in the success of these boats during World War II.
Twelve submarines of this class built by Electric Boat received what would be the final installations of the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler
(HOR) double acting diesel engine. The Navy had been tinkering with this engine off and on since 1937 because its unique design promised nearly twice the horsepower in a package the same size as other diesel engine types. Unfortunately, the HOR company ran into severe design and manufacturing problems and these engines proved to be operational and maintenance nightmares. Frequent breakdowns and utter unreliability had destroyed these engines' reputation with the Navy and they were all removed at the first opportunity and replaced by GM-Winton 16-278A V-type diesels. The other Gato-class boats received either the Fairbanks-Morse
38D8 1/8 nine cylinder opposed piston engine or the GM-Winton 16-248 V-type as original installations. These engines were hardy, rugged and well liked by the crews and served the boats quite well.
on 11 September 1940. She was commissioned on 1 November 1941 and was the only Gato-class boat in commission when the war started. The Gato herself was laid down on 5 October 1940 by the Electric Boat
Company at Groton
, Connecticut
and commissioned 31 December 1941. Due to their large construction capacity, more than half (41) of the class was built at Electric Boat facilities; three new slipways were added to the north yard and four slipways were added to the south yard to accommodate their production. In addition, the government purchased an old foundry downstream from the main yard, constructed ten slipways and turned the yard over to Electric Boat. Called the Victory Yard, it became an integral part of Electric Boat operations. A total of 77 Gatos were built at four different locations (Electric Boat, Manitowoc, Portsmouth, and Mare Island).
There is occasionally some confusion as to the number of Gato-class submarines built with some sources listing the total as 73. This is due to the transitional nature of the first four boats (SS-361 to SS-364) constructed under the second contract by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company
of Manitowoc, Wisconsin
. These were originally intended to be Balao-class subs and were assigned numbers that fall in the middle of the range of numbers for the Balao class (SS-285 to SS-416 & 425-426). Manitowoc was a designated follow-on yard to Electric Boat; they used construction blueprints and plans supplied by Electric Boat and used many of the same suppliers. The government-owned shipyards (Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Mare Island Naval Shipyard
) began to make the transition to the new Balao design in the summer of 1942. Electric Boat, due to the huge backlog of Gato-class construction, was not ready to make the transition to the new design until January 1943. Manitowoc had already completed their allotted production run of Gatos and could not switch over to the Balao design until Electric Boat supplied them with the plans. Faced with a work stoppage while they waited for Electric Boat to catch up, managers at Manitowoc got permission to complete four additional boats (SS-361 to SS-364) to Electric Boat's Gato-class plans. Manitowoc's first Balao-class boat was USS Hardhead
.
All of the Gatos (with one exception, USS Dorado
) would eventually fight in the Pacific Theater of Operations. However, in the summer of 1942, six brand new Gatos were assigned to Submarine Squadron 50 and sent to Rosneath
, Scotland
to patrol the Bay of Biscay
and to assist in the Operation Torch
landings in North Africa
. All in all they conducted 27 war patrols but could not claim any verified sinkings. Considered a waste of valuable resources, in mid 1943 all six boats were recalled and transferred to the Pacific.
Once they began to arrive in theater in large numbers in mid to late 1942, the Gatos were in the thick of the fight against the Japanese. Many of these boats racked up impressive war records. Flasher
, Rasher
, and Barb
were the top three scoring boats in terms of tonnage sunk by US submarines. Silversides
, Flasher, and Wahoo
were 3rd, 4th, and 7th place on the list for the number of ships sunk. Gato-class boats sank three Japanese submarines: I-29
, I-168
and I-351
; while only losing one in exchange, to I-176
.
Their principal weapon was the steam powered Mark 14 torpedo
in the early war years, with the electric Mark 18 torpedo
supplementing the Mark 14 in late 1943. Due to a stunted research and development phase in the Depression era 1930's, and in great part due to the arrogance and stubbornness of the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, the "wonder weapon" Mark 14 proved to be full of bugs and very unreliable. They tended to run too deep, explode prematurely, run erratically, or fail to detonate. Bowing to pressure from the submariners in the Pacific, the stodgy Bureau eventually acknowledged the problems in the Mark 14 and largely corrected them by late 1943. The Mark 18 electric torpedo was a hastily copied version of captured German G7e weapons and was rushed into service in the fall of 1943. Unfortunately it too was full of faults, the most dangerous being a tendency to run in a circular pattern and come back at the sub that fired it. Once perfected, both types of torpedoes proved to be reliable and deadly weapons, allowing the Gatos and other submarines to sink an enormous amount of Japanese shipping by the end of the war.
The Gatos were subjected to numerous exterior configuration changes during their careers, with most of these changes centered on the conning tower fairwater. The large bulky original configuration proved to be too easy to spot when the boat was surfaced; it needed to be smaller. Secondly, the desire to incorporate new masts for surface and air search radars drove changes to the fairwater and periscope shears. Third, additional gun armament was needed and cutting down the fairwater provided excellent mounting locations for machine guns and anti-aircraft cannon. The modifications (or Mods) to the Gato-class conning tower fairwaters were fairly uniform in nature and they can be grouped together based on what was done when:
Variations on the above mods included the 1A (shortened navigation bridge), 2A (plating removed from periscope shears), and the 3A and 4A (which moved the SJ radar mast aft of the periscopes).
Because a Japanese boarding party that inspected the later abandoned from the destroyer successfully captured important documents about the boat however, further weaknesses were exploited, in particular its sustainability against Japanese depth charges, and this was later used to further improve Japan's anti-submarine warfare, which although too late to turn the tide of the war, inflicted heavy casualities among the US submarine force.
. Taiho was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa
's fleet during the Battle of the Philippine Sea
. engaged in the only ground combat operation on the Japanese home islands. On her 12th patrol in July 1945, the Barb landed a small team from her crew on the shore of Patience Bay on Karafuto. They placed charges under a railroad track and blew up a passing train. The Barb also conducted several rocket attacks against shore targets on this same patrol, the first ever by an American submarine. They used 5-inch unguided rockets fired from a special launching rack on the main deck. sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Shokaku
. Shokaku was one of six Japanese carriers that had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor. sank a ship carrying Japanese tank reinforcements which were en route to Iwo Jima
. went to the rescue of a grounded Dutch submarine O-19, taking its crew on board and destroying the submarine when it could not be removed from the reef, the only international submarine-to-submarine rescue in history. was the only U.S. submarine sunk by a Japanese submarine (I-176
) during the Second World War. recovered downed pilot LTJG George H. W. Bush
, future President of the United States
, after his TBM Avenger bomber was damaged and eventually ditched during a bombing mission at Chichi-jima
in the Pacific. was the top-scoring U.S. boat of the war, with 100,231 tons officially credited to her by the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee JANAC.'s skipper, Howard W. Gilmore
, earned the submarine force's first combat Medal of Honor
for sacrificing his life to save his boat and his crew. Alone on the bridge after being wounded by enemy gunfire, and unable to reach the hatch after he had ordered the others below, he pressed his face to the phone and uttered the order that saved his boat and sealed his doom: "Take 'er down!"
• Howard W. Gilmore
• Samuel D. Dealey
, the USN found itself in an awkward position. The 56 remaining Gato-class submarines, designed to fight an enemy that no longer existed, were largely obsolete despite the fact they were only two to four years old. Such was the pace of technological development during the war that a submarine with only a 300 foot test depth was going to be of little use, despite being modern in most other aspects. There were enough of the Balao and Tench boats, with their greater diving depth, that the Gatos were superfluous for front line missions. The Guppy
modernization program of the late 1940s largely passed these boats by. However, the USN found itself new missions to perform and for some of these the Gatos were well suited. The last two Gato-class boats active in the US Navy were the Rock
and the Bashaw
which were both decommissioned on 13 September 1969 and sold for scrap.
demonstrated the need for a long range radar umbrella around the fleet. Surface ships refitted with powerful radar suites were put into service, but they proved vulnerable in this role as they could be attacked as well, leaving the fleet blind. A submarine though, could dive and escape aerial attack. After experimenting with the concept on several Balao- and Tench-class boats, and realizing that a deep diving depth was not overly important in this role, six Gatos were taken in hand (Pompon
, Rasher
, Raton
, Ray
, Redfin
, & Rock
) for conversion. They were lengthened by 24 feet to provide additional space for an air control center and had powerful air search and height finding radars installed. They also received a streamlined "sail" in place of the traditional conning tower fairwater. Redesignated SSR and called the "Migraine III" conversion, these boats were only moderately successful in this role as the radars themselves proved troublesome and somewhat unreliable. The radars were removed and the boats temporarily reverted to general purpose submarines after 1959.
, Bashaw
, Bluegill
, Bream
, Cavalla
, and Croaker
. Technological advances in sonars allowed them to be installed on all of the new nuclear boats and the SSK mission was folded into the regular attack submarine role. These slow and less capable boats were decommissioned and scrapped in 1968 and 1969.
was converted in 1953 to house and fire this large surface launched missile and was designated SSG. She could carry two of the missiles in a cylindrical hangar on the aft deck. She made strategic deterrence patrols with Regulus until 1964, when the program was discontinued in favor of Polaris. Tunny was subsequently converted into a troop transport, her Regulus hangar becoming a lockout chamber for UDT
and SEAL
teams. In this role she was designated an LPSS.
was converted to a SSO in 1950 to carry fuel oil, gasoline, and cargo to amphibious beachheads. She received additional "saddle" tanks wrapped around her outer hull to carry these fuels and a streamlined sail. After a few tests the concept was dropped in 1951 as impractical and Guavina served in the test role for a few years. In 1957 she converted back to the oiler/tanker role and carried the designation AOSS. This time she experimented with refueling seaplanes at sea, but this mission too was dropped after a few years and Guavina was decommissioned.
and Grouper (previously the prototype hunter-killer boat) were assigned to these duties and proved to be key players in the development of new sonar capabilities. Grouper had all her forward torpedo tubes removed and the space was used as berthing for technicians and as a sonar lab. Flying Fish was decommissioned in 1954, but Grouper continued in the test role until 1968.
ports like Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago
), where they served as a training platform during the Reservist's weekend drills. 28 Gato-class boats served in this capacity, some as late as 1971. In this role, the boats were rendered incapable of diving and had their propellers removed. They were used strictly as pierside trainers.
& Dace
), which received the only Guppy conversions given to Gato-class boats (Guppy 1B). Japan received one (Mingo
), Brazil two (Muskallunge
& Paddle
), Greece two (Lapon
& Jack
), and Turkey two (Guitarro
& Hammerhead
). The boats transferred to Japan and Brazil did not receive any modernizations (streamlining and snorkels) prior to transfer, but the four boats sent to Greece and Turkey did receive snorkels and partial streamlining to the fairwater.
: is at Seawolf Park
near Galveston, Texas
(in SSK configuration) is at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum
is at Battleship Memorial Park
in Mobile, Alabama
is on display in Cleveland. It does not have doors cut through its pressure hull nor stairwells added. is on display in Buffalo, New York
(in SSK configuration) is on display in Muskegon, Michigan
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Named after the first vessel of this design, , the Gato class and its successors, the Balao
Balao class submarine
The Balao class was a successful design of United States Navy submarine used during World War II, and with 122 units built, the largest class of submarines in the United States Navy. An improvement on the earlier Gato class, the boats had slight internal differences...
and Tench
Tench class submarine
Tench-class submarines were a type of submarine built for the United States Navy between 1944 and 1951. They were an evolutionary improvement over the Gato and Balao classes, only about 35 to 40 tons larger, but more strongly built and with a slightly improved internal layout...
classes, formed the majority of the United States Navy's WWII submarine fleet. Gatos name comes from a species of small catshark
Catshark
Catsharks are ground sharks of the family Scyliorhinidae, with over 150 known species. While they are generally known as catsharks, many species are commonly called dogfish....
. Like most other U.S. Navy submarines of the period, the Gato class were given the names of marine creatures.
Design
The Gato-class boats were considered to be "Fleet Submarines". The original rationale behind their design was that they were intended to operate as adjuncts to the main battle fleet. They were to scout out ahead of the fleet and report on the enemy fleet's composition, speed, and course, then they were to attack and whittle down the enemy in preparation for the main fleet action, a titanic gun battle between cruisers and battleships. This was an operational concept borne out of experience from World War I. In order to operate effectively in this role, a submarine had to have high surface speed, long range and endurance, and a heavy armament. Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art in submarine design and construction in the 1920s and 30's made this combination of qualities very difficult to achieve. The USN constantly experimented with this concept in the post-World War I years, producing a series of submarines with less than stellar qualities and reliability, the T class and the so-called V boats.By 1931, the experimental phase of fleet submarine development was over and the Navy began to make solid progress towards what would eventually be the Gato class. By 1940, a much better developed industrial base and experience gained from the Porpoise-
United States Porpoise class submarine
The Porpoise class were submarines built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s, and incorporated a number of modern features that would make them the basis for subsequent classes such as the Salmon, Tambor, Gato, Balao, and Tench classes...
, Salmon-
Salmon class submarine
The United States Navy Salmon-class submarines were an important developmental step in the design of the "Fleet Submarine" concept during the 1930's...
, & Sargo
Sargo class submarine
The Sargo-class submarines were the first US submarines to be sent into action after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, starting war patrols the day after the attack...
-class boats resulted in the Tambor
Tambor class submarine
The Tambor class submarine was a United States Navy submarine design, used primarily during World War II. It was the USN's first practical fleet submarine and formed the core of the United States Pacific submarine fleet at the time of the US entry into World War II.-Design history:Early U.S...
& Gar classes. Finally, the USN had hit the right combination of factors and now had the long desired fleet submarine.
Timing, however conspired against the actual use of these boats in their assigned role. The attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 destroyed the Pacific Fleet battle line and along with it the concept of the battleship-led gun battle. In one fell swoop the Japanese overturned 20 years of strategic concept development and left the fleet submarine without a mission. Fortunately, the very same qualities designed into the submarines that enabled them to operate with the fleet made them superbly outfitted for their new mission of commerce raiding against the Japanese Empire
The Gato-class design was a near duplicate of the preceding Tambor-
Tambor class submarine
The Tambor class submarine was a United States Navy submarine design, used primarily during World War II. It was the USN's first practical fleet submarine and formed the core of the United States Pacific submarine fleet at the time of the US entry into World War II.-Design history:Early U.S...
& Gar-class boats. The only significant difference was five feet in length added to the engine room section to allow the addition of a watertight bulkhead, dividing the one large engine room in two, with two diesel generator sets in each room. The Gatos, along with nearly all of the USN fleet-type submarines of World War II were of partial double hull construction. The inner pressure resisting hull was wrapped by an outer hydrodynamic hull. The void areas between the two hulls provided space for fuel and ballast tanks. The outer hull merged with the pressure hull at both ends in the area of the torpedo room bulkheads, thus the "partial" double hull. Operational experience with earlier boats led the naval architects and engineers at the Navy's Bureau of Construction & Repair to believe that they had been overly conservative in their estimates of hull strength. Without changing the construction or thickness of the pressure hull steel, they decided that the Gato-class boats would be fully capable of routinely operating at 300 feet, a 50 foot increase in test depth over the preceding classes.
The Gatos were slow divers when compared to some German and British designs, but that was mostly due to the fact that the Gatos were significantly larger boats. Sufficient fuel bunkerage to provide the range necessary for 75 day patrols from Hawaii to Japan and back could only be obtained with a large boat, which will take longer to submerge than a smaller one. Acknowledging this limitation, the Bureau designers incorporated a negative (sometimes called a "down express") tank into the design which provided a large amount of negative buoyancy at the start of the dive. Normally kept full or nearly full at the surface, the tank was emptied to a certain mark after the boat was submerged to restore neutral buoyancy. At the start of the war these boats could go from fully surfaced to periscope depth in approximately 45–50 seconds. The superstructure that sat atop the pressure hull provided the main walking deck when the boat was surfaced and was free flooding and full of water when the boat was submerged. When the dive began the boat would "hang" for a few extra seconds while this superstructure filled with water. In an attempt to speed this process, additional limber, or free flooding holes were drilled and cut into the superstructure to allow it to flood faster. By mid war, these measures combined with improved crew training got dive times down to 30–35 seconds, very fast for such a large boat and acceptable to the boat's crew.
The large size of these boats did negatively impact both surfaced and underwater maneuverability when compared to smaller submarines. There was no practical fix for this due to the limitations of the installed hydraulic systems that were used to move the rudder. Although a point of concern, turning radius was still good enough to be acceptable. After the war, a few fleet boats were fitted with an additional rudder topside at the very stern.
These boats all had air conditioning, refrigerated storage for food, fresh water distilling units, clothes washers, and bunks for nearly every crew member; luxuries virtually unheard of in other navies. The Bureau designers felt that if a crew of 60-80 men were to be expected to conduct 75 day patrols in the warm waters of the Pacific, these types of features were vital to the health and efficiency of the crew. They could be added without impact to the boat's war fighting abilities due to the extra room of the big fleet boat. However, one feature in particular had a very practical side to it. Submerge a submarine for any length of time and the heat generated by the recently shut down engines, electronic gear, and 70 warm bodies will quickly raise internal temperatures into the 100's Fahrenheit. High humidity generated by tropical waters will quickly condense and begin dripping into equipment, eventually causing electrical shorts and fires. Air conditioning, acting mostly as a dehumidifier, virtually eliminates this problem and greatly increases mechanical and electrical reliability. It proved to be a key factor in the success of these boats during World War II.
Twelve submarines of this class built by Electric Boat received what would be the final installations of the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler
Hooven-Owens-Rentschler
The firm of Hooven, Owens, Rentschler, and Company manufactured steam and diesel engines in Hamilton, Ohio. Because the firm was frequently known by its initials, H.O.R., the Hooven is sometimes incorrectly rendered as Hoover, and the Owens may be mistaken for Owen.The firm was the successor to the...
(HOR) double acting diesel engine. The Navy had been tinkering with this engine off and on since 1937 because its unique design promised nearly twice the horsepower in a package the same size as other diesel engine types. Unfortunately, the HOR company ran into severe design and manufacturing problems and these engines proved to be operational and maintenance nightmares. Frequent breakdowns and utter unreliability had destroyed these engines' reputation with the Navy and they were all removed at the first opportunity and replaced by GM-Winton 16-278A V-type diesels. The other Gato-class boats received either the Fairbanks-Morse
Fairbanks-Morse
Fairbanks Morse and Company was a manufacturing company in the late 19th and early 20th century. Originally a weighing scale manufacturer, it later diversified into pumps, engines, windmills, locomotives and industrial supplies until it was merged in 1958...
38D8 1/8 nine cylinder opposed piston engine or the GM-Winton 16-248 V-type as original installations. These engines were hardy, rugged and well liked by the crews and served the boats quite well.
World War II
These boats were authorized in appropriations for Fiscal Year 1941, as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's proclamation of "limited emergency" in September 1939. The first boat laid down was actually the at Portsmouth Naval ShipyardPortsmouth Naval Shipyard
The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard , often called the Portsmouth Navy Yard, is a United States Navy shipyard located in Kittery on the southern boundary of Maine near the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It is used for remodeling and repairing the Navy's ships...
on 11 September 1940. She was commissioned on 1 November 1941 and was the only Gato-class boat in commission when the war started. The Gato herself was laid down on 5 October 1940 by the Electric Boat
Electric boat
While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power and gasoline engines also remaining popular, boats powered by electricity have been used for over 120 years. Electric boats were very popular from the 1880s until the 1920s, when the internal combustion...
Company at Groton
Groton, Connecticut
Groton is a town located on the Thames River in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 39,907 at the 2000 census....
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
and commissioned 31 December 1941. Due to their large construction capacity, more than half (41) of the class was built at Electric Boat facilities; three new slipways were added to the north yard and four slipways were added to the south yard to accommodate their production. In addition, the government purchased an old foundry downstream from the main yard, constructed ten slipways and turned the yard over to Electric Boat. Called the Victory Yard, it became an integral part of Electric Boat operations. A total of 77 Gatos were built at four different locations (Electric Boat, Manitowoc, Portsmouth, and Mare Island).
There is occasionally some confusion as to the number of Gato-class submarines built with some sources listing the total as 73. This is due to the transitional nature of the first four boats (SS-361 to SS-364) constructed under the second contract by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company
Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company
Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, was a major shipbuilder for the Great Lakes. It was founded in 1902, and made mainly steel ferries and ore haulers. During World War II, it built submarines, tank landing craft , and self-propelled fuel barges called "YOs". Employment...
of Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Manitowoc is a city in and the county seat of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States. The city is located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Manitowoc River. According to the 2000 census, Manitowoc had a population of 34,053, with over 50,000 residents in the surrounding communities...
. These were originally intended to be Balao-class subs and were assigned numbers that fall in the middle of the range of numbers for the Balao class (SS-285 to SS-416 & 425-426). Manitowoc was a designated follow-on yard to Electric Boat; they used construction blueprints and plans supplied by Electric Boat and used many of the same suppliers. The government-owned shipyards (Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Mare Island Naval Shipyard
The Mare Island Naval Shipyard was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. It is located 25 miles northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, California. The Napa River goes through the Mare Island Strait and separates the peninsula shipyard from the main portion of the...
) began to make the transition to the new Balao design in the summer of 1942. Electric Boat, due to the huge backlog of Gato-class construction, was not ready to make the transition to the new design until January 1943. Manitowoc had already completed their allotted production run of Gatos and could not switch over to the Balao design until Electric Boat supplied them with the plans. Faced with a work stoppage while they waited for Electric Boat to catch up, managers at Manitowoc got permission to complete four additional boats (SS-361 to SS-364) to Electric Boat's Gato-class plans. Manitowoc's first Balao-class boat was USS Hardhead
USS Hardhead (SS-365)
USS Hardhead , a Balao-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the hardhead, a fish of the croaker family. Hardhead received six battle stars for World War II service. All six of her combat patrols were "successful"....
.
All of the Gatos (with one exception, USS Dorado
USS Dorado (SS-248)
USS Dorado , a Gato-class submarine, was the first submarine of the United States Navy to be named for the dorado, also known as the dolphinfish or mahi-mahi....
) would eventually fight in the Pacific Theater of Operations. However, in the summer of 1942, six brand new Gatos were assigned to Submarine Squadron 50 and sent to Rosneath
Rosneath
Rosneath is a village in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It sits on the western shore of the Gare Loch near to the tip of the Rosneath peninsula which projects south to the Firth of Clyde between the Gare Loch and Loch Long to the west, and about 2 miles from the village of Kilcreggan which is sited...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
to patrol the Bay of Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
and to assist in the Operation Torch
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942....
landings in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
. All in all they conducted 27 war patrols but could not claim any verified sinkings. Considered a waste of valuable resources, in mid 1943 all six boats were recalled and transferred to the Pacific.
Once they began to arrive in theater in large numbers in mid to late 1942, the Gatos were in the thick of the fight against the Japanese. Many of these boats racked up impressive war records. Flasher
USS Flasher (SS-249)
USS Flasher was a Gato-class submarine which served in the Pacific during World War II. She received three Presidential Unit Citations and six battle stars, and sank 21 ships for a total of 100,231 tons of Japanese shipping....
, Rasher
USS Rasher (SS-269)
USS Rasher , a , was a ship of the United States Navy named for the rasher, a vermilion-colored rockfish or scorpionfish found along the California coast....
, and Barb
USS Barb (SS-220)
, a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the barbus.Her keel was laid down on 7 June 1941 by the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 2 April 1942 , and commissioned on 8 July 1942, Lieutenant Commander John R...
were the top three scoring boats in terms of tonnage sunk by US submarines. Silversides
USS Silversides (SS-236)
USS Silversides is a Gato-class submarine, the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the silversides, a small fish marked with a silvery stripe along each side of its body....
, Flasher, and Wahoo
USS Wahoo (SS-238)
was a Gato-class submarine, the first United States Navy ship to be named for the wahoo, a dark blue food fish of Florida and the West Indies....
were 3rd, 4th, and 7th place on the list for the number of ships sunk. Gato-class boats sank three Japanese submarines: I-29
Japanese submarine I-29
I-29, code-named Matsu , was a B1 type submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy used during World War II on two secret missions with Germany, during one of which she was sunk.-Type B Submarines:...
, I-168
Japanese submarine I-168
I-168 was a Kaidai class submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. At the Battle of Midway she sank two American warships: the aircraft carrier and the destroyer . At that time she was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Yahachi Tanabe.-Early career:The submarine was completed...
and I-351
Japanese submarine I-351
The Japanese submarine was a tanker/transport submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy , serving during 1945. The IJN called this type of submarine .-Construction:Project number S47...
; while only losing one in exchange, to I-176
Japanese submarine I-176
The I-176, also named I-76,Although the submarine had been named I-76 when ordered in 1939, she was renamed I-176 upon her completion in 1942. was a of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. The most successful submarine of her class, she severely damaged the heavy cruiser in October...
.
Their principal weapon was the steam powered Mark 14 torpedo
Mark 14 torpedo
The Mark 14 torpedo was the United States Navy's standard submarine-launched anti-ship torpedo of World War II.This weapon was plagued with many problems which crippled its performance early in the war, and was supplemented by the Mark 18 electric torpedo in the last 2 years of the war...
in the early war years, with the electric Mark 18 torpedo
Mark 18 torpedo
The Mark 18 torpedo was an electric torpedo used by the US Navy during World War II.The Mark 18 was built in competition to the Bureau of Ordnance electric torpedoes, which had been in development at the Newport Torpedo Station , Newport, Rhode Island, since the 1920s, in particular the Mark II,...
supplementing the Mark 14 in late 1943. Due to a stunted research and development phase in the Depression era 1930's, and in great part due to the arrogance and stubbornness of the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, the "wonder weapon" Mark 14 proved to be full of bugs and very unreliable. They tended to run too deep, explode prematurely, run erratically, or fail to detonate. Bowing to pressure from the submariners in the Pacific, the stodgy Bureau eventually acknowledged the problems in the Mark 14 and largely corrected them by late 1943. The Mark 18 electric torpedo was a hastily copied version of captured German G7e weapons and was rushed into service in the fall of 1943. Unfortunately it too was full of faults, the most dangerous being a tendency to run in a circular pattern and come back at the sub that fired it. Once perfected, both types of torpedoes proved to be reliable and deadly weapons, allowing the Gatos and other submarines to sink an enormous amount of Japanese shipping by the end of the war.
The Gatos were subjected to numerous exterior configuration changes during their careers, with most of these changes centered on the conning tower fairwater. The large bulky original configuration proved to be too easy to spot when the boat was surfaced; it needed to be smaller. Secondly, the desire to incorporate new masts for surface and air search radars drove changes to the fairwater and periscope shears. Third, additional gun armament was needed and cutting down the fairwater provided excellent mounting locations for machine guns and anti-aircraft cannon. The modifications (or Mods) to the Gato-class conning tower fairwaters were fairly uniform in nature and they can be grouped together based on what was done when:
- Mod 1 - This is the original configuration with the covered navigation bridge, the high bulwark around the aft "cigarette" deck, and with the periscope shears plated over. All the early boats were built with this Mod and it lasted until about mid 1942.
- Mod 2 - Same as Mod 1 but with the bulwark around the cigarette deck cut down to reduce the silhouette. This also gave the .50 caliber machine gun mounted there a greatly improved arc of fire. Began to appear in about April 1942.
- Mod 3 - Same as Mod 2 but with the covered navigation bridge on the forward part of the fairwater cut away and the plating around the periscope shears removed. In this configuration the Gatos now had two excellent positions for the mounting of more powerful 20 mm anti-aircraft cannon. This mod started to appear in late '42 and early '43.
- Mod 4 - Same as the Mod 3 but with the height of the bridge itself lowered in a last attempt to lessen the silhouette. The lowering of the bridge exposed three I-beams on either side of the periscope shears. These exposed beams gave rise to the nickname "covered wagon boats". Began to appear in early 1944.
Variations on the above mods included the 1A (shortened navigation bridge), 2A (plating removed from periscope shears), and the 3A and 4A (which moved the SJ radar mast aft of the periscopes).
Because a Japanese boarding party that inspected the later abandoned from the destroyer successfully captured important documents about the boat however, further weaknesses were exploited, in particular its sustainability against Japanese depth charges, and this was later used to further improve Japan's anti-submarine warfare, which although too late to turn the tide of the war, inflicted heavy casualities among the US submarine force.
A Few Highlights
sank the Japanese aircraft carrier TaihoJapanese aircraft carrier Taiho
was an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. With a heavily armored hull and flight deck , she represented a major departure in Japanese carrier design and was expected to not only survive multiple bomb, torpedo or shell hits but also continue fighting effectively...
. Taiho was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa
Jisaburo Ozawa
was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. He was the last Commander-in-Chief of Combined Fleet. Many military historians regard Ozawa as one of the most capable Japanese flag officers.-Biography:...
's fleet during the Battle of the Philippine Sea
Battle of the Philippine Sea
The Battle of the Philippine Sea was a decisive naval battle of World War II which effectively eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy's ability to conduct large-scale carrier actions. It took place during the United States' amphibious invasion of the Mariana Islands during the Pacific War...
. engaged in the only ground combat operation on the Japanese home islands. On her 12th patrol in July 1945, the Barb landed a small team from her crew on the shore of Patience Bay on Karafuto. They placed charges under a railroad track and blew up a passing train. The Barb also conducted several rocket attacks against shore targets on this same patrol, the first ever by an American submarine. They used 5-inch unguided rockets fired from a special launching rack on the main deck. sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Shokaku
Japanese aircraft carrier Shokaku
Shōkaku was an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the lead ship of her class. Along with her sister ship , she took part in several key naval battles during the Pacific War, including the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands...
. Shokaku was one of six Japanese carriers that had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor. sank a ship carrying Japanese tank reinforcements which were en route to Iwo Jima
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima , or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Empire of Japan. The U.S...
. went to the rescue of a grounded Dutch submarine O-19, taking its crew on board and destroying the submarine when it could not be removed from the reef, the only international submarine-to-submarine rescue in history. was the only U.S. submarine sunk by a Japanese submarine (I-176
Japanese submarine I-176
The I-176, also named I-76,Although the submarine had been named I-76 when ordered in 1939, she was renamed I-176 upon her completion in 1942. was a of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. The most successful submarine of her class, she severely damaged the heavy cruiser in October...
) during the Second World War. recovered downed pilot LTJG George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
, future President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, after his TBM Avenger bomber was damaged and eventually ditched during a bombing mission at Chichi-jima
Chichi-jima
, formerly known as Peel Island and in the 19th century known to the English as part of the Bonin Islands, is the largest island in the Ogasawara archipelago. Chichi-jima is approximately 150 miles north of Iwo Jima. The island is within the political boundaries of Ogasawara Town, Ogasawara...
in the Pacific. was the top-scoring U.S. boat of the war, with 100,231 tons officially credited to her by the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee JANAC.'s skipper, Howard W. Gilmore
Howard W. Gilmore
Howard Walter Gilmore was a submarine commander in the United States Navy who received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic self-sacrifice during World War II.-Early Life and Career:...
, earned the submarine force's first combat Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress, upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her...
for sacrificing his life to save his boat and his crew. Alone on the bridge after being wounded by enemy gunfire, and unable to reach the hatch after he had ordered the others below, he pressed his face to the phone and uttered the order that saved his boat and sealed his doom: "Take 'er down!"
- In , Mannert L. AbeleMannert L. AbeleLieutenant Commander Mannert Lincoln Abele, USN was a World War II submarine commander who posthumously received the Navy Cross for his heroism in the Pacific Theater.-Biography:...
earned the submarine force's first Navy CrossNavy CrossThe Navy Cross is the highest decoration that may be bestowed by the Department of the Navy and the second highest decoration given for valor. It is normally only awarded to members of the United States Navy, United States Marine Corps and United States Coast Guard, but can be awarded to all...
, when his boat engaged in a running battle with Japanese ships off KiskaKiskaKiska is an island in the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska located at . It is about long and varies in width from - Discovery :...
in July 1942. Grunion was subsequently lost in this action. In 2006 and 2007, expeditions organized and led by Abele's sons, Bruce, Brad, and John, located and photographed the wreck of the Grunion using side scan sonar and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). was commanded by Samuel D. Dealey, the only submarine commander of the war (perhaps the only one ever) to sink five enemy destroyers, four in a single patrol., which sank two Japanese ships during her patrols, was lent to the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force after the war, serving under the name Kuroshio. became famous in Edward L. "Ned" Beach's book Submarine! (which was a kind of eulogyEulogyA eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one recently deceased or retired. Eulogies may be given as part of funeral services. However, some denominations either discourage or do not permit eulogies at services to maintain respect for traditions...
to her)., commanded by the submarine force's most famous skipper, Dudley W. "Mush" MortonDudley W. MortonDudley Walker Morton was a submarine commander of the United States Navy during World War II. He was commander of during its third through seventh patrols. Wahoo was one of the most-celebrated submarines of World War II, sinking at least 19 Japanese ships, more than any other submarine of the time...
, engaged in a running gun and torpedo battle with a convoy of four ships off the coast of New GuineaNew GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and destroyed the entire convoy. She was also one of the first U.S. subs into the Sea of JapanSea of JapanThe Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...
. She was sunk while exiting the Sea of Japan through the La Perouse Strait in October 1943 while on her seventh patrol. along with conducted an aggressive and successful attack against Japanese fleet units during the lead up to the U.S. invasion of Leyte IslandLeyte IslandLeyte is an island in the Visayas group of the Philippines.The island measures about 180 km north-south and about 65 km at its widest point. In the north it nearly joins Samar, separated by the San Juanico Strait, which becomes as narrow as 2 km in some places...
in the PhilippinesPhilippinesThe Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
in October, 1944. The two boats sank the heavy cruisers AtagoJapanese cruiser Atagowas one of four Takao-class heavy cruisers, designed to be an improvement over the previous Myōkō-class design. These ships were fast, powerful, and heavily armed. The Takao-class ships were approved under the 1927 fiscal year budget as part of the Imperial Japanese Navy's strategy of the Decisive...
and MayaJapanese cruiser Mayawas one of four Takao-class heavy cruisers, designed to be an improvement over the previous Myōkō-class design. These ships were fast, powerful and heavily armed, with enough firepower to hold their own against any cruiser in any other navy in the world...
and severely damaged the heavy cruiser TakaoJapanese cruiser Takaowas the first of four Takao-class heavy cruisers, designed to be an improvement over the previous Myōkō-class design. The Myōkō had proved to be unstable and required modifications, which were incorporated into the Takao design....
. A few hours later, while maneuvering back to the scene to finish off the crippled Takao, Darter ran hard aground on Bombay Shoal off PalawanPalawanPalawan is an island province of the Philippines located in the MIMAROPA region or Region 4. Its capital is Puerto Princesa City, and it is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction. The islands of Palawan stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to Borneo in the...
. Her entire crew was rescued and subsequent attempts to destroy the wreck were only partially successful, and the Japanese successfully obtained important documents to exploit weaknesses on the class' hull. As late as 1998, portions of Darter's hulk were still visible on the reef. was essentially the 53rd U.S. submarine loss of the war. Terribly damaged in an aircraft borne depth charge attack on 14 November 1944, she barely limped back to port in Saipan. Temporarily patched up, she was sent back to the states. Examined by engineers, she was found to be beyond economical repair and was decommissioned on 18 July 1945, never having made another war patrol. Her entire crew survived.
Medal of Honor awards
• Eugene B. FluckeyEugene B. Fluckey
Rear Admiral Eugene Bennett Fluckey , nicknamed "Lucky Fluckey", was a United States Navy submarine commander who received the Medal of Honor during World War II.-Early life and career:...
• Howard W. Gilmore
Howard W. Gilmore
Howard Walter Gilmore was a submarine commander in the United States Navy who received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic self-sacrifice during World War II.-Early Life and Career:...
• Samuel D. Dealey
Post War Service
At the end of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the USN found itself in an awkward position. The 56 remaining Gato-class submarines, designed to fight an enemy that no longer existed, were largely obsolete despite the fact they were only two to four years old. Such was the pace of technological development during the war that a submarine with only a 300 foot test depth was going to be of little use, despite being modern in most other aspects. There were enough of the Balao and Tench boats, with their greater diving depth, that the Gatos were superfluous for front line missions. The Guppy
Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program
The Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program was initiated by the United States Navy after World War II to improve the submerged speed, maneuverability, and endurance of its submarines....
modernization program of the late 1940s largely passed these boats by. However, the USN found itself new missions to perform and for some of these the Gatos were well suited. The last two Gato-class boats active in the US Navy were the Rock
USS Rock (SS-274)
USS Rock , a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy to be named for the rock, a striped bass found in the Chesapeake Bay region and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast....
and the Bashaw
USS Bashaw (SS-241)
USS Bashaw , a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bashaw, a catfish....
which were both decommissioned on 13 September 1969 and sold for scrap.
Radar Pickets
The nasty surprise of the KamikazeKamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
demonstrated the need for a long range radar umbrella around the fleet. Surface ships refitted with powerful radar suites were put into service, but they proved vulnerable in this role as they could be attacked as well, leaving the fleet blind. A submarine though, could dive and escape aerial attack. After experimenting with the concept on several Balao- and Tench-class boats, and realizing that a deep diving depth was not overly important in this role, six Gatos were taken in hand (Pompon
USS Pompon (SS-267)
USS Pompon , a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the pompon, an American fish of the Anisot family....
, Rasher
USS Rasher (SS-269)
USS Rasher , a , was a ship of the United States Navy named for the rasher, a vermilion-colored rockfish or scorpionfish found along the California coast....
, Raton
USS Raton (SS-270)
USS Raton , a , was a ship of the United States Navy named for the raton, a polynemoid fish inhabiting semitropical waters off the Pacific coast of America....
, Ray
USS Ray (SS-271)
USS Ray , a , was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the ray, a fish characterized by a flat body, large pectoral fins, and a whiplike tail....
, Redfin
USS Redfin (SS-272)
USS Redfin , a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the redfin, any of several North American fishes with reddish fins....
, & Rock
USS Rock (SS-274)
USS Rock , a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy to be named for the rock, a striped bass found in the Chesapeake Bay region and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast....
) for conversion. They were lengthened by 24 feet to provide additional space for an air control center and had powerful air search and height finding radars installed. They also received a streamlined "sail" in place of the traditional conning tower fairwater. Redesignated SSR and called the "Migraine III" conversion, these boats were only moderately successful in this role as the radars themselves proved troublesome and somewhat unreliable. The radars were removed and the boats temporarily reverted to general purpose submarines after 1959.
Hunter-Killers
The increasing threat of Soviet submarines in the Atlantic led the USN to adapt submarines to specifically hunt other submarines, a radically new role for the 1950s. Concluding that this role did not require a fast or deep diving submarine (this line of thought would quickly change with the advent of nuclear power), seven Gatos were converted to SSK's between 1951 and 1953. A streamlined Guppy style sail was installed, a large sonar array was wrapped around the bow (losing two torpedo tubes in the process), the boats were extensively silenced, and they received a snorkel. was the test boat for the concept, having her sonar array at the forward end of the sail instead of the better position at the bow. The other boats in the program included AnglerUSS Angler (SS-240)
, a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the anglerfish.Her keel was laid down on 9 November 1942 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 4 July 1943 , a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy...
, Bashaw
USS Bashaw (SS-241)
USS Bashaw , a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bashaw, a catfish....
, Bluegill
USS Bluegill (SS-242)
, a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bluegill, a freshwater sunfish of the Mississippi River basin and Great Lakes....
, Bream
USS Bream (SS-243)
USS Bream , a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bream.Bream was laid down on 5 February 1943 by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn.. She was launched on 17 October 1943 USS Bream (SS/SSK/AGSS-243), a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of...
, Cavalla
USS Cavalla (SS-244)
USS Cavalla , a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for a salt water fish, best known for sinking the Japanese aircraft carrier Shōkaku, a veteran of the Pearl Harbor attack....
, and Croaker
USS Croaker (SS-246)
USS Croaker , a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the croaker, any of various fishes which make throbbing or drumming noises....
. Technological advances in sonars allowed them to be installed on all of the new nuclear boats and the SSK mission was folded into the regular attack submarine role. These slow and less capable boats were decommissioned and scrapped in 1968 and 1969.
Guided Missile Submarine
The Regulus nuclear cruise missile program of the 1950s provided the USN with its first strategic strike capability. TunnyUSS Tunny (SS-282)
The USS Tunny was a Gato-class submarine which saw service in World War II and in the Vietnam War. Tunny received nine battle stars and two Presidential Unit Citations for her World War II service and five battle stars for her operations during the Vietnam War.Tunny was the first submarine of the...
was converted in 1953 to house and fire this large surface launched missile and was designated SSG. She could carry two of the missiles in a cylindrical hangar on the aft deck. She made strategic deterrence patrols with Regulus until 1964, when the program was discontinued in favor of Polaris. Tunny was subsequently converted into a troop transport, her Regulus hangar becoming a lockout chamber for UDT
Underwater Demolition Team
The Underwater Demolition Teams were an elite special-purpose force established by the United States Navy during World War II. They also served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War...
and SEAL
Seal
Seal commonly refers to:* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals many of which are commonly called seals* Seal , a device which helps prevent leakage, contain pressure, or exclude contamination where two systems join...
teams. In this role she was designated an LPSS.
Submarine Oiler
GuavinaUSS Guavina (SS-362)
USS Guavina , a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the guavina, a fish which may reach a length of indigenous to the West Indies and the Atlantic coasts of Central America and Mexico....
was converted to a SSO in 1950 to carry fuel oil, gasoline, and cargo to amphibious beachheads. She received additional "saddle" tanks wrapped around her outer hull to carry these fuels and a streamlined sail. After a few tests the concept was dropped in 1951 as impractical and Guavina served in the test role for a few years. In 1957 she converted back to the oiler/tanker role and carried the designation AOSS. This time she experimented with refueling seaplanes at sea, but this mission too was dropped after a few years and Guavina was decommissioned.
Sonar Test Boats
The development of advanced sonar systems took on a great deal of importance in the 1950s and several fleet boats were outfitted with various strange looking sonar transducer arrays and performed extensive tests. Two Gatos, Flying FishUSS Flying Fish (SS-229)
USS Flying Fish , a Gato-class submarine, was the first submarine and second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the flying fish, a family of fishes of tropic and warm temperate seas whose long winglike fins make it possible for them to move some distance through the air.The keel of...
and Grouper (previously the prototype hunter-killer boat) were assigned to these duties and proved to be key players in the development of new sonar capabilities. Grouper had all her forward torpedo tubes removed and the space was used as berthing for technicians and as a sonar lab. Flying Fish was decommissioned in 1954, but Grouper continued in the test role until 1968.
Naval Reserve Trainers
Interested in maintaining a ready pool of trained Reservists, the Navy assigned numerous fleet boats to various coastal and inland ports (even in Great LakesGreat Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
ports like Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
), where they served as a training platform during the Reservist's weekend drills. 28 Gato-class boats served in this capacity, some as late as 1971. In this role, the boats were rendered incapable of diving and had their propellers removed. They were used strictly as pierside trainers.
Foreign Service
The large numbers of relatively modern, but surplus U.S. fleet submarines proved to be popular in sales, loans, or leases to allied foreign navies. While most of these boats were of the more capable Balao and Tench classes, some Gatos went overseas as well. Italy received two (BarbUSS Barb (SS-220)
, a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the barbus.Her keel was laid down on 7 June 1941 by the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 2 April 1942 , and commissioned on 8 July 1942, Lieutenant Commander John R...
& Dace
USS Dace (SS-247)
, a Gato class submarine, was the first submarine of the United States Navy to be named for any of several small North American fresh-water fishes of the carp family....
), which received the only Guppy conversions given to Gato-class boats (Guppy 1B). Japan received one (Mingo
USS Mingo (SS-261)
— a Gato-class submarine — was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the mingo snapper, a fish of the Caribbean with rough leathery skin. A Civil War ship had also been named Mingo, after an Iroquois term of reproach....
), Brazil two (Muskallunge
USS Muskallunge (SS-262)
, a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the muskallunge, a fish of the pike family found in the upper Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes region, and northward....
& Paddle
USS Paddle (SS-263)
USS Paddle , a Gato-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the paddle, a large ganoid fish of the Mississippi and its larger tributaries....
), Greece two (Lapon
USS Lapon (SS-260)
, a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the lapon, a scorpionfish of the Pacific coast of the United States of America....
& Jack
USS Jack (SS-259)
, a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the jack ....
), and Turkey two (Guitarro
USS Guitarro (SS-363)
USS Guitarro , a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the guitarro, a ray of the guitarfish family.-Construction and commissioning:...
& Hammerhead
USS Hammerhead (SS-364)
USS Hammerhead , a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the hammerhead shark; a shark found in warm seas with a flattened anterior forward of the gill slits, presenting a hammer-like silhouette when viewed from above.The first Hammerhead was launched 24...
). The boats transferred to Japan and Brazil did not receive any modernizations (streamlining and snorkels) prior to transfer, but the four boats sent to Greece and Turkey did receive snorkels and partial streamlining to the fairwater.
Museum boats
Six Gatos are on display in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
: is at Seawolf Park
Seawolf Park
Seawolf Park is a memorial to , a United States Navy Sargo-class submarine mistakenly sunk by U.S. Navy forces in 1944 during World War II. It is located on Pelican Island , just north of Galveston, Texas, in the United States....
near Galveston, Texas
Galveston, Texas
Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. , the city had a total population of 47,743 within an area of...
(in SSK configuration) is at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum
Wisconsin Maritime Museum
The Wisconsin Maritime Museum is a maritime museum founded in 1968 as the Manitowoc Maritime Museum to ensure that the maritime heritage of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, U.S., and the Great Lakes would not be forgotten...
is at Battleship Memorial Park
Battleship Memorial Park
Battleship Memorial Park is a military history park and museum located on the western shore of Mobile Bay in Mobile, Alabama. It has a collection of notable aircraft and museum ships including the South Dakota-class battleship USS Alabama and Gato-class submarine USS Drum...
in Mobile, Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
is on display in Cleveland. It does not have doors cut through its pressure hull nor stairwells added. is on display in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
(in SSK configuration) is on display in Muskegon, Michigan
Muskegon, Michigan
Muskegon is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 38,401. The city is the county seat of Muskegon County...
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 Battleship Memorial Park Battleship Memorial Park is a military history park and museum located on the western shore of Mobile Bay in Mobile, Alabama. It has a collection of notable aircraft and museum ships including the South Dakota-class battleship USS Alabama and Gato-class submarine USS Drum... in Mobile, Alabama Mobile, Alabama Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest... . |
 USS Wahoo, 1943. |
External links
- Gato (SS-212) Class Line Drawings from NavSource Online: Submarine Photo Archive
- Gato (SS-212) Construction - Service Photos from NavSource Online: Submarine Photo Archive
- Fleet Type Submarine Training Manual San Francisco Maritime Museum (USS Perch (SS-313)USS Perch (SS-313)USS Perch , a Balao-class submarine, was the second submarine of the United States Navy to be named for the perch, a rather small European fresh-water spiny-finned fish....
a Balao-class submarine) - Dive Detectives Dive Detectives TV series looks for the Flier and Robalo (http://www.history.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=152495).