USS Chivo

Career (US)
Ordered:
Laid down:	21 February 1944
Launched:	14 January 1945
Commissioned:	28 April 1945
Decommissioned:	1 July 1971
Struck:	1 July 1971
Fate:	sold to Argentina, 1 July 1971
Career (Argentina)
Commissioned:	1971
Decommissioned:	1981
Struck:
Fate:
General Characteristics
Displacement,   Surfaced:   Submerged:	1,526 tons (1550 t), 2,424 tons (2460 t)
Length:	311.8 ft (95.0 m)
Beam:	27.3 ft (8.3 m)
Draft:	15.3 ft (4.6 m)
Depth limit:	400 ft (120 m)
Speed,   Surfaced:   Submerged:	20.25 knots (37 km/h)   8.75 knots (16 km/h)
Propulsion:	four 5400-hp diesel engines four 2740-hp (2.0 MW) electric motors, two propellers
Submerged Endurance:	48 hours at 2 knots
Patrol Endurance:	75 days
Range:	11,000 nmi. (20,000 km)   surfaced at 10 knots
Complement:	66 officers and enlisted
Armament:	ten 21" torpedo tubes,   (six forward, four aft),   24 torpedoes, one 5"/25 deck gun, four machine guns
Motto:	the "Goat Boat"

USS Chivo (SS-341), a Balao-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the chivo or big-scaled goatfish Pseudopenaeus grandisquamis, a fish inhabiting the Pacific Ocean between Panama and Mexico.

Chivo (SS-341) was launched 14 January 1945 by Electric Boat Company, Groton, Conn.; sponsored by Mrs. Raymond E. Baldwin, wife of the governor of Connecticut; and commissioned 28 April 1945, Lieutenant Commander W. B. Crutcher, USNR, in command.

Chivo departed New London 7 June 1945 for Key West where she trained and exercised briefly, before sailing on to Pearl Harbor. While the submarine was preparing for her first war patrol, hostilities ended; Chivo then remained at Pearl Harbor, operating locally with other ships of the Pacific Fleet. She returned to the States in October, basing on San Diego for local operations which continued until January 1946, when Chivo sailed for a tour of duty in the western Pacific. Returning to San Diego in May, the submarine exercised along the west coast for the next 15 months.

In August 1947 Chivo began a simulated war patrol which took her to Suva, Fiji Islands; Guam, and Japan, before she arrived back at San Diego in November. West Coast duty continued for her until mid-1949 when she was transferred to the Atlantic Fleet, arriving at her new home port of Key West on 4 July 1949. The submarine continued to train and provide services for other ships in intertype exercises until 30 October 1950 when she arrived at New London to begin an extensive GUPPY IA overhaul and modernization.

With increased power and a new streamlined shape, Chivo returned to duty with the Atlantic Fleet in July 1951. Based on Key West until 1959, and then Charleston, she participated in exercises and tests off the east coast, through 1963. Interspersed among her regular operations were a tour of duty with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea (1952), and visits to the Pacific Coast of Colombia (1953), Quebec City, Canada (1959), and South Africa (1960).

ARA Santiago del Estero (S-22)

Chivo was decommissioned, struck from the Naval Register, and transferred (sold) to Argentina, under terms of the Security Assistance Program, 1 July 1971, renamed ARA Santiago del Estero (S-22). She was decommissioned by the Argentine Navy in January 1981.

References

 This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

External links

• history.navy.mil: USS Chivo
• hazegray.org: USS Chivo
• navsource.org: USS Chivo
• USS Chivo website