USS Sailfish (SS-192)
 USS Sailfish (SS-192) off Mare Island, 1943 |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Keel laying | October 18, 1937 |
| Launch | September 14, 1938 |
| Namesake |
Dogfish (squalus) billfish (Engl. Sailfish) |
| 1. Period of service |
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|
| Commissioning | March 1, 1939 |
| Decommissioning | November 15, 1939 |
| Whereabouts | repaired after salvage and put back into service |
| 2. Period of service |
|
| Commissioning | May 15, 1940 |
| Decommissioning | October 27, 1945 |
| Whereabouts | scrapped |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
|
| length |
94.6 m |
| width |
8.2 m |
| Draft |
5.1 m |
| Diving depth | 76 m |
| crew |
59 |
| drive |
|
| speed |
|
| Range |
11,000 nm at 11 kn |
| Armament |
|
The USS Sailfish (SS-192) was a submarine of Sargo class of the United States Navy . She originally entered service as the USS Squalus in 1939 . After a diving accident off the coast of Maine on May 23, 1939, in which 26 men of the crew drowned, the submarine was recovered and, after a detailed investigation of the accident, put back into service in 1940 under the name Sailfish . The Sailfish was used during the Second World War in the Pacific theater of war, where it made twelve mission trips. After the end of the war, the Sailfish was decommissioned on October 27, 1945 and scrapped in 1948.
technology
_under_construction,_January_1938.jpg)
The Sailfish was 94.6 meters long, 8.2 meters wide and had a draft of 5.1 meters when the surface appeared. The surface displacement was 1450 tons , submerged at 2350 standard tons . Above the water, the propulsion was provided by four General Motors Model 16-248 V16 diesel engines with a total output of 5500 shaft horsepower . Two motors acted directly on the two drive shafts via a hydraulic torque converter and accelerated the submarine to a maximum of 21 knots . The range when sailing above water was 11,000 nautical miles at a speed of 11 knots. The two other diesel engines charged the two 126-cell accumulators for the operation of the electric motors via generators . Submerged, the boat was propelled by four General Electric electric motors that acted on the drive shafts via reduction gears. The accumulators enabled the boat to operate submerged at 2 knots for 48 hours.
The main armament consisted of eight 21-inch (533-mm) torpedo tubes ; four were at the bow, four more aft. A total of 24 torpedoes were carried for the torpedo tubes . The other armament consisted of a 3-inch (76-mm) - / L50 deck gun and four machine guns for aircraft defense .
history
Construction and commissioning
The submarine was laid down on October 18, 1937 at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery , Maine . After eleven months of construction, the boat ran from the wife of Thomas C. Hart in the name of Squalus baptized (after the genus Squalus from the family of spiny dogfish ), on 14 September 1938 by the stack. After further equipment work, the submarine was put into service on March 1, 1939 under the command of Lieutenant Oliver F. Naquin .
Sinking and salvage
On May 12, 1939, the Squalus ran from Portsmouth to conduct diving tests off the Isles of Shoals . On board were five officers, 51 crew members as well as two civilian technicians from the engine manufacturer General Motors and a marine engineer. By the morning of May 23rd, 18 successful dives had been made; During the 19th dive, the main air inlet valve in the engine room could not be closed at 07:40, so that the entire stern area of the submarine filled with water and the boat sank to the bottom at a depth of 74 meters. In the rear part of the submarine, 24 crew members and the two GM technicians drowned, while in the front part of the boat 32 crew members and the shipbuilding engineer were able to prevent a flood.
Shortly after the sinking, the sister boat Sculpin spotted a smoke bomb on the water surface as an emergency signal and was able to contact the survivors on board the Squalus . The submarine rescue ship Falcon and other tugs and rescue ships rushed to the scene of the accident. Rescue expert Charles Momsen , two doctors and several naval divers were flown in from Washington to assist with the rescue. With the help of the McCann diving bell , which was lowered from the Falcon to the Squalus , all 33 survivors of the accident were rescued in four trips on May 24th.
Because there were similar problems with the valves on board the Sturgeon and the Snapper , the US Navy decided to raise the Squalus . Cables were passed under the hull of the submarine and connected to pontoons designed to lift the submarine. During a first attempt at uplift on July 13, the submarine got out of control, broke through the water surface with its bow at a steep angle and then sank back to the seabed. The second attempt on September 13 was successful; the Squalus could be lifted and towed to Portsmouth. In Portsmouth, the submarine was formally decommissioned on November 15 and thoroughly examined and overhauled.
Second term of service
On February 9, 1940, the submarine was christened Sailfish , and on May 15, it was put into service again, this time under the command of Lt. Cmdr. Morton C. Mumma. After the completion of the test drives on September 20, the boat left Portsmouth on January 16, 1941 for Pearl Harbor, where it arrived in early March. In the following years the Sailfish operated from the Philippines. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the submarine ran out on its first of a total of twelve patrol trips in the Pacific. During these journeys she scored several sinks; on December 4, 1943, during the tenth mission, the Sailfish torpedoed and sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Chūyō . In December 1944, the submarine returned to the US coast, where it was used as a training ship off New London . On October 27, 1945, the Sailfish was decommissioned in Portsmouth, on April 30, 1948, she was then removed from the ship register. In June of that year the hull was sold to Philadelphia for scrapping, the tower remained as a memorial in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for the crew members who died in the diving accident. The Sailfish received nine Battle Stars and a Presidential Unit Citation for its use during World War II .
filming
In 2001 James Keach made the film Trapped in Icy Depths , which deals with the Squalus disaster .
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Article at Spiegel online - one day" Rescue from icy depths
Web links
- Pictures of the Sailfish at navsource.org (English)
- Detailed description of the sinking and the rescue (English)
- History of Squalus in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (English)
- History of Sailfish in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (English)
- Spiegel Online: Rescue from icy depths
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