USS ''Pickerel'' (SS-177), a ''Porpoise''-class

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

, was the first ship of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

to be named for the pickerel, species of freshwater fish native to the eastern United States and Canada. Her

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element of a watercraft, important for stability. On some sailboats, it may have a fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose as well. The keel laying, laying of the keel is often ...

was laid on 25 March 1935 by the

Electric Boat An electric boat is a powered watercraft driven by electric motors, which are powered by either on-board battery packs, solar panels or generators. While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power ...

Company in

Groton, Connecticut Groton ( ) is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States, located on the Thames River (Connecticut), Thames River. It is the home of General Dynamics Electric Boat, which is the major contractor for submarine work for the United St ...

. She was launched on 7 July 1936 sponsored by Miss Evelyn Standley, daughter of Rear Admiral William Standley, acting Secretary of the Navy. She was commissioned on 26 January 1937,

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

Leon J. Huffman in command.

Service history

Inter-War Period

After her shakedown cruise, the new boat conducted training exercises out of

New London, Connecticut New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States, located at the outlet of the Thames River (Connecticut), Thames River in New London County, Connecticut, which empties into Long Island Sound. The cit ...

until getting underway on 26 October 1937 and heading, via Guantánamo Bay, Cuba to transit the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...

on 9 November. Joining the Pacific Fleet, ''Pickerel'' operated out of

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, along the West Coast, and in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

an waters. Subsequently, transferred to the Asiatic Fleet, she prepared for war with a vigorous training schedule in the

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World War II

Upon receiving word of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...

, ''Pickerel'' – commanded by Lieutenant Commander Barton E. Bacon, Jr. – sped to the coast of

French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China), officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1941 as the Indochinese Federation, was a group of French dependent territories in Southeast Asia from 1887 to 1954. It was initial ...

and conducted her first war patrol off

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and Tourane Harbor. She tracked a Japanese

and a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

but lost them in haze and rain squalls before they came in

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

range. On 19 December, she also missed a small Japanese patrol craft with five

es, before returning to Manila Bay on 29 December. On her second patrol (31 December 1941 – 29 January 1942), conducted between

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

and

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, the submarine sank ''Kanko Maru'' on 10 January 1942. On her third war patrol (7 February–19 March), along the Malay Barrier, and her fourth (15 April–6 June), in the

, she failed to score. ''Pickerel''s fifth war patrol (10 July–26 August), was a voyage from

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, to

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

for refit, with a short patrol in the

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''en route'', during which she damaged a freighter. During the refit, LCDR Bacon was detached and ''Pickerel''s executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Augustus H. Alston, Jr., became her new CO. On her sixth war patrol (22 January–3 March 1943), she searched among the

Kurile Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

on the

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traffic lanes. In sixteen attacks, she sank ''Tateyama Maru'' and two 35-ton

sampan A sampan is a relatively flat-bottomed wooden boat found in East, Southeast, and South Asia. It is possibly of Chinese or Austronesian origin. Some sampans include a small shelter on board and may be used as a permanent habitation on in ...

s. She departed Pearl Harbor on 18 March 1943 and, after topping off with fuel and provisions at

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on 22 March, headed for the eastern coast of northern

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, Japan and was never heard from again. ''Pickerel'' was the first submarine to be lost in the Central Pacific area. She was stricken from the

Naval Vessel Register The ''Naval Vessel Register'' (NVR) is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from t ...

on 19 August 1943. Post-war analysis of Japanese records give conflicting suggestions about ''Pickerel''s fate. The Japanese officially credit her with sinking ''Submarine Chaser Number 13'' on 3 April and ''Fukuei Maru'' on 7 April, and give no official report of her destruction. Those records also describe an action off Shiramuka Lighthouse on northern

on 3 April 1943 in which naval aircraft first bombed an unidentified submarine, then directed ''Shiragami'' and ''Bunzan Maru'' to the spot, where they dropped twenty-six

depth charge A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon designed to destroy submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited ...

s. A large quantity of oil floated to the surface, which was often enough for Japanese ASW ships to believe their target was sunk. It is likely ''Pickerel''s fuel oil bunkers leaked. Since there were several other ASW operations in the area in that period,Clay Blair, Jr., ''Silent Victory'' (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975), p. 409. and ''Pickerel'' was the only American submarine in that area, one of these other attacks, sometime after 7 April, probably claimed her.

Awards

* Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three battle stars for

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

service

References

Sources

* Beach Jr., Edward L. "Ned". ''Submarine!''. Henry Holt, 1952. *Beach Jr., Edward L. '' Run Silent, Run Deep'' (a novel). Pocket Books, 1972. *_____. ''Dust on the Sea'' (a novel). Dell, 1972. * Grider, George W., as told to Lydel Sims. ''War Fish''. Little, Brown and Company, 1958. * Holmes, Wilfred J. "Jasper" ''Undersea Victory''. Doubleday, 1966. * O'Kane, Richard H. ''Clear the Bridge!''. Rand McNally & Co., 1977. *______. Wahoo: ''The Patrols of America's Most Famous World War II''. Presidio Pres, 1987.

External links

*
On Eternal Patrol: USS ''Pickerel''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickerel (Ss-177) United States Porpoise-class submarines World War II submarines of the United States Lost submarines of the United States Ships built in Groton, Connecticut 1936 ships Submarines lost with all hands Maritime incidents in April 1943 Submarines sunk by Japanese warships