USS Bluegill
USS Bluegill (SSK-242) underway during the 1950s.
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History | |
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United States | |
Name | USS Bluegill (SS-242) |
Ordered | Bluegill |
Builder | Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut[1] |
Laid down | 7 December 1942[1] |
Launched | 8 August 1943[1] |
Sponsored by | Mrs. W. Sterling Cole |
Commissioned | 11 November 1943[1] |
Decommissioned | 1 March 1946[1] |
Recommissioned | 3 May 1951[1] |
Decommissioned | 7 July 1952[1] |
Reclassified | Hunter-killer submarine (SSK-242) 7 July 1952 |
Recommissioned | 2 May 1953[1] |
Reclassified | Attack submarine (SS-242) 10 August 1959 |
Reclassified | Auxiliary submarine (AGSS-242) 1 April 1966 |
Decommissioned | 28 June 1969[1] |
Stricken | 28 June 1969[1] |
Fate |
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General characteristics | |
Class and type | |
Displacement | |
Length | 311 ft 9 in (95.02 m)[3] |
Beam | 27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)[3] |
Draft | 17 ft (5.2 m) maximum[3] |
Propulsion |
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Speed | |
Range | 11,000 nmi (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 kn (19 km/h)[2] |
Endurance |
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Test depth | 300 ft (90 m)[2] |
Complement | 6 officers, 54 enlisted[2] |
Armament |
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USS Bluegill (SS-242/SSK-242) was a
During World War II, Bluegill completed six war patrols between 1 April 1944 and 21 June 1945, operating in an area extending from New Guinea to Formosa and in the South China Sea and Java Sea. She sank ten Japanese vessels, totaling 46,212 tons, including the light cruiser Yubari and a submarine chaser. She was placed in reserve in 1946.
Recommissioned in 1951, Bluegill operated as a
Construction and commissioning
Bluegill′s
Service history
World War II
November 1943–March 1944
After
First war patrol
On 1 April 1944, Bluegill put to sea from Milne Bay on her first war patrol. She conducted it in the area between northern
On 28 April 1944, Bluegill encountered another Japanese destroyer escorting a large landing barge. After gaining a favorable position on the target, she fired a spread of four torpedoes. None hit, the torpedoes apparently running under the target. Again, Bluegill dived and escaped.
On the afternoon of 1 May 1944, Bluegill contacted a Japanese
On 10 May 1944, Bluegill put into Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands to bring aboard additional torpedoes from the submarine USS Cero (SS-225). The two submarines departed Manus on 11 May, and Bluegill returned to her patrol area near Halmahera and Morotai in the Maluku Islands. On the morning of 19 May, she allowed a Japanese destroyer to pass unmolested in the hope that larger targets might follow, but none materialized.
On 20 May 1944, Bluegill sighted a single Japanese merchant ship rounding a point on Halmahera in company with two escorts. Gaining a favorable firing position to shoreward, she loosed a four-torpedo spread from her stern tubes. Three of the four torpedoes shattered the 1,856-gross register ton cargo ship Miyaura Maru. On 22 May, Bluegill encountered a Japanese convoy that had already been attacked by the submarine USS Ray (SS-271), but two Japanese submarine chasers detected her and dropped a depth-charge barrage close aboard, preventing her from making an attack. While she continued to maneuver for a favorable attack position on the convoy later that day, a Japanese plane forced her to crash-dive and dropped depth charges. Thanks to the crash dive, Bluegill lost contact with the convoy. She left her patrol area on 28 May 1944, stopped at Manus on 1 June, and concluded her patrol with her arrival at Brisbane, Australia, on 7 June 1944.
Second war patrol
Bluegill embarked upon her second war patrol at the end of June 1944, stopped at Manus on 5 and 6 July, and then got underway for
While off Maculi Point on Mindanao on 7 August 1944, Bluegill spotted a Japanese cargo ship accompanied by two escorts, a decoy vessel, and three aircraft overhead. She set up on the cargo ship, and two of the four torpedoes that she fired struck home. She was forced deep by a barrage of 36 depth charges. She later learned that her target, the 4,642-gross register ton Sanju Maru, had gone to the bottom.
On 13 August 1944, Bluegill caught sight of a Japanese cargo ship escorted by two torpedo boats, two submarine chasers, and a decoy vessel. She launched a spread of four torpedoes that found two targets, the 300-displacement ton Submarine Chaser No. 12 and the 1,931-gross register ton cargo ship Kojun Maru. At that point, she headed for Australia and, after a stop at Darwin in the Northern Territory, she concluded her patrol with her arrival at Fremantle, Western Australia, on 24 August 1944.
Third war patrol
Bluegill departed Fremantle on 18 September 1944 to begin her third war patrol, which took her to the Sulu Sea, the Sibuyan Sea, and the South China Sea. On 6 October 1944, she encountered an interisland steamer off Bondoc Point on southern Luzon in the Philippine Islands and riddled it with gunfire. The steamer remained stubbornly afloat at the approach of darkness, so Bluegill was forced to expend a torpedo to sink it.
On 12 October 1944, Bluegill surfaced in the midst of three small Japanese cargo ships of a type known to the Americans as "sea trucks" off Tumao Point on northwestern Mindanao. She opened gunfire on them and soon scored hits on two of the three. However, the sea trucks were armed with heavy machine guns, and when Bluegill′s after 20-millimeter gun jammed, one of the sea trucks took advantage of the opportunity to spray the submarine with machine-gun fire, wounding several of Bluegill′s sailors and prompting Bluegill to break off the action and submerge.
Before dawn on 18 October 1944, Bluegill contacted a Japanese 14-ship convoy while on the surface off
On 20 October 1944, Bluegill expended her remaining torpedoes in an unsuccessful attack on two Japanese
Fourth war patrol
Repair of her battle damage kept Bluegill in port until she stood out of Fremantle on 19 December 1944 for her fourth war patrol. On the night of 25 December, she attempted a fast surface transit of
During January 1945, Bluegill conducted a
Fifth war patrol
Bluegill began her fifth war patrol on 12 March 1945 and transited Lombok Strait on the night of 18–19 March 1945. Early on 19 March, she made an unsuccessful submerged torpedo attack on an
At around 10:20 on 28 March 1945, Bluegill heard a combination of sonar pings and depth-charge explosions to the south as Blackfin attacked the Japanese convoy HI-88J as it moved up the coast of French Indochina. Bluegill began to edge quietly toward the fracas as the three submarines, in concert with United States Army Air Forces planes, began an onslaught against the convoy. Just before 11:00, Bluegill made contact with the 5,542-gross register ton tanker Honan Maru (formerly the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker War Sirdar) escorted by four coast defense vessels and a destroyer. A little before 11:15, she fired three torpedoes at Honan Maru. Two of them struck home, but Honan Maru managed to ground herself on the nearby shore to avoid sinking and permit salvage. Meanwhile, Bluegill contended with a savage depth charge attack from the escorts. On 29 March, she fired two more torpedoes at the stranded Honan Maru.
On 5 and 6 April 1945, Bluegill attempted a
Sixth war patrol
Bluegill put to sea from Subic Bay on her sixth war patrol, assigned a patrol area in the
End of war
Later in June 1945, Bluegill headed for
Post-World War II
1945–1946
Upon completion of her overhaul, Buegill served in the
, California.1951–1953
Bluegill remained in reserve at Mare Island until the spring of 1951. As part of the fleet build-up that occurred following the outbreak of the
1953–1969
Bluegill resumed duty based at San Diego until 2 November 1953, when she deployed to the western Pacific. During her deployment, she trained with units of the
In December 1955, Bluegill moved to a new home port at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. For almost nine years, she alternated between operations in the Hawaiian Islands with deployments to the western Pacific. On 15 August 1959, she was redesignated an attack submarine with the hull classification symbol SS-242.
While Bluegill was undergoing overhaul at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard on 1 April 1964, while in overhaul, her home port changed to San Diego. For the remainder of her career, she divided her time between training duties along the U.S. West Coast and periodic cruises to the Far East. During the Vietnam War, she spent time in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam in 1965, conducting reconnaissance operations and rescuing downed American pilots. She received her last designation change on 1 April 1966, when she became an auxiliary submarine with the hull classification symbol AGSS-242.
Disposal
Bluegill was decommissioned at San Diego on 28 June 1969, and her name was struck from the
On 5 November 1983, after a month of preparatory work, the
Awards
- Navy Unit Commendation for her first war patrol, during which she sank Yubari
- Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with four battle stars for World War IIservice
- Korean Service Medal
- Vietnam Service Medal with four battle stars for Vietnam War service[8]
References
- ^ ISBN 1-55750-263-3.
- ^ a b c d e f U.S. Submarines Through 1945 pp. 305–311
- ^ ISBN 0-313-26202-0.
- ^ OCLC 24010356.
- ^ U.S. Submarines Through 1945 p. 261
- ^ a b c U.S. Submarines Through 1945 pp. 305–311
- ^ USS Bluegill (SS-242) at Navsource.org, retrieved 7 December 2017
- ^ https://goatlocker.org/resources/nav/1650.pdf “OpNavNote 1650 September 2002, Pg. 57”
Sources
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to USS Bluegill (SS-242).