USS Sealion (SS-315)
![]() Sealion (APSS-315), converted to an amphibious transport submarine (May 1956)
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History | |
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Builder | General Dynamics Electric Boat, Groton, Connecticut[1] |
Laid down | 25 February 1943[1] |
Launched | 31 October 1943[1] |
Commissioned | 8 March 1944[1] |
Decommissioned | 16 February 1946[1] |
Recommissioned | 2 November 1948[1] |
Decommissioned | 30 June 1960[1] |
Recommissioned | 20 October 1961[1] |
Decommissioned | 20 February 1970[1] |
Stricken | 15 March 1977[1] |
Fate | Sunk as a target off Newport on 8 July 1978[1][2] |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | |
Displacement | 1,526 long tons (1,550 t) surfaced,[2] 2,424 long tons (2,463 t) submerged[2] |
Length | 311 ft 9 in (95.02 m)[2] |
Beam | 27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)[2] |
Draft | 16 ft 10 in (5.13 m) maximum[2] |
Propulsion |
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Speed | 20.25 knots (37.50 km/h; 23.30 mph) surfaced,[3] 8.75 knots (16.21 km/h) submerged[3] |
Range | 11,000 nmi (20,000 km; 13,000 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) surfaced[3] |
Endurance | 48 hours at 2 kn (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) submerged,[3] 75 days on patrol |
Test depth | 400 ft (120 m)[3] |
Complement | 10 officers, 70–71 enlisted[3] |
Armament |
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USS Sealion (SS/SSP/ASSP/APSS/LPSS-315), a Balao-class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sea lion, any of several large, eared seals native to the Pacific. She is sometimes referred to as Sealion II, because her first skipper,
Her
World War II
Following the
From the Sasebo area, the submarines moved toward the Korean peninsula. On 28 June, Sealion caught and sank a Japanese naval transport, Sansei Maru, in the Tsushima Island area; then continued on into the Korean archipelago. On 30 June, she used her deck guns to sink a sampan, and, with the new month, July, she moved closer to the China coast to patrol the approaches to Shanghai. On the morning of 6 July, Sealion intercepted a convoy south of the Four Sisters Islands and, at 04:47 commenced firing torpedoes at two merchant ships in the formation. Within minutes, Setsuzan Maru sank, and the convoy scattered. Sealion retired to the northeast to evade the convoy's escort, a destroyer, as it began its search for the submarine. At 06:00, the destroyer closed Sealion, and the submarine launched four torpedoes at the warship. All missed. An hour later enemy aircraft joined the search which was continued until mid-afternoon, and Sealion escaped unscathed.
Three days later, Sealion moved northward again and commenced hunting between the
Refitted by
There, the submarine rearmed and refueled. On 7 September, Sealion got underway to rejoin her attack group. On 10 September, she moved through
An hour and a half later, Sealion again closed the convoy. At 05:22, she launched three torpedoes at a tanker; then swung to fire on Rakuyo Maru, the last ship in the nearer column. At 05:24, Zuihō Maru, possibly hit by torpedoes from both Pampanito and Sealion, burst into flames. Kachidoki Maru was disabled. She swung into the burning tanker and soon was also ablaze. Sealion's second target was illuminated, and at 05:25, she fired on Rakuyo Maru. Both torpedoes hit and that ship began to burn. The sinking of Rakuyo Maru and Kachidoki Maru resulted in the death of nearly 1,200 Australian and British POWs. Sealion was then forced to go deep. After several attempts to get a better look at the scene, she cleared the area and started after the remainder of the convoy.
On the morning of 15 September, the three submarines reformed their scouting line. That afternoon, Pampanito radioed Sealion and other submarines in the area, to return to the scene of the action on 12 September. Rakuyo Maru had been carrying Australian and British POWs, 1,159 of whom were killed in the attack or by the effects of the attack.
From Saipan, Sealion returned to Hawaii. Arriving at Pearl Harbor on 30 September, she departed again on 31 October, and with
Sinking of Kongō and Urakaze
At 00:20 on 21 November, she made radar contact with an enemy formation moving through the Taiwan Strait at about 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) and not zig-zagging. By 00:48, the pips were made out to be two cruisers and two battleships. At 01:46, three additional ships, escorts—one on either beam of the formation and one on the starboard quarter—became visible. Sealion had in fact intercepted a powerful surface fleet consisting of the battleships Yamato, Nagato, and Kongō, the cruiser Yahagi, and the destroyers Hamakaze, Isokaze, Urakaze, Yukikaze, Kiri, and Ume.
At 02:45, Sealion, ahead of the task force, turned in and slowed for the attack. Eleven minutes later, she fired six torpedoes at the second ship in line, Kongō. At 02:59, she fired three at Nagato. At 03:00, her crew saw and heard three hits from the first salvo, flooding two of Kongō's boiler rooms and giving her a list to port. Nagato, alerted by the explosions, turned hard and the Sealion's second salvo missed ahead, running on to hit and sink Urakaze; the destroyer's magazines were hit by the torpedo. She blew up and sank quickly with the loss of all hands on board, including the commanding officer of DesDiv 17, Yokota Yasuteru.
Sealion opened to the westward. The Japanese searched to the east. By 03:10, the submarine had reloaded and began tracking again with the thought that the torpedoes had only dented the battleship's armor belt. The Japanese formation, however, had begun zig-zagging and the sea and wind had increased. At 04:50, the enemy formation split into two groups. Sealion began tracking the slower group consisting of Kongō, Isokaze and Hamakaze, performing an end around to regain attack position. At 05:24, a tremendous explosion lit the area and Kongō disappeared.
It was customary in American submarines to mark a name on the head of each torpedo as it was loaded into the tube nest. They usually bore the names of the torpedo crews' wives or best girls. Some carried the names of the factory employee who had sold the most war bonds during a given period. That night, however, four of Sealion's torpedoes, as they raced out of their tubes, carried the names Foster, O'Connell, Paul and Ogilvie—the men who had been killed in the bombing of Sealion I three years earlier. It was not customary for the crews of American submarines to make audio recordings of their attacks. However, the Sealion crew had obtained a sound recorder left behind by a CBS war correspondent who had debarked at Midway, and when ordered to battle stations after encountering the Japanese battle group, one sailor positioned the microphone by an intercom in the conning tower. That recording,[7] along with a similar recording[7] of an attack on a Japanese oiler during the Sealion's fifth patrol, were then preserved by the Naval Underwater Sound Laboratory, and are thought to be the only surviving sound recordings of World War II submarine attacks.[7]
Subsequent activity
During the next few days, Sealion continued to patrol between Mainland China and Formosa, and on 28 November, she headed for Guam.
On her fourth war patrol, from 14 December 1944 – 24 January 1945, Sealion returned to the South China Sea in a coordinated attack group with sister ships Blenny and Caiman. Poor weather plagued her, and of the 26 days spent on station, all but six were spent on the surface. On 20 December, she sighted a supply ship escorted by a destroyer through her high periscope, and at 19:37 fired six torpedoes at the supply ship for four hits. The submarine then evaded the escort, reloaded, and waited. Two and one-half hours later, Mamiya was still afloat, and the submarine went in for a second attack. At 00:32 on 21 December, she launched three torpedoes for two hits. The supply ship went under.
That day, Sealion joined the Seventh Fleet, and from 28 December 1944 to 14 January 1945, she performed reconnaissance duties in support of the reoccupation of the
By 30 April, Sealion was again ready for sea. With Bashaw and Hammerhead, she departed Subic Bay for the northern part of the South China Sea. Through May, she patrolled off Hong Kong and provided lifeguard services for strikes against Formosa. At the end of the month, she received downed aviators from Bream and transported them back to Subic, then with passengers bound for Hawaii, she sailed east. On 12 June, she arrived at Guam, whence she proceeded to a lifeguard station off Wake Island, and on 30 June, she cleared that area for Pearl Harbor.
Post-war
From Pearl Harbor, Sealion continued on to
A year and one-half later, however, Sealion, along with
On 2 November 1948, Sealion was recommissioned a Submarine, Transport, with the hull classification symbol SSP-315. Training exercises off the southern California coast, with Marines embarked, took her into the spring of 1949 when she was ordered to the Atlantic for duty in SubDiv 21. During April, she operated in the New London, Connecticut, area, then, in May, she commenced operations out of Norfolk, Virginia, as a unit of Submarine Squadron 6 (SubRon 6), SubDiv 61. On 31 January 1950, she was reclassified a transport submarine with hull classification symbol ASSP-315; and, by the spring of that year, had conducted exercises as far north as Labrador and as far south as the southern Caribbean. From April to June 1950, she underwent her first post-conversion overhaul at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and in July, she resumed operations out of Norfolk.
Sealion was reassigned to SubDiv 63 in March 1955 and tested helicopter operations in 1956.[9] It was reclassified submarine transport APSS-315 on 24 October 1956, Sealion continued a schedule of exercises with Marines, Underwater Demolition Teams and Beach Jumper units and, on occasion, Army units, off the Virginia and Carolina coasts and in the Caribbean until 1960. During that time, interruptions came only for overhaul periods, during one of which the "LVT hangar" abaft the conning tower was removed, and for one deployment with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean from August–November 1957.
On 30 June 1960, Sealion was decommissioned at
Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 March 1977, Sealion was sunk as a target off Newport, Rhode Island, on 8 July 1978.
Awards
- Presidential Unit Citation
- battle stars
- World War II Victory Medal
- National Defense Service Medal with star
References
- ^ ISBN 1-55750-263-3.
- ^ ISBN 0-313-26202-0.
- ^ a b c d e f U.S. Submarines Through 1945 pp. 305–311
- ^ a b U.S. Submarines Through 1945 pp. 305–311
- ^ Howland, Chace V. "USS Sealion: the Only American Submarine to Sink an Enemy Battleship". Warfare History Network.
- ^ "Rakuyo Maru". roll-of-honour.org.uk.
- ^ a b c "Historic Naval Sound and Video". maritime.org.
- ^ Roberts, U.S. Navy Ship Design Project Numbers
- ^ Newdick, Thomas (12 May 2021). "USS Sealion Was The Navy's Unique Helicopter-Accommodating Submarine". The Drive.
Sources
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entries can be found here and here.
- Roberts, Stephen S. "U.S. Navy Ship Design Project Numbers, 1946-1979 ("SCB Numbers)". Retrieved 11 October 2022.
- Tully, Anthony P. (1998). Total Eclipse: The Last Battles of the IJN.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Official website
- USS Sealion history by VAdm Charles A. Lockwood
- Pictures taken on board the USS Sealion in 1968 and 1969
- Photo gallery of Sealion at NavSource Naval History
- sounds page—includes sound from aboard the Sealion