USS Tilefish

History
United States
Name	USS Tilefish (SS-307)
Builder	Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Laid down	March 10, 1943
Launched	October 25, 1943
Commissioned	December 15, 1943
Decommissioned	October 12, 1959
Recommissioned	January 30, 1960
Decommissioned	May 4, 1960
Stricken	December 1, 1960
Fate	Transferred to Venezuela, May 4, 1960
Venezuela
Name	ARV Carite (S-11)
Acquired	May 4, 1960
Decommissioned	January 28, 1977
Fate	Cannibalized for spare parts
General characteristics
Class and type	diesel-electric submarine
Displacement	1,526 tons (1,550 t) surfaced; 2,424 tons (2,460 t) submerged;
Length	311 ft 10 in (95.05 m)
Beam	27 ft 4 in (8.33 m)
Draft	16 ft 10 in (5.13 m) maximum
Propulsion	4 × electrical generators; 2 × 126- batteries; 4 × high-speed Elliott electric motors with reduction gears; 2 × propellers; 5,400 MW) surfaced; 2,740 shp (2.04 MW) submerged[4];
Speed	20.25 knots (37 km/h) surfaced; 8.75 knots (16.21 km/h) submerged;
Range	11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Endurance	48 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged; 75 days on patrol;
Test depth	400 feet (120 m)
Complement	10 officers, 70–71 enlisted
Armament	10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes; 6 forward, 4 aft; 24 torpedoes; 1 × 5-inch (127 mm) / 25 caliber deck gun; Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon;

USS Tilefish (SS-307), a

Balao-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tilefish

, a large, yellow-spotted deepwater food fish.

Her keel was laid down on March 10, 1943 at

launched on October 25, 1943 sponsored by Mrs. Wilson D. Leggett, and commissioned

on December 28, 1943.

First and second war patrols

During February and March 1944, Tilefish underwent trials and shakedown off the California coast before getting underway for

Honshū, Tilefish sighted many enemy aircraft but found few targets for her torpedoes. Early in the patrol, she was hampered by the failure of her fathometer; and, throughout the mission, she was plagued by periscope fogging and overcast weather which ruled out celestial navigation. Finally, on the morning of 11 May, the novice submarine and her crew encountered their first opportunity for action. Tilefish sighted a small convoy and launched a determined attack. Choosing a passenger liner as her target, the submarine unleashed a spread of torpedoes, scoring a hit under the ship's bridge. As Tilefish dove amid the sounds of explosions, she experienced problems which caused her inadvertently to take on a large amount of water. Before the situation was brought under control, Tilefish had made a hair-raising dive to 580 feet (180 m), well below test depth. Too deep to be reached by the depth charges

of her pursuers, she evaded their attack and continued her patrol.

The son of a Tilefish crew member recalls from his childhood hearing a detailed account of this initial engagement:

“My father, Motor Machinists Mate 2nd Class George Oberhofer, found himself in the thick of things during Tilefish’s first attack. At the time the target was sighted, repairs to the submarine’s ballast system were underway in her compressor compartment, with one disassembled pipe leaving the compartment in open communication with the sea. As a result, the compartment began to flood during the attack dive. Had the water level reached the electrical compressor motors, they would have shorted out, leaving her able to surface once but unable to dive again, a sitting duck for enemy destroyers.

”MM2C Oberhofer dove into the flooding compartment to the offending pipe and managed to close it off and get the compartment pumped out before the compressor motors were damaged. For these actions he was awarded a silver star, rare in the submarine service where unit commendations for collective performance were the more typical way to recognize valor in combat.

“My father kept a curious memento from the TIlefish, a tank watch in which the hands had become detached and floated freely around under the crystal. I asked what had happened to his watch and he replied, ‘Depth charges.’ This may shed light on events after the initial attack run. We may reasonably speculate that Tilefish was under heavy depth charging by Japanese destroyers after sinking her target, and was diving to extreme depths in search of a thermocline—a layer of water of a sharply different temperature than the water above it. Thermoclines reflect sonar pings, rendering a submarine that dives below one invisible. It seems likely that Tilefish successfully found one at 580 feet and slipped away because of it.”

Finding further contact with the enemy to be very light, Tilefish requested another patrol area and was assigned to the northern Mariana Islands where she searched for targets on May 19 and 20th. She completed this patrol at Majuro on May 29, 1944.

After a refitting by submarine tender Bushnell (AS-15), Tilefish departed Majuro on June 22, 1944 and headed with an attack group for the Luzon Strait area. In company with submarines Sawfish (SS-276) and Rock (SS-274), Tilefish set course, via Batan Island and Bashi Channel, for her assigned position. On the morning of July 18, Tilefish launched a torpedo attack on a large convoy Hi-69 and had the satisfaction of seeing a freighter sustain two hits. Meanwhile, Rock had joined in the attack and was being held down by a destroyer of the convoy's screen. At 10:50, Tilefish made a torpedo attack on the destroyer. Seeing their wakes, the enemy ship attempted to evade the torpedoes, but the first hit under its forward mount and wrapped her bow around the bridge. A second hit added to the destroyer's damage. Before Tilefish was forced down by enemy aircraft, she caught one last glimpse of the destroyer, listing and dead in the water. Nine minutes later, the submarine made a periscope sweep and found no sign of the enemy ship. The enemy ship, frigate CD-17, survived her damage, however.

In the days that followed, the submarine patrolled the waters east of

Midway Island before completing her second patrol at Pearl Harbor

on August 15.

Third and fourth war patrols

Tilefish departed

Midway Island

on October 24, 1944.

On 15 November, Tilefish got underway for the Kuril Islands. During the first half of this patrol, she operated in northern waters but was hampered by bitterly cold weather, poor visibility, and hurricane-force winds. The mountainous waves forced the submarine to submerge to ride out the storm. On November 25, Tilefish entered the Sea of Okhotsk to patrol the coast of Shimushiru Island. Snow frosted the periscope and prevented accurate identification of possible targets. By 16 December, Tilefish had moved south to take up a lifeguard station off Najima Saki. On the morning of December 22, she sank Chidori, a torpedo boat [758 tons],^[9] and evaded a Japanese counterattack of depth charges and aerial bombs without damage. She departed the patrol area on December 24 and arrived at Pearl Harbor on January 2, 1945.

Fifth and sixth war patrols

After refitting by submarine tender

San Francisco, California

where she was overhauled.

Tilefish returned to

San Francisco, California, and operated off the West Coast throughout most of the year. In May, she participated in "wolfpack" exercises and in September took part in live load training, using the hulk of the former SS Schuyler Colfax as a target. In October, she made a brief trip to the Hawaiian Islands and then returned to the West Coast. From January 1947 to September 1950, Tilefish continued to operate out of California ports with occasional voyages to Pearl Harbor

. During this period, she conducted underway training and took part in fleet exercises off the West Coast.

Post World War II service

On September 5, 1950, Tilefish departed

La Perouse Strait to keep the Commander, Naval Forces Far East, informed of Soviet seaborne activity in that area. After this tour, the submarine resumed her routine of operations out of Hawaiian and West Coast ports until 1957. Highlights of this period were convoy attack exercises in Hawaiian waters and a goodwill visit to Acapulco, Mexico

, early in June 1956.

Following a period of reduced status and overhaul, Tilefish again got underway in April 1957 for Far Eastern waters. During this deployment, she visited ports in

San Diego, California

, on September 27, 1957.

On September 16, 1958, the veteran submarine made way via

San Diego, California

, on December 5, 1958 for inactivation.

Tilefish was decommissioned on October 12, 1959, underwent overhaul at the

San Francisco Naval Shipyard, and was recommissioned on January 30, 1960. Her final decommissioning was in May 1960. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on December 1, 1960, and sold to the Venezuelan

government.