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USS Sargo (SS-188)
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USS Sargo (SS-188)
USS Sargo (SS-188), the lead ship of her class of submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sargo fish.
Sargo′s keel was laid on 12 May 1937 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 6 June 1938, sponsored by Mrs. Catherine V. Nimitz, the wife of Captain (later Fleet Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz, and commissioned on 7 February 1939.
The Sargo was the first vessel equipped with a new lead-acid battery designed by the Bureau of Steam Engineering (BuEng) to resist battle damage, based on a suggestion by her commissioning commanding officer, Lieutenant E. E. Yeomans. It quickly became known as the "Sargo battery". Instead of a single hard rubber case, it had two concentric hard rubber cases with a layer of soft rubber between them. This was to prevent sulfuric acid leakage in the event one case cracked during depth-charging. Leaking sulfuric acid would be capable of corroding steel, burning the skin of crew members it came into contact with, and if mixed with any seawater in the bilges it would generate poisonous chlorine gas. This remained the standard battery design until replaced with Sargo II and GUPPY batteries in submarines upgraded under the Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program after World War II. Each battery's capacity was slightly increased by installing 126 cells instead of 120; this also raised the nominal voltage from 250 volts to 270 volts, which has been standard in US usage ever since, including the backup batteries of nuclear submarines.
After shakedown along the eastern seaboard of South America, Sargo departed Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in July 1939 for duty with the Pacific Fleet. Transiting the Panama Canal, she arrived at San Diego, California, in mid-August. She operated in the eastern and mid-Pacific for the next two years, including a practice 40-day war patrol between Midway Island and the Marshall Islands in the fall of 1941. She departed Pearl Harbor on 23 October 1941, arrived in Manila on 10 November, and was there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December.
The next day (under the command of the torpedo specialist Lieutenant Commander Tyrell D. Jacobs, Annapolis Class of 1927), This submarine got underway for her first war patrol, one that took her along the east coast of French Indochina and to the Netherlands East Indies. Off the major Japanese base at Cam Ranh Bay, ULTRA intercepts directed her to three cruisers on 14 December, but the Sargo was unable to gain position to attack when they appeared as scheduled. Expecting a convoy, she went in closer, and that night detected a freighter, firing one torpedo; it prematured eighteen seconds later. Confidence in the Mark VI torpedo exploder shaken, she switched to contact pistol afterward.
On 24 December, she found two freighters, firing two torpedoes at one, one at the other, from about 1,000 yards (900 m), scoring no hits. Temporarily losing depth control, she broached, and the target turned away; Sargo fired two stern tubes at 1,800 yards (1,600 m), with no more success. The next day, she sighted a pair of merchantmen, but was unable to gain firing position. Some time afterward, she came on two more merchantmen and fired two stern torpedoes at the rearmost of them, from closer yet, 900 yards (800 m); both again missed. By now frustrated, after eight torpedoes with zero results, when two additional merchantmen came in view an hour later, Sargo took extra pains to get it right, pursuing for fifty-seven minutes and making certain TDC bearings matched perfectly before firing two torpedoes at each ship, at an average of 1000 yards; all missed.
After her skipper discovered the torpedoes were running too deep, and correcting the problem, Sargo detected a target at dusk on 26 December losing, then regaining, contact, and running ahead, so be able to get good position. Then weather intervened, and the ships escaped.
A few days afterward, a big, slow tanker gave Sargo another opportunity, and again, the approach was meticulous, firing one torpedo at a close 1,200 yards (1,100 m). It missed. In exasperation, Sargo signaled headquarters, questioning the Mark 14's reliability on an open radio circuit.
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USS Sargo (SS-188)
USS Sargo (SS-188), the lead ship of her class of submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sargo fish.
Sargo′s keel was laid on 12 May 1937 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 6 June 1938, sponsored by Mrs. Catherine V. Nimitz, the wife of Captain (later Fleet Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz, and commissioned on 7 February 1939.
The Sargo was the first vessel equipped with a new lead-acid battery designed by the Bureau of Steam Engineering (BuEng) to resist battle damage, based on a suggestion by her commissioning commanding officer, Lieutenant E. E. Yeomans. It quickly became known as the "Sargo battery". Instead of a single hard rubber case, it had two concentric hard rubber cases with a layer of soft rubber between them. This was to prevent sulfuric acid leakage in the event one case cracked during depth-charging. Leaking sulfuric acid would be capable of corroding steel, burning the skin of crew members it came into contact with, and if mixed with any seawater in the bilges it would generate poisonous chlorine gas. This remained the standard battery design until replaced with Sargo II and GUPPY batteries in submarines upgraded under the Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program after World War II. Each battery's capacity was slightly increased by installing 126 cells instead of 120; this also raised the nominal voltage from 250 volts to 270 volts, which has been standard in US usage ever since, including the backup batteries of nuclear submarines.
After shakedown along the eastern seaboard of South America, Sargo departed Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in July 1939 for duty with the Pacific Fleet. Transiting the Panama Canal, she arrived at San Diego, California, in mid-August. She operated in the eastern and mid-Pacific for the next two years, including a practice 40-day war patrol between Midway Island and the Marshall Islands in the fall of 1941. She departed Pearl Harbor on 23 October 1941, arrived in Manila on 10 November, and was there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December.
The next day (under the command of the torpedo specialist Lieutenant Commander Tyrell D. Jacobs, Annapolis Class of 1927), This submarine got underway for her first war patrol, one that took her along the east coast of French Indochina and to the Netherlands East Indies. Off the major Japanese base at Cam Ranh Bay, ULTRA intercepts directed her to three cruisers on 14 December, but the Sargo was unable to gain position to attack when they appeared as scheduled. Expecting a convoy, she went in closer, and that night detected a freighter, firing one torpedo; it prematured eighteen seconds later. Confidence in the Mark VI torpedo exploder shaken, she switched to contact pistol afterward.
On 24 December, she found two freighters, firing two torpedoes at one, one at the other, from about 1,000 yards (900 m), scoring no hits. Temporarily losing depth control, she broached, and the target turned away; Sargo fired two stern tubes at 1,800 yards (1,600 m), with no more success. The next day, she sighted a pair of merchantmen, but was unable to gain firing position. Some time afterward, she came on two more merchantmen and fired two stern torpedoes at the rearmost of them, from closer yet, 900 yards (800 m); both again missed. By now frustrated, after eight torpedoes with zero results, when two additional merchantmen came in view an hour later, Sargo took extra pains to get it right, pursuing for fifty-seven minutes and making certain TDC bearings matched perfectly before firing two torpedoes at each ship, at an average of 1000 yards; all missed.
After her skipper discovered the torpedoes were running too deep, and correcting the problem, Sargo detected a target at dusk on 26 December losing, then regaining, contact, and running ahead, so be able to get good position. Then weather intervened, and the ships escaped.
A few days afterward, a big, slow tanker gave Sargo another opportunity, and again, the approach was meticulous, firing one torpedo at a close 1,200 yards (1,100 m). It missed. In exasperation, Sargo signaled headquarters, questioning the Mark 14's reliability on an open radio circuit.
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