6 SEPTEMBER 1776 FIRST SUBMARINE The world’s first operational submarine was the brainchild of physician and inventor David Bushnell while a student at Yale College in 1771. During the 1775 British blockade of Boston, he and his brother Ezra gave the idea physical Read More
30 AUGUST 1944 PALAWAN RESCUE On the night of 13 August 1944, USS FLIER’s (SS-250) surface transit of the Balabac Strait off Borneo was suddenly blasted by a deafening explosion. Like her sister, ROBALO (SS-273), two weeks earlier, FLIER had struck Read More
13-16 AUGUST 1942 RESCUE OF S-39 The 51 submarines of our S-class represented one of our most prolific post-WWI classes. Built between 1917-1920, their technology was shortly eclipsed during a time of rapid advancements in submersible design. The “Sugar” boats remained Read More
7 APRIL 1966 LOST H-BOMB Considering the pace of Cold War activities in the 1960s, accidents were bound to happen. Such was the case on 17 January 1966 when an Air Force B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker during an aerial Read More
2 APRIL 1944 FATAL ACCIDENT The Caroline Island lagoon of Chuuk (formerly Truk), ringed by a 40-mile-wide coral reef, was a key forward naval base for the Japanese in WWII. With the Allied advance across the Pacific, Truk became the target Read More
100th ANNIVERSARY 5 NOVEMBER 1923 AIRPLANE ON A SUBMARINE Several 20th century navies experimented with the deployment of aircraft from a submarine, but the Japanese are perhaps the best remembered. They successfully operated combat aircraft from their I-class submarines–famously launching Read More
100th ANNIVERSARY 28 OCTOBER 1923 FIRST SUBMARINE RESCUE When the four O-class US Navy submarines O-3 (SS-135), O-5 (SS-137), O-6 (SS-138) and O-8 (SS-140) were vectored to the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal for a routine transit on the Read More
3 OCTOBER 1944 THE TRAGEDY OF SEAWOLF The Sargo-class fleet submarine SEAWOLF (SS-197) was a veteran of the Pacific war by this date, having served nearly continuously since the Pearl Harbor raid. The 71,608 tons of enemy shipping she had sent Read More
20 MARCH 1945 LAST TRANSMISSION FROM KETE The fleet submarine KETE (SS-369) was launched 9 April 1944, one of the prolific Balao-class submarines that proved so successful in WWII. Like most, she was named for a fish, in this case a Read More
12 FEBRUARY 1947 THE KGW-1 “LOON” German technology of WWII was envied by the Allies. In the final months of the war, captured German systems began making their way to the US. One such innovation was the V-1 “buzz bomb,” a Read More