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Gato class submarine

The United States Navy Gato class submarine design was rushed into production in 1940 and was the forerunner of all US World War II submarine designs. The class was 77 strong and sunk more than 1,700,000 tons of Japanese shipping. New construction of the class began in 1941 as the war in Europe escalated. More than half the class was built at Electric Boat at Groton, Connecticut; 3 new slipways were added to the north yard to accommodate their production.

The Gato class served mainly in the Pacific ocean but they did operate from the Caribbean and the Atlantic for short periods of time. In the latter case, in support of Operation Torch, the allied landings in North Africa in 1942. Gato class submarines Flasher, Rasher, and Barb obtained the first three places in the league table of confirmed sinkings by US submarines in World War II. The Gato class was responsible for sinking three Japanese submarines - I-29, I-168 and 1-351.

The Gato class was initially plagued by the problems with the Mark 14 torpedo in the early war years. These tended to run too deep, explode prematurely, run erratically or circularly, or fail to detonate. These problems were identified and were largely solved by late 1943, allowing the Gato class to accumulate prolific numbers of tonnage sunk.

Several Gato class submarines were installed with new equipment. Herring used bathythermograph in covert operations, Haddock was fitted with the type SJ surface surveillance radar and Muskellunge was the first US submarine to be armed with electrically powered torpedoes. Barb became the first submarine to fire rockets while Grouper was fitted with a primitive combat information centre.

At the end of World War II, the Gato class were moved into the training roles and some of the class were converted into radar picket boats. Some of the class did see action with the US 7th fleet off Vietnam in 1966. Tunny was converted to carry the Regulus missile and served from 1953 to 1965 in this role. Redfin was used in trials of inertial guidance systems for the Polaris missile submarines after 1959.

The last active boat was Rock which was decommissioned in September 1969 and sunk as a target.

Museum Boats

Six Gatos are on display in the United States. is at Seawolf Park, is at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, and is at Battleship Memorial Park. The is on display in Cleveland. It does not have doors cut through its pressure hull nor stairwells added. The is on display in Buffalo, New York, and the is on display in Muskegon, Michigan.

A few highlights

formed the basis of the largest class of American submarines ever built, counting the & , which weren't substantially different.
's skipper, Howard W. Gilmore, earned the Sub Force's first combat Medal of Honor for ordering his boat to dive after he was wounded 7 February 1943 by fire from provision ship Hayasaki and was unable to reach the hatch in time.
In , Mannert L. Abele earned the Sub Force's first Navy Cross, when his boat vanished off Kiska in July 1942.
was the only U.S. boat in the Pacific War lost to grounding.
became famous in Edward L. "Ned" Beach's book Submarine! (which was a kind of eulogy to her).
, commanded by the Sub Force's most famous skipper, Dudley W. "Mush" Morton, was the first U.S. sub into the Sea of Japan. She was sunk exiting in 1943 after a second excursion.
sank Japanese tank reinforcements which were en route to Iwo Jima.
was the top-scoring U.S. boat of the war, with 100,231 tons officially credited to her by the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee JANAC.
was commanded by Samuel D. Dealey, the only submariner of the war (perhaps the only one ever) to sink five enemy destroyers, four in a single patrol.
was lent to the Japanese after the war, under the name Kuroshio.
sank the carrier Shokaku. Shokaku had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
sank the carrier Taiho.Taiho was the flagship of Ozawa's fleet during the Battle of the Philippine Sea
went to the rescue of a grounded Dutch submarine O-19, taking its crew on board and destroying the submarine when it could not be gotten off the reef, the only international submarine-to-submarine rescue in history.