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Smoky Mountain Base
Submarine Veterans
100 Disston RD
Oak Ridge, TN 37830-4040
secretary@smokymountainbase.org
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Tolling of the Boats for
April
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USS Pickerel (SS-177)
Lost on April 3,1943 with the loss of 74 officers and men,
while on her 7th war patrol. She was lost off Honshu. The
exact cause of her loss has never been determined, but her
OP area contained numerous minefields.
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USS Snook (SS-279)
Lost April 8,1945 with the loss of 88 officers and men. Snook
ranks 10th in total Japanese tonnage sunk and is tied for 9th
in the number of ships sunk. She was lost near Hainan Island,
possibly sunk by a Japanese submarine.
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USS Thresher (SSN-593)
Lost April 10, 1963 with the loss of 112 crew members and 17
civilian technicians during deep-diving exercises. 15 minutes
after reaching test depth, she communicated with USS Skylark
that she was having problems. Skylark heard noises "like
air rushing into an air tank" - then, silence. Rescue
ship Recovery (ASR-43) subsequently recovered bits of debris,
including gloves and bits of internal insulation. Photographs
taken by Trieste proved that the submarine had broken up,
taking all hands on board to their deaths in 1,400 fathoms of
water, some 220 miles east of Boston.
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USS Gudgeon (SS-211)
USS Gudgeon (SS-211) was lost on April 18, 1944 with the loss
of 80 men off Saipan. Winner of 5 Presidential Unit Citations,
Gudgeon was on her 12th war patrol and most likely due to a
combined air and surface antisubmarine attack.
Gudgeon was the first US submarine to go on patrol from Pearl
Harbor after the Japanese attack. On her first patrol, she
became the first US submarine to sink an enemy warship,
picking off the submarine I-173.
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USS Grenadier (SS-210)
Lost April 22,1943 near Penang, with no immediate loss of
life. She was on her 6th war patrol. While stalking a convoy,
she was spotted by a plane and dove. While passing 130 feet,
the plane dropped a bomb causing sever damage. She was lodged
on the bottom 270 feet and the crew spent hours fighting fires
and flooding. When she surfaced, she had no propulsion and was
attacked by another plane. While she shot down the plane. When
enemy ships arrived, the CO abandoned ship and scuttled the
boat. Of the 61 crew members taken prisoner, 57 survived the
war. |
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