USS Pompano (SS-181), 1937-1943 (This Buds' For You!)
U.S. Navy Archives ^
Posted on 03/09/2004 5:43:14 AM PST by Happy2BMe
USS Pompano, 1330-ton Perch class submarine built at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, was commissioned in June 1937. She operated in the eastern Pacific for the rest of the decade and for the first two years of the 1940s. Pompano arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, soon after the beginning of the Pacific War, and began her first war patrol in mid-month. Surviving attacks by "friendly" planes a few days after leaving Pearl Harbor, she inspected Wake Island on New Year's Day 1942. The submarine then proceeded to the Marshall Islands, where she attacked a large ship on 13 January, but apparently did not sink it. In April-June 1942 Pompano conducted her second patrol, into the East China Sea, sinking a small tanker, a large transport and some smaller craft. Her next patrol, in July-September, took her into the waters off Japan where she survived a serious depth-charging and sank two enemy ships.
After a Mare Island overhaul Pompano operated in the Marshall Islands area in January and February 1943, off Japan in March-May and again in June-July, sank no ships and experienced some of the frustrating torpedo problems that plagued the Navy during the war's first half. Her seventh war patrol, also in Japanese waters, began in August. Pompano sank two freighters but then disappeared, with the loss of her entire crew. Though the evidence is circumstantial, she was probably sunk by a mine sometime in September 1943.
This page features all the views we have related to USS Pompano (SS-181).
| Photo #: 80-G-456127 USS Pompano (SS-181) In San Francisco Bay, California, 1938. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. |
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| Photo #: 19-N-38960 USS Pompano (SS-181) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 19 December 1942. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. /B> |
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| Photo #: 19-N-38961 USS Pompano (SS-181) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 19 December 1942. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. |
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| Photo #: 19-N-38965 USS Pompano (SS-181) Plan view, forward, taken at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 24 December 1942. Circles on the photo mark recent alterations to the ship. Note periscope, radar antenna, 20mm machine gun mountings and other details. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. |
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| Photo #: 80-G-21785 Lieutenant Commander Willis M. Thomas, USN, Commanding Officer of USS Pompano (SS-181) Receives the Navy Cross from Rear Admiral Wilhelm L. Friedell, in ceremonies at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 7 December 1941. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. |
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| Photo #: 19-N-18021 USS Henley (DD-391), at right, and USS Pompano (SS-181), at left Under construction at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 16 April 1936. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. |
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| Photo #: NH 44005 USS Pompano (SS-181) Afloat immediately after her launching, at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 March 1937. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. |
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Receives the Navy Cross from Rear Admiral Wilhelm L. Friedell, in ceremonies at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 7 December 1941.
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
This has to be an error ... 7 December 1942 perhaps?
Thanks, folks !
I'm not a Navy man (sorry). But I'd have to say SEVEN BATTLE STARS is in the "Big BoY" league.
My uncle Paul was an 
.
He jumped off two small ships after they took enemy Japanese fire during WWII.
One was the U.S.S. Hornet and the other was the U.S.S. Wasp and lived to tell about it.
What a man! Those were the days when our troops were gone for 2, 3, even 4 years at a time and folks back home sometimes had no clue if they were still alive or not.
Whoops ! I should have pinged ya'll in that pic there I 'auto-posted' (post #10) ...
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