USS Finback (SS-230)
| History | |
|---|---|
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| Builder: | Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine |
| Laid down: | 5 February 1941 |
| Launched: | 25 August 1941 |
| Sponsored by: | Mrs. A. E Watson |
| Commissioned: | 31 January 1942 |
| Decommissioned: | 21 April 1950 |
| Struck: | 1 September 1958 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, 15 July 1959 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Gato-class diesel-electric submarine |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 311 ft 9 in (95.02 m) |
| Beam: | 27 ft 3 in (8.31 m) |
| Draft: | 17 ft (5.2 m) maximum |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: |
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| Range: | 11,000 nmi (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 kn (19 km/h) |
| Endurance: |
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| Test depth: | 300 ft (90 m) |
| Complement: | 6 officers, 54 enlisted |
| Armament: |
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USS Finback (SS-230), a Gato-class submarine was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the finback, the common whale of the Atlantic coast of the United States.
Finback (SS-230) was laid down 5 February 1941 by Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched 25 August 1941 and sponsored by Mrs. Genevieve G. Watson, wife of Rear Admiral Adolphus E Watson, Commandant of the 4th Naval District and the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The boat was commissioned 31 January 1942, Lieutenant Commander Jesse L. Hull (Class of 1926) in command.
Finback reached Pearl Harbor from New London 29 May 1942, and two days later, with the Japanese fleet on the move, was ordered out to patrol during the American victory in the Battle of Midway. She returned to Pearl Harbor 9 June to prepare for her first full war patrol. She cleared harbor, bound for the Aleutian Islands, 25 June. Finback first contacted the enemy on 5 July, when she attacked two destroyers, and received her baptism of fire in a heavy depth charge attack. Two special missions highlighted this first war patrol: a reconnaissance of Vega Bay, Kiska, 11 July, and a surveying operation at Tanaga Bay, Tanaga, 11 August. The submarine ended her patrol at Dutch Harbor 12 August, and returned to Pearl Harbor 23 August to refit. Departing Pearl Harbor 23 September 1942, Finback made her second war patrol off Taiwan. On 14 October, she sighted a convoy of four merchantmen, guarded by a patrol vessel. The submarine launched two torpedoes at each of the two largest targets, sinking one, the (ex-French merchantman Ville De Verdun), Teison Maru, (7007 tons), returning empty to Japan, and went deep for the inevitable depth charging. When she surfaced, she found two destroyers in the area, preventing a further attack. With tubes reloaded she headed for the China coast. Four days later, 18 October, she inflicted heavy damage on a large freighter, and on 20 October, Finback made contact with three ships, in route to Yokohama, Japan from Saigon; sending the passenger-cargo ship; Africa Maru, (9476 tons) carrying a cargo of rice and corn, 112 crewmen and 38 passengers including survivors of cargo ship Teibo Maru (4,472 tons) torpedoed and sunk on 25 September 1942 by USS Sargo (SS-188), and the cargo ship Yamafuji Maru (5359 tons), to the bottom. The submarine rounded out this highly successful patrol with a surface gunfire engagement 3 November, sinking an ocean-going sampan. Finback returned to Pearl Harbor 20 November.
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