USS Grayback (SS-208)

Grayback in 1941
History
Builder:	Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut
Laid down:	3 April 1940
Launched:	31 January 1941
Commissioned:	30 June 1941
Fate:	Sunk by Japanese aircraft south of Okinawa, 27 February 1944
General characteristics
Class and type:	Tambor class diesel-electric submarine
Displacement:	1,475 long tons (1,499 t) standard, surfaced 2,370 long tons (2,410 t) submerged
Length:	307 ft 2 in (93.62 m)
Beam:	27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)
Draft:	14 ft 7 1⁄2 in (4.458 m)
Propulsion:	4 × General Motors Model 16-248 V16 diesel engines driving electrical generators 2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries 4 × high-speed General Electric electric motors with reduction gears two propellers 5,400 shp (4.0 MW) surfaced 2,740 shp (2.0 MW) submerged
Speed:	20.4 knots (38 km/h) surfaced 8.75 knots (16 km/h) submerged
Range:	11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Endurance:	48 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged
Test depth:	250 ft (76 m)
Complement:	6 officers, 54 enlisted
Armament:	10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 6 forward, 4 aft 24 torpedoes 1 × 3-inch (76 mm) / 50 caliber deck gun Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon

USS Grayback (SS-208), a Tambor-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the lake herring.

Her keel was laid down by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 31 January 1941 sponsored by Mrs. Wilson Brown, wife of Rear Admiral Wilson Brown, Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, and commissioned on 30 June 1941 with Lieutenant Willard A. Saunders in command.

Attached to the Atlantic Fleet Grayback conducted her shakedown cruise in Long Island Sound out of Newport, New London, and New York City. In company with Grampus (SS-207) she departed New London, Connecticut, on 8 September for patrol duty in the Caribbean Sea and Chesapeake Bay; then arrived Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 30 November for overhaul. With the United States's entry into the war, Grayback sailed for Pearl Harbor, arriving 8 February 1942.

Grayback's first war patrol from 15 February to 10 April took her along the coast of Saipan and Guam. There she had a four-day encounter with an enemy submarine; the enemy U-boat fired two torpedoes at Grayback on the morning of 22 February, then continued to trail her across the Pacific. Grayback spotted the enemy conning tower a couple of times, and the Japanese ship broached once; but the Grayback could not get into position to attack. After four days, Grayback shook the other sub and continued on patrol. On 17 March she sank her first ship, a 3291-ton cargo ship off Port Lloyd.

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