USS Gunnel (SS-253)

History
Builder:	Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut
Laid down:	21 July 1941
Launched:	17 May 1942
Sponsored by:	Mrs. Ben Morell
Commissioned:	20 August 1942
Decommissioned:	18 May 1946
Struck:	1 September 1958
Fate:	Sold for scrap, December 1959
General characteristics
Class and type:	Gato-class diesel-electric submarine
Displacement:	1,525 long tons (1,549 t) surfaced 2,424 long tons (2,463 t) submerged
Length:	311 ft 9 in (95.02 m)
Beam:	27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)
Draft:	17 ft 0 in (5.18 m) maximum
Propulsion:	4 × Hooven-Owens-Rentschler (H.O.R.) 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:	21 kn (39 km/h) surfaced 9 kn (17 km/h) submerged
Range:	11,000 nmi (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 kn (19 km/h)
Endurance:	48 hours at 2 kn (4 km/h) submerged 75 days on patrol
Test depth:	300 ft (90 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 Gunnel (SS-253), a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the gunnel, a blennoid fish of the north Atlantic ranging south as far as Cape Cod.

Her keel was laid down by the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut. She was launched 17 May 1942 (sponsored by Mrs. Ben Morell, wife of the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks), and commissioned 20 August 1942, with Lieutenant Commander John S. "Jack" McCain, Jr. in command.

Gunnels first war patrol (19 October – 7 December 1942) covered a passage from the United States to the United Kingdom, during which she participated in Operation "Torch", the Allied invasion of North Africa. One of six submarines assigned to Admiral Henry K. Hewitt's Western Naval Task Force, Gunnel did reconnaissance off Fedhala 6 November 1942, 2 days before the invasion, and on D-day (8 November) made infrared signals to guide the approaching fleet to the beachheads. Missions well accomplished, the submarine departed for Rosneath, Scotland, 7 December to terminate her first patrol. En route home, the drive gears of her HOR engines failed, forcing her to complete the final 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km) on her auxiliary diesel, leading to a major overhaul at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

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