USS Quillback (SS-424)

History
Builder:	Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine
Laid down:	27 June 1944
Launched:	1 October 1944
Commissioned:	29 December 1944
Decommissioned:	April 1952
Recommissioned:	27 February 1953
Decommissioned:	23 March 1973
Struck:	23 March 1973
Fate:	Sold for scrap, 21 March 1974
General characteristics
Class and type:	Tench-class diesel-electric submarine
Displacement:	1,570 tons (1,595 t) surfaced 2,414 tons (2,453 t) submerged
Length:	311 ft 8 in (95.00 m)
Beam:	27 ft 4 in (8.33 m)
Draft:	17 ft (5.2 m) maximum
Propulsion:	4 × Fairbanks-Morse Model 38D8-⅛ 10-cylinder opposed piston diesel engines driving electrical generators 2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries 2 × low-speed direct-drive Elliott electric motors two propellers 5,400 shp (4.0 MW) surfaced 2,740 shp (2.0 MW) submerged
Speed:	20.25 knots (38 km/h) surfaced 8.75 knots (16 km/h) submerged
Range:	11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Endurance:	48 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged 75 days on patrol
Test depth:	400 ft (120 m)
Complement:	10 officers, 71 enlisted
Armament:	10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 6 forward, 4 aft) 28 torpedoes 1 × 5-inch (127 mm) / 25 caliber deck gun Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
General characteristics (Guppy II)
Displacement:	1,870 tons (1,900 t) surfaced 2,440 tons (2,480 t) submerged
Length:	307 ft (93.6 m)
Beam:	27 ft 4 in (7.4 m)
Draft:	17 ft (5.2 m)
Propulsion:	Snorkel added Batteries upgraded to GUPPY type, capacity expanded to 504 cells (1 × 184 cell, 1 × 68 cell, and 2 × 126 cell batteries)
Speed:	Surfaced: 18.0 knots (33.3 km/h) maximum 13.5 knots (25.0 km/h) cruising Submerged: 16.0 knots (29.6 km/h) for ½ hour 9.0 knots (16.7 km/h) snorkeling 3.5 knots (6.5 km/h) cruising
Range:	15,000 nm (28,000 km) surfaced at 11 knots (20 km/h)
Endurance:	48 hours at 4 knots (7 km/h) submerged
Complement:	9–10 officers 5 petty officers 70 enlisted men
Sensors and processing systems:	WFA active sonar JT passive sonar Mk 106 torpedo fire control system
Armament:	10 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes  (six forward, four aft) all guns removed

USS Quillback (SS-424), a Tench-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for quillback, a fish of the sucker family, widespread in the freshwaters of North America and Northern Asia.

When her construction by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, was authorized, her name was to be Trembler, which would have made her the first ship named for the trembler, a torpedinoid fish of the West Indies and Brazil, but she was given a less embarrassing name on 7 December 1943.

Her keel was laid down on 27 June 1944. She was launched on 1 October 1944 sponsored by Mrs. J. A. Tyree, Jr., and commissioned on 29 December 1944 with Lieutenant Commander R. P. Nicholson in command.

After training at New London, Connecticut, and work on an experimental ordnance project at Key West, Florida, Quillback departed for Pearl Harbor and her maiden war patrol, off the coast of Kyūshū. During this patrol, from 30 May to 24 July 1945, she destroyed a Japanese suicide motorboat and rescued one aviator from the water only a half mile from the heavily armed shore. Surrender of the enemy found Quillback refitting for her second patrol at Guam.

Peacetime duties returned Quillback to New London for duty as a unit of Submarine Squadron 2. From 1945 to 1951, she operated with the Submarine School in a training capacity and as an experimental unit of the Naval Underwater Sound Laboratory. In April 1951, Quillback departed New London for a six-month tour of duty with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. In April 1952, she reported to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for decommissioning and conversion.

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