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History | |
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Name: | Robalo |
Builder: | Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, Manitowoc, Wisconsin |
Laid down: | 24 October 1942 |
Launched: | 9 May 1943 |
Commissioned: | 28 September 1943 |
Struck: | 16 September 1944 |
Fate: | Mined west of Palawan, 26 July 1944. 4 of the 81 crew survived, died as POW's |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Gato-class diesel-electric submarine |
Displacement: | |
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: |
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Speed: |
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Range: | 11,000 nmi (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 knots (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 Robalo (SS-273), a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the róbalo or common snook. Her keel was laid down on 24 October 1942 by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. She was launched on 9 May 1943, sponsored by Mrs. E.S. Root, and commissioned on 28 September 1943.
After passage by inland waterways and being floated down the Mississippi River, Robalo deployed to the Pacific. On her first war patrol (under the leadership of Commander Stephen Ambruster, Annapolis Class of 1928), she sortied from Pearl Harbor, hunting Japanese ships west of the Philippines. On 12 February 1944 Armbruster reported seeing a large 2 masted sailboat. There, en route to her new station in Fremantle submarine base, Western Australia, she had an encounter with enemy vessels: on 13 February 1944 east of the Verde Island Passage the Rabalo had come across a convoy of two large ships escorted by a minesweeper which dropped 13 depth charges and fired twice at the submarine with a deck gun; although USS Robalo is "credited" with damaging a large freighter, firing four torpedoes at 3,100 yards (2,800 m) in fact the attack was unsuccessful and no enemy vessels were damaged or sunk. She spent 36 of her 57-day mission submerged. When she arrived, her commanding officer was summarily relieved by Admiral Christie and replaced with Manning Kimmel (Class of 1935).