USS Sealion (SS-315)

Sealion (APSS-315), May 1956.
History
United States
Builder:	General Dynamics Electric Boat, Groton, Connecticut
Laid down:	25 February 1943
Launched:	31 October 1943
Commissioned:	8 March 1944
Decommissioned:	16 February 1946
Recommissioned:	2 November 1948
Decommissioned:	30 June 1960
Recommissioned:	20 October 1961
Decommissioned:	20 February 1970
Struck:	15 March 1977
Fate:	Sunk as a target off Newport on 8 July 1978
General characteristics
Class and type:	Balao-class diesel-electric submarine
Displacement:	1,526 long tons (1,550 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:	16 ft 10 in (5.13 m) maximum
Propulsion:	4 × General Motors Model 16-278A 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:	20.25 knots (37.50 km/h) surfaced, 8.75 knots (16.21 km/h) submerged
Range:	11,000 nm @ 10 kn (20,000 km @ 19 km/h) surfaced
Endurance:	48 hours @ 2 kn (4 km/h) submerged, 75 days on patrol
Test depth:	400 ft (120 m)
Complement:	10 officers, 70–71 enlisted
Armament:	10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 6 forward, 4 aft 24 torpedoes 1 × 5-inch (127 mm) / 25 caliber deck gun Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon

USS Sealion (SS/SSP/ASSP/APSS/LPSS-315), a Balao-class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sea lion, any of several large, eared seals native to the Pacific. She is sometimes referred to as Sealion II, because her first skipper, Lieutenant Commander Eli Thomas Reich, was a veteran of the first Sealion, serving on her when she was lost at the beginning of World War II.

Her keel was laid down on 25 February 1943 by the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 31 October 1943 sponsored by Mrs. Emory S. Land, and commissioned on 8 March 1944.

Following the shakedown, Sealion, assigned to Submarine Division 222 (SubDiv 222), sailed for the Pacific and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 17 May. Further training occupied the next three weeks, and on 8 June, she headed west on her first war patrol.

Sailing with Tang, she stopped off at Midway Atoll on 12 June, glanced off a whale on 15 June, and on 22 June, transited Tokara Strait to enter the East China Sea. On 23 June, she and Tang took up stations in the Ōsumi Islands, an island group to the south of Kyūshū. That afternoon, Sealion unsuccessfully conducted her first attack, then underwent her first depth charging.