USS Thresher (SS-200)

Thresher as she appeared prewar, with hull number prominently displayed. Note also her conning tower has the large slab silhouette which would be rapidly reduced with wartime experience,
History
Builder:	Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut
Laid down:	27 April 1939
Launched:	27 March 1940
Commissioned:	27 August 1940
Decommissioned:	13 December 1945
Recommissioned:	6 February 1946
Decommissioned:	12 July 1946
Struck:	23 December 1947
Fate:	Sold for scrap, 18 March 1948
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 Thresher (SS-200), a Tambor-class submarine, was the first United States Navy ship to be named for the thresher shark. Her keel was laid down 27 May 1939 at the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 27 March 1940 sponsored by Mrs. Claud A. Jones and commissioned on 27 August 1940, with Lieutenant Commander William Lovett Anderson (Annapolis, Class of 1926) in command.

Following training and sea trials, Thresher got underway from New London, Connecticut on 25 October 1940 for engineering trials in Gravesend Bay, New York, and shakedown off the Dry Tortugas.

She operated along the East Coast through the end of 1940 and into 1941. She set sail on 1 May 1941 for the Caribbean Sea, en route for Pearl Harbor, transiting the Panama Canal on 9 May, stopping in San Diego, through 21 May, and arriving at Pearl Harbor on 31 May. She operated out of the Hawaiian Islands into the fall of 1941, as tensions rose in the Far East and the U.S. prepared for war in both oceans.

Thresher and her sister-ship Tautog (SS-199) departed the Submarine Base Pearl Harbor on 31 October 1941 on a simulated war patrol north of Midway Island; both carried live torpedoes. Tautog returned first; and, on 7 December, Thresher neared the Hawaiian Islands to end her cruise. Escorted by the destroyer Litchfield (DD-336) through Hawaiian waters lest she be mistaken for a hostile submarine, Thresher received word at 08:10 Pearl Harbor was under attack by Japanese aircraft.