USS Tinosa (SS-283)
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
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| Builder: | Mare Island Naval Shipyard |
| Laid down: | 21 February 1942 |
| Launched: | 7 October 1942 |
| Commissioned: | 15 January 1943 |
| Decommissioned: | 23 June 1949 |
| Recommissioned: | 4 January 1952 |
| Decommissioned: | 2 December 1953 |
| Struck: | 1 September 1958 |
| Fate: | Scuttled off Hawaii November 1960 after being used as an anti-submarine warfare target |
| 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 NM (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 Tinosa (SS-283), a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tinosa.
The Tinosa was laid down on 21 February 1942 at Vallejo, California, by the Mare Island Navy Yard; launched on 7 October 1942; sponsored by Mrs. Katharine Shanks Malloy, wife of Captain William E. Malloy; and commissioned on 15 January 1943, Lt. Comdr. Lawrence Randall Daspit in command.
After preliminary operations, the submarine proceeded to Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 16 April 1943. Over the next two years, she completed twelve war patrols in the Pacific and was credited with sinking 16 enemy ships, totaling 64,655 tons.
On her first war patrol, conducted from 3 May to 19 June 1943, Tinosa damaged three enemy ships in the waters east of Kyūshū, Japan, while sustaining some depth-charge damage herself.
After refitting at Midway, she got underway on 7 July to patrol the sea routes between Borneo and Truk. On 24 July 1943, Tinosa encountered the cargo ship Tonan Maru No. 3, the largest tanker of the Japanese fleet, 19,262 tons, sailing from Palau to Truk. Codebreaker warning had put Tinosa in a perfect position to shoot the tanker with a spread of four torpedoes. None exploded. The boat's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander L. R. (Dan) Daspit recorded in his log, "Target had been carefully tracked and with spread used [torpedoes] could not have run properly and missed."
Tinosa made herself a second chance by chasing throughout the following day. Daspit also checked the torpedoes he had left and insured that the magnetic influence exploders had been disabled (see below for why). Even so, the first two torpedoes of the second attack had to be shot at an awkward angle and range. They hit and exploded disabling Tonan Maru's engines. With the target dead in the water Tinosa found herself in an ideal firing position, moving in to fire on the tanker at the submarine equivalent of point blank range. The torpedo appeared to hit its target but did not explode. Daspit and crew continued to fire torpedoes one at a time at this (for 1943) huge tanker. All of them hit. None exploded. Daspit's log gives time of firing of each and states over and over again "fired [nth] torpedo. Hit. No apparent effect." Daspit recorded about the sixth one since Tonan Maru had become a "sitting duck", "... Hit. No apparent effect. This torpedo hit well aft on the port side, made splash at the side of the ship and was then observed to have taken a right turn and to jump clear of the water about 100 feet (30 m) from the stern of the tanker. I find it hard to convince myself that I saw this."
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Wikipedia