Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.
– Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, January 30
Here you see is the Tambor class diesel sub USS Trout (SS-202) at Hunters Point, 11 December 1943. In a little less than 3 months after this photo was taken, the boat and her entire crew would be reported overdue and never heard from again.
She was commissioned in 1940 as part of the 6-ship class of fleet submarines (which all had ‘T’ names). She was brand new when the war broke out.
On patrol off of the outpost of Midway island on December 7, 1941, the sub was ordered back to Pearl Harbor as soon as possible to try to catch Yamato’s fleet. Missing the Japanese strike force, she was soon given a new mission . Trout sailed to the Philippines with a cargo of 3500 rounds of 75mm anti-aircraft ammunition and malaria drugs. She arrived at Corregidor, the island citadel at the entrance to Manila Bay in the Philippines in February 1942 after an epic 57-day war patrol through waters infested with Japanese navy ships.
There, Trout drew ten torpedoes and took on over twenty tons of gold and silver. It had been taken from Manila banks and moved to Corregidor for safekeeping from the approaching Japanese invasion force. Five hundred eighty-three gold bars and heavy canvas bags containing eighteen tons of silver coins were carefully loaded in Trout‘s bilges to be delivered to Pearl Harbor. Each of the bars weighed 40-pounds and at the time were worth $23K each. In today’s prices the gold alone was worth over $300-million dollars. Over $30 million in paper currency left behind on Corregidor was burned to prevent capture. General Wainwright disposed of some 350 tons of silver that could not be moved by dumping it in Manila Bay.
After landing her cargo at Pearl, she rejoined the fleet. She captured survivors of the sunken cruiser Mikuma during the Battle of Midway. Over the course of 11 war patrols she sank 23 Japanese ships amounting to some 87,000-tons in 32 torpedo and six gun actions. For this she was depth charged by the Japanese Navy no less than 8 times. Her combat including sending the Kaidai class submarine I-182 to Davy Jones locker.
The Trout is on eternal patrol and has never been found. Her 81 men likely entombed with her on some forgotten stretch of sandy bottom deep in the South Pacific.
Specs:
Displacement, Surfaced: 1,475 t., Submerged: 2,370 t.;
Length 307′ 2″ ; Beam 27′ 3″; Draft 13′ 3″;
Speed, Surfaced 20 kts, Submerged 8 kts; Max.
Depth Limit 250′;
Complement 5 Officers 54 Enlisted (as designed, enlarged during the war to help man larger gun crews;)
Armament, ten 21″ torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft, 24 torpedoes, one 3″/50 deck gun, two .50 caliber machine guns, two .30 caliber Lewis machine guns;
Propulsion, diesel-electric, four General Motors diesel engines, 5,400 hp, Fuel Capacity 93.993 gal., four General Electric motors, 2,740 hp,
Battery Cells, 252, two propellers.
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