Tag Archives: USS Barb (SS-220)

Lucky Fluckey Would be Proud

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I know that, going back to the 688 class of the 1970s, hunter killers have been named after cities in the good old “fish don’t vote” adage of Big Nuke Navy Boss ADM Rickover, but I do miss those old classic fish names for subs.

One is set to return with the future Block V Virginia-class attack submarine USS Barb (SSN 804), which had her keel authenticated at Newport News on Dec. 9.

SSN-804’s sponsor is the spouse of the late RADM Eugene Bennett “Lucky” Fluckey’s grandson.

Fluckey was commanding officer of the storied Barb (SS 220) in World War II. Under Fluckey’s watch, USS Barb became one of the most highly decorated submarines in U.S. naval history, most known for sinking a record number of enemy ships and for a particularly daring mission that destroyed enemy shipping lines. Fluckey received the Medal of Honor for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” The ship earned four Presidential Unit Citations, a Navy Unit Commendation, and eight Battle Stars for service in World War II and was decommissioned in 1954.

The second Barb, (SSN 596), a Permit-class boat, was active in the Cold War, including two tours off Vietnam, and helped vet sub-launched TLAMs.

The future and third Barb will be the 31st Virginia-class submarine when commissioned, and the third Block V boat.

Of note, when the 688 series USS Helena (SSN-725) was decommissioned in July, the Virginias became the most numerous active submarine class in the world, with 24 active and two (Massachusetts and Idaho) complete pending commissioning in early 2026. They will no doubt hold that title for the next 20+ years, at least for SSNs.

A total of 67 are planned, including a trio of boats (two Block IV second-hand, one new construction Block VII) for Australia.

Dragging out that Navy Naming Conventions Soapbox

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It’s like the Navy’s naming conventions are done with the Magic 8-ball or Ouija board over the past few years. Or perhaps are just hyper-political and just flat-out done for optics. Maybe it’s a blend of all of the above.

Trump’s Acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas B. Modly, in early 2020 announced the next Ford-class supercarrier will be named after USS West Virginia Pearl Harbor hero PO3 Dorie Miller. Now don’t get me wrong, Miller should have a ship named after him– a destroyer (he previously had a Cold War-era Knox-class frigate named after him) as those vessels are named after naval heroes. Carriers should have names of presidents (a tradition established with the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945) or historic ships. Yes, I feel that Nimitz should have gotten a destroyer named after him rather than a flattop and both Carl Vinson and John Stennis should not have had any ships named in their honor, except for possibly to grace the hulls of auxiliaries.

Speaking of Pearl Harbor, Moldy was also responsible for bringing the names of the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma back to the Navy List for the first time since 1942, with the planned USS Oklahoma (SSN-802) and the USS Arizona (SSN-803). While both are state names, matching the convention for the Virginia class these subs will belong to, I’m not sure if the name “Arizona” should ever be re-issued. After all, would you ever expect to see another HMS Hood?

77th SECNAV Kenneth J. Braithwaite, another of Trump’s guys, got a big win in my book when he returned to traditional “fish” names for fleet submarines (or hunter killers in modern parlance), something the Navy did from 1931 through 1973. Hence, we will soon have USS Barb (SSN 804), Tang (SSN 805), Wahoo (SSN 806), and Silversides (SSN 807), all after the numerous esteemed fleet boats that previously carried those marine creatures’ names, and the country’s next frigate will take the name of one of the country’s original six frigates, USS Constellation. Excellent job. This is how you do it. 

Then the “adults” came back to Washington and SECNAV Carlos Del Toro pointed out that the upcoming first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, USS Columbia (SSBN 826), will not honor the previous 10 Columbias in current and past naval service but will specifically the first-named “District of Columbia,” which some have pointed out that is as another step in the plan to turn DC into the 51st state, but, hey…

Now enter two additional decisions from Del Toro’s office this week.

The aging Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) will be renamed USS Robert Smalls (CG 62), to comply with the new push to strip any perceived salutes to the old Confederacy from the modern military. Now, as with Dorie Miller, Smalls is a legitimate naval hero and, as such, should have a destroyer named after him. You know, a nice shiny new one that is ordered but not yet named. One that will serve for another 30 years or so. Instead, Chancellorsville/Smalls is set to retire in a couple of years, scheduled to enter mothballs in FY2026, and by most accounts, is in rather poor material condition.

Besides the terrible disservice to Smalls, the rest of the Ticos are named after battles, with Chancellorsville named after Robert E. Lee’s “perfect battle” near that Virginia town. Therefore, even if only in service for the next few years and arbitrarily stripped of her name in official disgust, why not name her after a more Union-friendly Civil War clash such as USS The Wilderness, which was importantly the first match-up between Lee and Grant (and took place in Virginia) and has never been characterized as a victory for either side? How about the USS Fort Henry, the first ship on the Navy List to honor the final Patriot victory in the Revolutionary War— and also at the time of the action part of Virginia, like the city of Chancellorsville.

Now the biggest of the grumbles.

Also coming from Del Toro this week is the word that the future Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine SSN-808 will be named USS John H. Dalton (SSN 808), after Clinton’s hatchetman SECNAV. You know, the guy who snuffed out the Sprucans before their time, slaughtered the Navy’s cruiser and frigate force, and canceled the scheduled Service Life Extension Program on USS America (CV-66), forcing the mighty carrier to be decommissioned in 1996 and ultimately scuttled at sea rather than keeping her in the line through 2010 as previously planned.

In short, Dalton was a total ass in my book. 

We all remember what happened to USS America…

The justification for Del Toro naming a sub after Dalton was that he had served briefly (active duty from 1964-69) in submarines and “as Secretary of the Navy, he took strong and principled stands against sexual assault and harassment and oversaw the integration of female Sailors onto combat ships.”

Gonna put that soap box up for now. I’m sure I’ll need to drag it out again.

Fish don’t vote

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Bushnell American Turtle submarine, 1777 (LOC LC-USZ62-110384)

American submarines, from the very start, were named after aquatic/marine animals. For instance, David Bushnell’s Turtle of Revolutionary War fame, the curious Alligator, and Intelligent Whale of the Civil War, it could be argued, had such names.

Sure, there were outliers named after their inventors (CSS Hunley, USS Holland) as well as early vessels such as USS Adder, USS Viper, USS Tarantula, and USS Moccasin (which you could actually argue may be a water moccasin, but still). Then submarines lost their names, using numbers from the C-class in the 1900s through the “Sugar” boats of the 1920s.

However, the vast majority of 20th Century submarines remained named after some form of “fish” from 1931 onwards, starting with USS Barracuda (SS-163) and running through USS Cavalla (SSN-684) in 1973.

The Navy upset the apple cart on this naming convention first with the George Washington-class SSBNs and the follow-on “41 for Freedom” Polaris missile subs in the 1960s, then changed gears again with the Los Angeles-class attack boats and Ohio Trident missile subs of the 1970s. Of note, before that time city and state names were reserved for cruisers and battleships, which by the Carter era were all but gone. 

The reason for the radical change in naming, as reported in 1985 by the NYT, was voiced as such: 

Adm. James D. Watkins, the Chief of Naval Operations, said in an interview that the policy originated while Adm. Hyman G. Rickover was in charge. ”Rickover said, ‘Fish don’t vote,’ ” Admiral Watkins declared.

Well, it would seem that the new SECNAV, who has already announced the next frigate will carry the name of one of the country’s original six frigates, apparently is in touch with his naval history and said this week the next Virginia-class boat will be USS Barb (SSN 804), after the two previous submarines (SS-220 and SSN-596) that carried the name.

USS Barb (SS-220) rams a burning Japanese trawler. The submarine was out of ammo so the crew threw 18 rifle grenades at the trawler which caught fire but didn’t sink so, LCDR Eugene “Lucky” Fluckey, MOH, finished the craft off by ramming

“Our future success depends on leveraging the stories of those who sailed into harm’s way, to teach and inspire the service of those who now wear the uniform,” said Secretary of the Navy Kenneth J. Braithwaite.

I, for one, am on board with a return to traditional names.

That time the U.S. Navy sent a wolfpack to hunt a wolfpack

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Here we see the painting “SubRon50: The Jerry Hunters” by Dwight Clark Shepler.

Painted in 1943, it shows three of seven “boats” of the U.S. Submarine Squadron 50 alongside the elderly USS Beaver (AS-5), their tender at their Rosneath, Scotland, base.

NHHC Accession #: 88-199-CK

From the NHHC concerning the above:

“From November 1942 to July 1943 SubRon 50 prowled the approaches to Europe and scored several successes against both Axis shipping and submarines. Their skippers were veterans of Pacific actions and, as the Atlantic is not as fruitful a hunting ground as the Pacific, the boats were returned to combat against the Japanese. These were the only US submarines to operate in European waters during World War II.”

The force comprised seven brand new Gato-class fleet subs: USS Barb (SS-220), USS Blackfish (SS-221), USS Herring (SS-233), USS Shad (SS-235), USS Gunnel (SS-253), USS Gurnard (SS-254) and USS Haddo (SS-255) along with their tender as a self-contained operation with no replacement crew or supplemental personnel. Though it should be noted the last of the pack, Haddo, only arrived in Scotland 30 April 1943, fresh from shakedown, and served with the squadron for just 10 weeks before it was disestablished.

U.S. Navy Series No. 4: Haddo (SS-255), Portrait of a Submarine-1942, by the artist John Taylor Arms (American, 1887-1953). Photo from the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art: Gift of Suzanne Taylor Arms in honor of Caedon Suzanne Summers, courtesy of Stephen F. Fixx via Navsource.

Dispatched on the eve of Operation Torch– the landings in North Africa against the Vichy French, five of the subs helped recon landing beaches and approaches to the coast, providing vital service.

During the campaign, Blackfish attacked a French convoy of three cargo ships escorted by one escort, scaring but not doing significant damage to the sloop Commandant Bory. Meanwhile, Herring sank the Vichy-French merchant Ville du Havre (5083 GRT) east of Casablanca, Morocco on 8 November, a victory that would prove the largest prize for the squadron.

Once the Casablanca affair was done, the subs retired to Scotland from whence they were tasked with war patrols in the Bay of Biscay, then ordered to interdict blockade runners out of neutral Spanish ports, and finally patrolling off Norway, Iceland, and the mid-Atlantic, searching for Donitz’s U-boats.

Besides the initial success during Torch, overall, victories were few:

-Barb conducted five war patrols and “sighted hundreds of contacts, but none were legitimate prey.”

-On 19 February 1943, Blackfish attacked a section of a German vorpostenboote (auxiliary patrol craft) north of Bilbao, Spain, where she torpedoed and sank V 408 / Haltenbank (432 GRT).

-DANFS relates that “On her third patrol Herring attacked and sank a marauding’ Nazi submarine, U-163 21 March 1943,” though other records state the German was sunk by depth charges from HMCS Prescott northwest of Cape Finisterre, Spain.

-Shad sank the German auxiliary minesweeper M 4242 (212 GRT, former French trawler Odett II) and a barge with gunfire in the Bay of Biscay about 55 nautical miles west-north-west of Biarritz, France; damaged the German blockade merchant (ore transport) Nordfels (1214 GRT) in the Bay of Biscay; and torpedoed and damaged the Italian blockade runner Pietro Orseolo (6338 GRT).

Two of the 6 subs of from Sub Squadron 50 tied up at Rosneath, Scotland, circa 7 December 1942. The sub tender Beaver (AS-5) is in the background. USN photo

Finally, on 15 July 1943, the squadron was dispatched back to the U.S., after nine rather uneventful months.

As noted by Edward C. Whitman, RADM C.B. Barry, Royal Navy, said to SubRon50 on the occasion of their departure from the British Isles:

“. . . The targets that have come your way in European waters have been disappointingly few, but your submarines have invariably seized their opportunity and exploited themselves to the utmost. Their actual contribution has been very great and personal, far beyond the number of ships sunk or damaged.”

Shifting to the Pacific, the war heated up for our hardy Battle of the Atlantic vets.

-Barb on her 12th patrol in July 1945, landed a small team from her crew on the shore of Patience Bay on Karafuto. They placed charges under a railroad track and blew up a passing train. No other submarine can boast a train on its battle flag. She ended the war with 17 enemy vessels totaling 96,628 tons, including the Japanese aircraft carrier Un’yō on her tally sheet. For more information on Barb in SubRon50, please go here.

Official US Navy Photo #NH-103570 Caption: USS Barb (SS-220) Members of the submarine’s demolition squad pose with her battle flag at the conclusion of her 12th war patrol. Taken at Pearl Harbor, August 1945. During the night of 22-23 July 1945 these men went ashore at Karafuto, Japan, and planted an explosive charge that subsequently wrecked a train. They are (from left to right): Chief Gunners Mate Paul G. Saunders, USN; Electricians Mate 3rd Class Billy R. Hatfield, USNR; Signalman 2nd Class Francis N. Sevei, USNR; Ships Cook 1st Class Lawrence W. Newland, USN; Torpedomans Mate 3rd Class Edward W. Klingesmith, USNR; Motor Machinists Mate 2nd Class James E. Richard, USN; Motor Machinists Mate 1st Class John Markuson, USN; and Lieutenant William M. Walker, USNR. This raid is represented by the train symbol in the middle bottom of the battle flag.

-Shad completed 11 patrols, scratched off a number of minor Japanese vessels, and lived to be stricken 1 April 1960.

-Blackfish sank two Japanese transports, rescued downed flyers, bombarded the Satsunan Islands, and spent her golden years as a reserve training sub in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida before being sold for scrap in 1959.

-Gunnel was credited with six Japanese ships sunk for 24,624 tons over the course of seven patrols and notably evacuated 11 downed naval aviators at Palawan in late 1944. She retired to New London to serve as a training ship.

-Gurnard accounted for at least 11 Japanese ships including the big 10,000-ton tanker Tatekawa Maru and the Japanese army cargo ships Aden Maru (5823 GRT), Amatsuzan Maru (6886 GRT) and Tajima Maru (6995 GRT). A reserve boat at Tacoma in the 1950s, she went to the breakers in 1961.

-Haddo, under command of Nimitz’s son, received six battle stars for World War II service in addition to a Navy Unit Commendation and sank a number of vessels including the Japanese destroyer Asakaze.

-Herring, sadly, was lost to enemy action 1 June 1944, two kilometers south of Point Tagan on Matsuwa Island in the Kuriles, though she accounted for the Japanese cargo ships Ishigaki and Hokuyo Maru, on the night of May 30-31. On eternal patrol with 84 souls aboard, her grave site was recently reported located by a Russian expedition.

Most of the above subs had their names recycled for Permit– and Sturgeon-class hunter killers in the Cold War.

As for Beaver, the circa 1910 passenger ship with more than two decades under her belt as a sub tender when WWII started, she shifted to SubRon45 at Dutch Harbor, Alaska then later served as a submarine training school at San Diego and was disposed of in 1950. Her skipper in SubRon50, CDR Marion Netherly Little, (USNA 1922), finished the war as Chief of Staff Amphibious Group Twelve and went on to retire as a rear-admiral.