Tag Archives: USS Tautog

Magnolia State Subs

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While most people are aware that there is a current submarine on the Navy List that has a Mississippi connection– the Virginia-class hunter-killer USS Mississippi (SSN-782) which was commissioned at Pascagoula a few years back– there are also a baker’s dozen former boats that have an even closer one.

I spotted this monument last week at the Vietnam Memorial in Ocean Springs, next to a Mk 14 torpedo. It covers the 13 boats constructed at Ingalls over a 15-year period in the Cold War including the country’s final “smoke boat” and 12 Sturgeon-class SSNs.

Back in the day, the crowds would assemble at the Point to watch “Submarine Races” as the Sturgeons would run out for trials and back.

They used to let the crew and dignitaries ride the boat down the ways at launching as well.

Barb (SSN-596) sliding down the launching ways at the Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi, 12 February 1962. Today, all that swampland behind her is Ingalls’ West Bank, where LHDs, and DDGs are built. 

These days, the deep old sub docks at Ingalls East Bank just hold flounder.

The Terrible T off the Sunshine State, 73 years ago today

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USS Tautog (SS-199), photographed from an altitude of 300 feet off the Florida coast by airship ZP-31 on 29 May 1945. Note the scoreboard painted on her conning tower.

Tautog (skippers: Willingham, Sieglaff, Basket, Higgs), one of a dozen Tambor-class submarines commissoned in the twilight before Pearl Harbor, was credited with sinking an amazing 26 Japanese ships, for a total of 72,606 tons across 13 war patrols in the Pacific. The “Terrible T” was ranked second by number of ships and 11th by tonnage on the tally sheets. This doesn’t include the number of ships she mauled but got away, such as the Japanese light cruiser Natori, which managed to somehow limp away with her stern and rudders shot off.

Description: USS Tautog (SS 199), World War II Battle Flag. NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 63790-KN (Color).

Tautog was decommissioned on 8 December 1945 with just five years under her keel, used for a decade as a pierside trainer at Naval Reserve Training Center, Milwaukee, and scrapped in 1959.