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U.S.S. SENNET
(SS-408)Click to view crew list
USS SENNET (SS-408) - a Balao class submarine
In Commission 1944 to 1968SS-408 Deployments - Major Events
Add a SS-408 Shellback Initiation | Add a SS-408 Deployment - Major Event | ||||
Month | Year | to | Month | Year | Deployment / Event |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
MAR | 1944 | - | Keel Date: 8 MAR 1944 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Kittery ME | ||
JUN | 1944 | - | Launch Date: 6 JUN 1944 | ||
AUG | 1944 | - | Commissioned: 22 AUG 1944 | ||
AUG | 1962 | - | DEC | 1962 | UNITAS |
SEP | 1967 | - | Shellback Initiation - 4 SEP 1967 - Pacific Ocean | ||
DEC | 1968 | - | Decommissioned: 2 DEC 1968 |
SS-408 General Specifications
Class: Balao class submarine
Complement: 10 Officers and 70 Enlisted
Displacement: 1526 tons
Length: 311 feet 8 inches
Beam: 27 feet 3 inches
Draft: 16 feet 10 in
Range: 11 000 Nautical Miles
Final Disposition: Sold for scrap 15 June 1973
USS SENNET (SS-408)
Sennet (SS-408) was laid down on 8 March
1944 by the Portsmouth (N.H.) Navy Yard; launched on 6 June
1944; sponsored by Mrs. Roscoe W. Downs; and commissioned on 22 August
1944, Comdr. George E. Porter in command.
Sennet was fitted out by 18 September.
She held training exercises and torpedo tube testing off the coast
of Connecticut and Rhode Island until 22 October. The submarine
then tested mines and torpedoes for the Mine Warfare Test Station,
Solomons Island, Md. On 11, November, Sennet proceeded to the operations area
off Balboa, C. Z., and conducted further training exercises. The
submarine departed .Balboa on 29 November for Pearl Harbor and arrived
there on 16 December 1944.
Sennet's, topside armament was increased to
two 5-inch guns, two 40-millimeter guns, and three .50 caliber machine
guns before departing Pearl Harbor for her first war patrol on 5 January
1945.
Sennet patrolled north of the Bonin
Islands until 28 January. She made two attacks on a large tanker with three
escorts on the 21st but scored no hits. The following week,
the submarine sank one 500-ton picket boat and damaged another.
Sennet refitted at Saipan from 31
January to 7 February when she began her second war patrol off southern
Honshu, Japan. On 13 February, two 300-ton picket boats were sunk by the
combined gunfire of Sennet, Haddock (SS-231), and Lagarto (SS-371).
Three days later, the submarine attacked an enemy minelayer
with an offset spread of torpedoes from her stern tubes and went deep, to 200
feet. Two torpedoes were heard to explode. While going deep, Sennet was rocked
hard by two aircraft bombs which exploded beneath her. The submarine
surfaced an hour later and saw a large oil slick and approximately 40 Japanese clinging
to debris but no trace of Nariu which had sunk.
Sennet was refitted by Apollo (AS-25)
in Apra Harbor, Guam, 9 March-2 April. Patrolling off Honshu again
from 3 April to 16 May, she was surfaced off Miki Saki on 16 April when she was
twice straddled by torpedoes fired from patrol boats. Three days later, the
submarine torpedoed and sank the cargo ship, Hagane Maru. On the
22d, Sennet attempted to save a P-51 pilot who had bailed out
near her but the man went under only 100 feet from the ship. Attempts to
find him were in vain. A repair ship was attacked on the 28th
with two electrical torpedoes. The first blew the bow off and the second
hit under the mainmast. Hatsushima sank by her stern. On 1 May, Sennett
fired five steam torpedoes at an Asashio class destroyer but it
maneuvered and avoided them. At the end of this patrol, the submarine
sailed to Pearl Harbor for upkeep and leave.
Sennet's most profitable patrol was from
1 July to 9 August in the Sea of Japan. During the patrol, she sank one
passenger-cargo ship, two cargo ships, and one tanker totaling 13,105 tons.
When the war ended in the Pacific, Sennet was assigned
to the Atlantic Fleet and operated from New London, Conn. In June 1946, she
was reassigned to Submarine Squadron 6 at Balboa, C.Z. From 10 December
1946 to 13 March 1947, Sennet participated in
Operation Highjump, the third Byrd Antarctic Expedition.
Sennet operated from Balboa until 1949
when she was assigned to operate from Key West Fla., as a unit of
Submarine Squadron (SubRon) 12. The ship conducted training for submarine
and antisubmarine personnel at Key West and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In 1951, Sennet
was converted to a fleet snorkel submarine at the Philadelphia Naval
Shipyard and returned to her homeport.
On 4 November 1954, Sennet departed Key West on
her first deployment to the Mediterranean and service with the
6th Fleet. From her return on 30 January 1955, until 1 August 1959, the
submarine conducted training, local, and fleet operations with her
squadron. On the latter day, Sennett was reassigned to
SubRon 4 and stationed at Charleston, S.C. For the next nine years,
the submarine operated from Charleston with the Atlantic Fleet. She operated
along the east coast, in the Caribbean, and in the Atlantic with her squadron until mid-1968.
In November of that year, the submarine was found unfit
for further Naval service. Sennet was struck from the Navy
list on 2 December 1968. On 18 May 1973, her hulk was sold to Southern
Scrap Material Co. Ltd., New Orleans, La.
Sennett received four battle stars for
World War II service.
[Note: The above USS SENNET (SS-408) history may, or may not, contain text provided by crew members of the USS SENNET (SS-408), or by other non-crew members, and text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships]