UNDERWAY! 2025 Wall Calendar / W.W. II SPECIAL EDITION NOW AVAILABLE - CLICK HERE |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
For RATING SHIRTS - Click on your Rating Abbreviation below: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Click on your Rating abbreviation above: |
U.S.S. WAHOO
(SS-565)600FT AIR BEDDING
Click to view crew list
USS WAHOO (SS-565) - a Tang-class submarine
In Commission 1952 to 1980SS-565 Deployments - Major Events
Add a SS-565 Shellback Initiation | Add a SS-565 Deployment - Major Event | ||||
Month | Year | to | Month | Year | Deployment / Event |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
OCT | 1949 | - | Keel Date: 24 OCT 1949 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard | ||
OCT | 1951 | - | Launch Date: 16 OCT 1951 | ||
MAY | 1952 | - | Commissioned: 30 MAY 1952 | ||
OCT | 1957 | - | Shellback Initiation - 17 OCT 1957 - Pacific Ocean | ||
FEB | 1958 | - | MAR | 1958 | NORTH SEA OF JAPAN |
MAR | 1960 | - | AUG | 1960 | Regular Overhaul |
MAY | 1961 | - | NOV | 1961 | West Pac |
APR | 1964 | - | APR | 1964 | Blown up off the coast of Viet Nam 50 feet under water |
FEB | 1969 | - | AUG | 1969 | West Pac-Viet Nam |
JUN | 1980 | - | Decommissioned: 27 JUN 1980 |
SS-565 General Specifications
Class: Tang-class submarine
Named for: The Wahoo fish
Complement: 83 Officers and Enlisted
Displacement: 1560 tons
Length: 269 feet 2 inches
Beam: 27 feet 2 inches
Flank Speed: 15 Knots
Final Disposition: Sold for scrap in 1984
USS WAHOO (SS-565)
The second Wahoo (SS-565)
was laid down on 24October 1949 by the
Portsmouth (N.H.) Naval Shipyard;
launched on 16 October 1951; sponsored by Mrs. Harry W. Hill; and commissioned on Memorial Day, 30 May 1952, Comdr. Eugene P. Wilkinson in
command.
Following
a shakedown cruise to the British West Indies
and post-shakedown repairs at Portsmouth, N.H., Wahoo got underway for her
home port, Pearl Harbor, on 1
December 1952. After a stop at New London, Conn., she proceeded to the Canal Zone, transited the Panama Canal, and
then touched at San Diego before continuing on to Oahu. The submarine
spent the entire year 1953 in training and
evaluation exercises conducted in the
Hawaiian Islands operating area. The warship
also served as a target for surface and air units practicing their own
antisubmarine warfare (ASW) tactics.
In
January 1954, Wahoo embarked upon her first tour of duty with the 7th Fleet
in the western Pacific. For about six months, she cruised Far Eastern waters with ships of the 7th Fleet
conducting various exercises and visiting Oriental ports. She returned to Pearl Harbor in June
and underwent her first shipyard overhaul
before resuming local operations in the Hawaiian Islands. In March 1955, the submarine took time from her busy training schedule to visit Tahiti. At the conclusion of that voyage, she then resumed duty at
Hawaii but, in November, embarked
upon her second assignment with the
7th Fleet. The Oriental cruise brought port calls to Hong Kong;
Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Apra Harbor, Guam;
Ypkosuka, Japan; and Manila and
Subic Bay in the Philippines. Her deployment ended in May 1956 when she returned to Pearl Harbor to
resume local operations and training exercises.
Such
duty was broken in April by a yard overhaul which lasted until October 1957. In November, the ship made a shakedown voyage back to
Tahiti. Soon after her
return to Hawaii, Wahoo stood out of Pearl Harbor on her way back to the western
Pacific. Normal training operations and a schedule of port visits occupied her time during the six-month
assignment in the Far East. The warship returned to Pearl Harbor in June 1958 and, soon thereafter, she received the Battle
"E" for Submarine Squadron (SubRon)
1 attesting to her overall
operational and administrative superiority within the unit. She spent the ensuing year in the Hawaiian Islands
conducting training operations for the
most part. In November, she began a two-month repair period at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard at the
conclusion of which, in January 1959, she resumed local operations.
In June,
the submarine transferred administratively from SubRon 1 to SubRon 7; and, in July, she headed west once more for a tour in the
Far East. Again, training
exercises predominated with Wahoo serving as target in ASW practice and participating in
several fleet
exercises. She returned to Oahu at the beginning of 1960 and, after two months of normal operations,
once again entered the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, this time for a major overhaul.
Exiting the yard in late August, she conducted refresher training and then resumed her normal schedule
of operations in the Hawaiian
Islands.
That
employment continued during the first three months of 1961. Late in March, she began a month-long battery renewal at the end
of which, in late April, she began preparations for another overseas deployment. On 22 May, Wahoo departed
Pearl Harbor and shaped
a westward course. During that cruise with the 7th Fleet, she visited Yokosuka,
Sasebo, and Hakodate in
Japan, and stopped at Naha on the island of Okinawa. After six months of operations and exercises in the Far East, she headed home,
returning to Pearl Harbor
on 7 November. A year of normal operations in the Hawaiian group followed; and, in December 1962, she began preparations for
another cruise to the western
Pacific. The ship stood put of Pearl Harbor on 15 January 1963 to begin a six-month tour of duty during which she added Osaka to
her ports of call in Japan. That cruise ended on 15 July when she re-entered Pearl Harbor and resumed
her normal Hawaiian schedule
of training operations, interrupted between October 1963 and April 1964 by a major overhaul.
During
the summer of 1964, she returned to local operations out of Pearl Harbor. In August, however, the Gulf of Tonkin incident
occurred and changed the complexion of
her 7th Fleet deployments. When she returned
to the Far East in November, the August occurrence had already spurred
an increased American involvement in civil
strife in Vietnam. As a consequence
of that change, Wahoo was called upon to do two tours of duty in the waters off Vietnam during
a deployment of extended duration.
She
returned to Hawaii in June 1965 and remained in the vicinity until February of 1966. During
her 1966 western
Pacific cruise, which began on 17 February and ended on 29 August, she returned to the combat zone off Vietnam as well as
fulfilling a schedule of 7th Fleet exercises and port visits. Upon her arrival back to Oahu, the submarine began
an extended period of
operations in the islands, broken by a major overhaul of 17 months' duration. That overhaul included
radical modifications
to her hull structure during which she was lengthened by 15 feet.
She
completed her extended overhaul in the latter part of June 1968 and, following refresher
training, she
resumed local operations out of Pearl Harbor. On 11 February 1969, Wahoo departed Oahu on her
way to the Far East
for the eighth time in her career. That deployment brought only a very brief tour in the Vietnam combat zone;
otherwise, she conducted a normal peacetime deployment visiting Oriental ports and participating in 7th Fleet
training exercises.
She
returned to Pearl Harbor on 14 August and took up her usual training routine in the Hawaiian
Islands. Her ninth
tour of, duty in the western Pacific began on 1 April 1970. During the last week of the month, she again cruised briefly in the
combat zone off Vietnam; but, as in the previous deployment, she spent the
remainder engaged in a normal 7th Fleet schedule of operations. She returned to
Pearl Harbor on 21 October and began an oyerhaul which was completed on 1 June 1971.
On the
same day that she completed her overhaul, Wahoo departed Pearl Harbor and shaped a course for her new home port, San Diego,
Calif. En route, she visited
Portland, Oreg., and Vancouver, British Columbia. The submarine arrived at San Diego on 26 June and began type training and other
local operations along the southern California coast. The change in home ports, however, did not signal an end to tours of
duty in the western Pacific. Her next
deployment brought with it a visit to
Chinhae and Pusan in Korea and a period of combined operations with
units of the South Korean Navy. Later in that
cruise, she also visited Taiwan and
participated in bilateral ASW exercises
with units of the Taiwan Navy. She finally concluded the deployment at San Diego on 28 April 1972. After a
series of brief exercises with ships and aircraft
during the month of May, she entered Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for a three-month overhaul. Back at sea by the middle of September, she
resumed local operations-type training, ASW exercises with surface units and aircraft, and torpedo and mine
evaluation tests-for the remainder of
the year.
On 16
February 1973, the submarine exited San Diego harbor to embark upon her llth tour of duty with the 7th Fleet. Bilateral
exercises with the South Korean and Nationalist Chinese navies again highlighted a normal peacetime
deployment. This time, however, she also joined units of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force in ASW training operations. She returned to San Diego on 14 August and resumed
operations in the southern California
operating area which were highlighted
by submarine against submarine exercises
which included firing exercise torpedoes. Local operations occupied her through the end of 1973 and during the first five months of 1974. On 14 June
1974,
she
entered the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for an extended overhaul which lasted until July 1975. Wahoo
completed post-overhaul sea trials on 23 July and, after visiting Seattle for the 1975 "Sea Fair" and
conducting weapons systems tests and
electronics accuracy trials off the
coast of the Pacific northwest, she returned to San Diego on 28 August.
She then resumed local operations-including
a tour as school ship for prospective
commanding officers in November and refresher training in December-which kept her busy until the beginning of April 1976.
On 2
April, she stood out of San Diego to resume deployments with the 7th Fleet. During that assignment, she participated in 7th
Fleet exercises, bilateral exercises with South Korean naval units, and SEAL team exercises with Marine Corps
and South Korean naval
personnel. She completed the tour of duty on 8 September and began the voyage home. She returned to San Diego at the beginning of
October and resumed operations
along the coast of southern California.
On 6
September 1977, she departed San Diego to transfer to the Atlantic Fleet. Steaming via the Panama Canal; Cartagena, Colombia; Miami, Fla.; and Savannah, Ga., she arrived at New London, Conn., on
15 October. On 1 November, she began
training a crew from the Iranian Navy
scheduled to take possession of her sister-ship Trout (SS-566)
sometime the following year. That duty
continued until the summer of 1978 and
included a six-week Caribbean deployment early in 1978 in support of ReadEx 1-78. On 6 July 1978,
the submarine began an extended
overhaul at the Philadelphia Naval
Shipyard, where she remained as of January 1979.
Wahoo
earned three
battle stars for service in the Vietnam conflict.
[Note: The above USS WAHOO (SS-565) history may, or may not, contain text provided by crew members of the USS WAHOO (SS-565), or by other non-crew members, and text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships]