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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Photo # NH 99125:  Launching of USS Cabrilla, at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, 24 December 1942

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Cabrilla (SS-288, later AGSS-288), 1943-1972

USS Cabrilla, a 1526-ton Balao class submarine, was built by the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine. Commissioned in May 1943, a few months later she went to the Pacific to join the war against Japan. The new submarine's first war patrol, which started at Pearl Harbor in September, ended at Fremantle, Australia, after she had damaged an aircraft carrier and picked up guerillas in the Philippines. On her second combat cruise Cabrilla went to the South China Sea to lay mines, one of which sank a Japanese ship. On the next four patrols, all out of Fremantle during February-October 1944, she operated in the East Indies and South China Sea areas, sinking six enemy vessels.

Cabrilla then shifted to Pearl Harbor, from which she departed in March 1945 for her seventh patrol, this time in the waters off northern Japan. On her final wartime cruise, beginning in June, she served as a rescue submarine for aviators downed at sea. With the fighting at an end, at the end of August 1945 Cabrilla left the war zone for the United States, where she was overhauled. After participating in exercises off the Panama Canal Zone in February and March 1946, she began inactivation preparations and was decommissioned in August of that year.

Taken out of reserve in 1960, Cabrilla was placed in service as a stationary Naval Reserve Training submarine at Houston, Texas, duty that was recognized by redesignation as AGSS-288 in December 1962. She was taken out of service in June 1968 and, later in 1968, became a museum ship at Galveston, Texas. However, this new function lasted for only a few years. In January 1971 Cabrilla was returned to the Navy, which sold her for scrapping in April 1972.

This page features the only views we have related to USS Cabrilla (SS-288).


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 99125

USS Cabrilla
(SS-288)

Launching, at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, 24 December 1942.

Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1975.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 70KB; 740 x 485 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 84115-KN (Color)

USS Cabrilla (SS-288)

Reproduction of the submarine's World War II battle flag, made by the Carleton Company.

Donation of Hubert Scheffy, 1976.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 146KB; 690 x 620 pixels

 


In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold at least one other view of USS Cabrilla (SS-288). The following list features this image:

The image listed below is NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".



  • Photo #: USN 1041889
    USS Cabrilla (SS-288) underway, during World War II.
    Port broadside surface view. Cabrilla carries a 4"/50 deck gun, mounted forward of her conning tower.


    Reproductions of this image should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center.

    The image listed in this box is NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".


  • If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


    Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

    Page made 29 February 2004