USS Pickerel, a 1330-ton Perch class submarine built by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, Connecticut, was commissioned in January 1937. Following a shakedown cruise to the south Atlantic, she went to the Pacific in November of that year. Subsequently operating along the West Coast and in Hawaiian waters, in the fall of 1939 Pickerel voyaged west to join the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines. She was based at Manila when war with Japan began in December 1941. Her first war patrol, off Camranh Bay on the Indochina coast, included several attacks, but no hits. Pickerel's next patrol, to southward in the direction of the East Indies, cost the enemy the Kanko Maru, a gunboat converted from a freighter. Operating near Timor in February and March, the submarine attempted an attack on a light cruiser, but the effort only produced a depth charge counterattack.
Pickerel was based in Australia for her fourth and fifth patrols, during April-August 1942. Neither generated any notable damage to the Japanese. After receiving an overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, she was based at Pearl Harbor. Pickerel's sixth World War II cruise, to the waters off northern Japan from late January to early March 1943, took a small freighter out of the enemy merchant fleet. Later in March she returned to that area for her seventh war patrol and, during the first week of April, appears from Japanese records to have sunk a submarine chaser and another small freighter. USS Pickerel was not heard from after that, and may have been the victim of enemy antisubmarine forces, though nothing certain is known about her fate. More than seventy officers and crewmen were lost with her.
This page features all the views we have concerning USS Pickerel (SS-177).
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 42614 USS Pickerel (SS-177) Photographed circa 1937. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Online Image: 65KB; 740 x 530 pixels |
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Photo #: 19-N-38937 USS Pickerel (SS-177) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 22 December 1942. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Online Image: 54KB; 740 x 585 pixels Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system. |
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Photo #: 19-N-38938 USS Pickerel (SS-177) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 22 December 1942. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Online Image: 54KB; 740 x 610 pixels Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system. |
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Photo #: 19-N-38939 USS Pickerel (SS-177) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 28 December 1942. While outlines mark recent alterations to the ship, among them the addition of a pair of external bow torpedo tubes. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Online Image: 80KB; 740 x 610 pixels Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system. |
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Photo #: 19-N-38942 USS Pickerel (SS-177) Plan view amidships and aft, taken at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 28 December 1942. While outlines mark recent alterations to the ship, among them the relocation of the 3"/50 deck gun and addition of a radar antenna mast forward of the conning station. Note the anti-torpedo net floats beyond the submarine. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Online Image: 102KB; 740 x 605 pixels Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system. |
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Photo #: NH 68479 Submarines in San Diego harbor, California, 1940 Moored alongside USS Holland (AS-3), from which the photograph was taken, the submarines are (from left to right): Salmon (SS-182); Seal (SS-183); Pickerel (SS-177); Plunger (SS-179); Snapper (SS-185) and Permit (SS-178). Note the small motor boats, of the type carried by fleet submarines prior to World War II. One of the men standing on Salmon's deck is Yeoman Clayton Johnson, who in 1969 was a Commander serving at the Naval History Division. USS Enterprise (CV-6) is in the distance, tied up at Naval Air Station, North Island. Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute. James C. Fahey Collection. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Online Image: 103KB; 740 x 565 pixels |
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Photo #: 80-G-28881 Todo Saki Lighthouse, Honshu Island, Japan Periscope photograph taken by USS Pickerel (SS-177), probably during her sixth war patrol, circa February 1943. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Online Image: 73KB; 675 x 675 pixels Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system. |
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Photo #: 19-N-16354 USS Pickerel (SS-177) Wooden pattern for the ship's brass data plaque, photographed by the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut, circa 1936 or early 1937. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Online Image: 91KB; 740 x 505 pixels Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system. |
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If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 21 November 2004