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Photo # 19-N-19023:  USS Skipjack during trials, 14 May 1938

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

USS Skipjack (SS-184), 1938-1948

USS Skipjack, a 1449-ton Salmon class submarine, was built at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned at the end of June 1938, she served in the western Atlantic and Caribbean areas until May 1939, then went to the Pacific. Following operations off the West Coast and in Hawaiian waters, Skipjack was sent to the Philippines, where she was stationed when Japanese attacks brought the United States into World War II in December 1941. In that month she began her first war patrol, east of Luzon, where she unsuccessfully attacked a Japanese aircraft carrier and destroyer on Christmas Day.

Skipjack's base was shifted to Australia in January 1942. She operated from there for most of the year, making four patrols and sinking four enemy ships, three in May and one in October. She also took part in locally-originated tests that demonstrated the standard U.S. submarine torpedo ran much deeper than advertised, a first step in a long and frustrating process to improve the reliability of this vital weapon. After undergoing overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, Skipjack began working from Pearl Harbor. She made three scoreless cruises in the central Pacific and off Japan, but sank the destroyer Suzukaze and a seaplane tender in January 1944, during her ninth war patrol. This action, which gave the submarine some tense moments when a faulty valve partially flooded the after torpedo room, also deprived the enemy of reinforcements for soon-to-be-invaded Eniwetok.

In April 1944 Skipjack participated in more torpedo tests, this time in the chilly north Pacific, then had another session of shipyard work at Mare Island. She made a final war patrol off the Kuril Islands late in the year, after which she was "retired" to training duty. Following the war's conclusion, Skipjack was assigned as an unmanned target for the July 1946 atomic bomb detonations at Bikini, in the Marshall Islands. Though sunk in these tests, she was later raised and towed to the West Coast, where she was expended as a target on 11 August 1948.

This page features all the pre-World War II photographs we have of USS Skipjack (SS-184), and provides links to later and miscellaneous views concerning her.

For more images related to this submarine, see:

  • USS Skipjack (SS-184) -- Views taken in 1943;
  • USS Skipjack (SS-184) -- Views taken in 1944 and Later; and
  • USS Skipjack (SS-184) -- Actions, Activities and Miscellaneous Views.


    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 #: 19-N-19055

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 82KB; 740 x 610 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19023

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 55KB; 740 x 510 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19024

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 64KB; 740 x 615 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19053

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 60KB; 740 x 610 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19039

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 53KB; 740 x 595 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19031

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 52KB; 740 x 610 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19054

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 68KB; 740 x 615 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19026

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Submerging off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 68KB; 740 x 500 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19051

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Running submerged at periscope depth, off Provincetown, Massachusetts, during trials, 14 May 1938.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 69KB; 740 x 545 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 19-N-19833

    USS Skipjack
    (SS-184)

    Running up the Thames River after departing the Electric Boat Company shipyard at Groton, Connecticut, to go to the Naval Submarine Base for commissioning ceremonies, 30 June 1938.
    The city of New London is in the background.
    Photographed by the Electric Boat Company.

    Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

    Online Image: 92KB; 740 x 620 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     

    For more images related to this submarine, see:

  • USS Skipjack (SS-184) -- Views taken in 1943;
  • USS Skipjack (SS-184) -- Views taken in 1944 and Later; and
  • USS Skipjack (SS-184) -- Actions, Activities and Miscellaneous Views.


    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 24 March 2004