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Photo # 19-N-36098:  USS Stingray off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 2 October 1942

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

USS Stingray (SS-186), 1938-1947

USS Stingray, a 1449-ton Salmon class submarine, was built at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine. Commissioned in March 1938, she spent her first year of service in U.S. East Coast and Caribbean waters, transferring to the Pacific in May 1939. After more than two years in the West Coast and Hawaiian areas, Stingray went to the Far East in October 1941, a month and a half before the Japanese began the Pacific War with attacks on U.S. bases in the Philippines and Hawaii. From December 1941 to March 1942 the submarine conducted two war patrols from Manila, attempting to hamper Japan's offensive operations. One enemy ship was sunk during her second patrol.

Shifting her base to Fremantle, Australia, Stingray made two more patrols in March-July 1942 that cost the Japanese another ship. Following overhaul on the West Coast, she reentered combat in October 1942 with the first of five patrols into the central and western Pacific, during which one more ship was sunk and Stingray suffered slight damage when attacked by "friendly" aircraft. Overhauled at San Francisco, California, in October 1943-January 1944, she began further operations out of Pearl Harbor in March with a patrol, her tenth, into the Marianas. One ship was sunk and Stingray experienced a close call when attacked by a hostile submarine.

During Stingray's next patrol, off Guam during the June assault on the Marianas, she rescued several downed Navy fliers, one very close to shore while under enemy artillery fire. Her last five war patrols were made from Australian bases, conducting reconnaissance of enemy-held islands and putting ashore landing parties in the Philippines and East Indies. After completing her sixteenth patrol in February 1945, Stingray was withdrawn from combat and sent back to the United States for training service. She was decommissioned in October 1945, stricken from the Navy list in July 1946 and sold for scrapping in January 1947.

This page features, and provides links to, all the views we have concerning USS Stingray (SS-186).

For more images related to this submarine, see:

  • USS Stingray (SS-186) -- Part II.


    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 98984

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186), foreground

    In port, circa 1939-1940, with two oilers in the background.

    Courtesy of "Our Navy Magazine", Brooklyn 17, New York.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 95KB; 740 x 590 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 77088

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Underway near land, circa 1939-1940.

    Collection of Vice Admiral George C. Dyer, USN (Retired).

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 82KB; 740 x 575 pixels

     
    Photo #: 19-N-36097

    USS Stingray (SS-186)


    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 2 October 1942.
    Note barrage balloons in the distance.

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

    Online Image: 77KB; 740 x 535 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: 19-N-36095

    USS Stingray (SS-186)


    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 2 October 1942.

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

    Online Image: 77KB; 740 x 610 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: 19-N-36098

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 2 October 1942.
    Note the two newly installed external torpedo tubes just below Stingray's foredeck, an effort to increase her forward firepower, and the antennas for SJ (lower antenna) and SD (atop the periscope) radars.

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

    Online Image: 71KB; 740 x 615 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: 19-N-63569

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Off San Francisco, California, on 26 January 1944, following an overhaul.

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

    Online Image: 50KB; 740 x 560 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: NH 98986

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Off San Francisco, California, following overhaul, 26 January 1944.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 69KB; 740 x 620 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98987

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Off San Francisco, California, following overhaul, 26 January 1944.
    Note that the two external torpedo tubes fitted in 1942, just below deck level forward, have been removed.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 65KB; 740 x 625 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98988

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Off San Francisco, California, following overhaul, 26 January 1944.
    Note heavy smoke made by her diesel engines.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 45KB; 740 x 620 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98989

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Plan view amidships, looking forward, taken at San Francisco, California, on 29 January 1944.
    She is loading "slugs", in preparation for testing torpedo tubes at the conclusion of a shipyard overhaul.
    Note that this submarine retains a 3"/50 deck gun, mounted forward of her conning tower.
    White outlines mark recent alterations.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 130KB; 740 x 610 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98990

    USS Stingray
    (SS-186)

    Plan view amidships, looking aft, taken at San Francisco, California, on 29 January 1944.
    She is loading "slugs", in preparation for testing torpedo tubes at the conclusion of a shipyard overhaul, with two of these dummy torpedo shapes waiting on the truck in the foreground.
    Note that this submarine retains a 3"/50 deck gun, mounted forward of her conning tower.
    White outlines mark recent alterations.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 106KB; 740 x 605 pixels

     


    In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold at least one other view of USS Stingray (SS-186). 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 #: 80-G-456126
    USS Stingray (SS-186) underway at high speed, circa 1938. Probably taken during trials. Port bow surface view.

    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."


  • For more images related to this submarine, see:

  • USS Stingray (SS-186) -- Part II.


    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 9 December 2003
    Caption corrections made 30 April 2004