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

Photo # NH 98380:  USS Snook operating near shore, circa 1943

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

USS Snook (SS-279), 1942-1945

USS Snook, a 1525-ton Gato class submarine, was built at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine. She was commissioned in October 1942 and went to the Pacific in March 1943. Her first war patrol began in April, taking her to the East China Sea where she laid mines and, on 5 and 7 May, sank three Japanese cargo ships. The submarine's second and third patrols, in the same area during June-July and August-October, cost the enemy three more freighters and a good-sized transport. Her fourth patrol, in the Marianas area between late October and early December 1943, produced two more sinkings. In early January 1944 she left Pearl Harbor for a return to the Western Pacific area. Snook's sinkings in this, her most successful war patrol, included a converted gunboat, three cargo carriers and a passenger-cargo ship.

Following an overhaul on the West Coast, Snook conducted an unproductive war patrol into Japanese waters during June-August 1944, but this was followed in September-November by a seventh patrol that sank three ships. Snook next assignment was in the northern Pacific, off the Kurile Islands in December-February, but she found the area to be unfruitful. She returned to the region between the Philippines and the Asian mainland for her ninth patrol. After checking in by radio on 8 April 1945 she was not heard from again. Snook's loss, with her entire crew of more than eighty officers and men, remains unexplained. Her combat record, however, was clear, and remarkable: 17 enemy ships sunk, totalling more than 75,000 tons, the tenth highest tonnage count among the U.S. submarines that ravaged Japan's shipping during the Pacific War.

This page features the only views we have related to USS Snook (SS-279).


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 98380

USS Snook (SS-279)


Operating near shore, circa 1943.

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

Online Image: 87KB; 740 x 550 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98479-KN (color)

USS Snook (SS-279)

World War II battle flag.
This flag, from the collections of either the Submarine Museum of the Pacific, the Submarine Force Library and Museum, or the SubVets of World War II, was photographed during the early 1970s.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 73KB; 740 x 455 pixels

 


In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold at least two other views of USS Snook (SS-279). The following list features these images:

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



  • Photo #: 80-G-1033692
    USS Snook (SS-279) off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 11 January 1943.
    Port broadside surface view.

  • Photo #: 80-G-1033693
    USS Snook (SS-279) underway in 1943.
    Port broadside aerial view, slightly toward the stern, showing the submarine making good speed and producing a considerable white wake.


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

    The images listed in this box are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain them 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 15 March 2003
    New image added 30 April 2003