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Photo # NH 63184:  USS Tarpon recovering a practice torpedo, 22 August 1937

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

USS Tarpon (SS-175), 1936-1957

USS Tarpon, second of the two 1316-ton Shark class submarines, was built at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned in March 1936, she operated along the West Coast and in Hawaiian waters until October 1939, then was sent to the Philippines. Soon after the Pacific War began in December 1941 Tarpon conducted her first combat cruise amid bad weather east of Luzon. She had an eventful second war patrol near Timor in January-March 1942, damaging one Japanese ship, experiencing a depth charge attack and running aground before returning to her Australian base. Her third patrol ended at Pearl Harbor in May and was followed by a short cruise north of the Hawaiian Islands during the June Battle of Midway. After that, Tarpon went to California for a badly needed overhaul.

The submarine returned to the war zone in October, making her fifth war patrol in the central Pacific, where she fruitlessly tangled with a Japanese convoy headed for the embattled Solomon islands. On her next mission, however, Tarpon sank two enemy ships off Japan, one of them a large troop transport. The following two missions, one into the central Pacific and one in Japanese home waters, caused the enemy no shipping losses. However, her ninth patrol, also off Japan, produced a third sinking, which years later was determined to be the raider Michel, one of the few German warships to fall victim to U.S. Navy submarines.

Tarpon made three more war cruises, all involving special missions and aircraft lifeguard duties in the central Pacific. At the conclusion of her twelfth patrol, in October 1944, the now relatively elderly submarine was retired from combat. She went to the East Coast early in 1945 to spend the rest of the Second World War on training service. Decommissioned in November 1945, Tarpon was laid up in reserve until 1947, when she became a stationary Naval Reserve training submarine at New Orleans. That assignment ended in September 1956, when Tarpon was stricken from the Navy list. She sank while under tow off Cape Hatteras in August 1957.

This page features, or provides links to, all the views we have related to USS Tarpon (SS-175).

For more images concerning this submarine, see:

  • USS Tarpon (SS-175) -- Part II; and
  • USS Tarpon (SS-175) -- Submerging and Surfacing.


    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 41924

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Underway on the surface, circa 1937.

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

    Online Image: 72KB; 740 x 520 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 41921

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Underway on the surface, circa 1937.

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

    Online Image: 73KB; 740 x 485 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 41923

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Underway on the surface, circa 1937.

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

    Online Image: 75KB; 740 x 535 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 63184

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Recovering a practice torpedo, during exercises off San Diego, California, 22 August 1937.

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

    Online Image: 124KB; 740 x 600 pixels

     
    Photo #: 19-N-35369

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 30 September 1942.

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

    Online Image: 65KB; 740 x 610 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: 19-N-35370

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 30 September 1942.
    Note barrage balloons in the distance.

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

    Online Image: 68KB; 740 x 605 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: 19-N-35371

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 30 September 1942.

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

    Online Image: 69KB; 740 x 605 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: NH 99008

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 30 September 1942.
    Note the two recently installed external bow torpedo tubes.

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

    Online Image: 90KB; 740 x 610 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 99009

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 30 September 1942.

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

    Online Image: 80KB; 740 x 610 pixels

     
    Photo #: 19-N-35372

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 24 September 1942.
    Circles mark recent alterations to the ship.

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

    Online Image: 80KB; 740 x 600 pixels

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

     
    Photo #: 19-N-35373

    USS Tarpon
    (SS-175)

    At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 24 September 1942.
    Circles mark recent alterations to the ship.

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

    Online Image: 90KB; 600 x 765 pixels

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

     


    In addition to the images presented above, and on other pages linked from this one, the National Archives appears to hold at least one other view of USS Tarpon (SS-175). 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-456133
    USS Tarpon (SS-175) underway on the surface, with land in the distance, circa 1936-1939.
    Starboard broadside surface view, taken from a height several feet above the top of Tarpon's "sail". She is painted black, and is wearing the identification code "P-4".


    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 concerning this submarine, see:

  • USS Tarpon (SS-175) -- Part II; and
  • USS Tarpon (SS-175) -- Submerging and Surfacing.


    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 18 December 2003