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

Photo # NH 99279:  USS Triton underway, circa 1940

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

USS Triton (SS-201), 1940-1943

USS Triton, a 1475-ton Tambor class submarine, was built at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned in mid-August 1940, she served along the East Coast and in the Caribbean for a year, then went to the Pacific, where she was based at Pearl Harbor. During the remaining months of peace, Triton conducted training and in November 1941 was stationed off Wake Island. She was there on 7 December (8 December local time), when Japanese aggression converted her "simulated war patrol" to a real one. While off Wake she made one unsuccessful attack on an enemy ship, using the soon-discredited technique of firing torpedoes while deeply submerged, using sonar bearings for targeting.

Triton's second and third war patrols, into the East China Sea in January-March and April-June 1942, were much more productive. Her torpedoes sank two Japanese merchantmen in February. Three more were sunk in May, plus three fishing vessels and the submarine I-164. Her fourth combat cruise, which took Triton to the Aleutians in June-August 1942, cost the enemy another ship, the destroyer Nenohi.

Following a shipyard overhaul, Triton began her fifth war patrol in mid-December 1942. After helping to guide Army bombers on a raid against Wake, she sank two Marus late in the month. The rest of the patrol probably produced damage to several Japanese ships, but also was marked by bad torpedo performance, a problem that plagued the U.S. Navy submarine force for more than a year and a half after the war began. A few weeks after arriving at Brisbane, Australia, in late January 1943, Triton was sent to operate against enemy shipping north of the Solomon Islands. She sank one cargo ship in early March and attacked others, but was not heard from after the 11th of the month and in April was reported overdue and presumed lost. Postwar analysis concluded that USS Triton, with her entire crew of seventy-three officers and men, was probably sunk by Japanese destroyers off the Admiralty Islands on 15 March 1943.

This page features the only views we have concerning USS Triton (SS-201).


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 99279

USS Triton
(SS-201)

Underway, circa 1940, with another submarine in the background.

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

Online Image: 101KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 99280

USS Triton
(SS-201)

At Dutch Harbor, Alaska, 16 July 1942.

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

Online Image: 78KB; 740 x 595 pixels

 
Photo #: 80-G-451125

Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii


Aerial view of the Submarine Base, with part of the supply depot beyond and the fuel farm at right, looking north on 13 October 1941.
Note the fuel tank across the road from the submarine base, painted to resemble a building.
The building beside the submarine ascent tower (in left center, shaped like an upsidedown "U") housed the U.S. Fleet Headquarters at the time of the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941. Office of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the Fleet's Commander in Chief, was in the upper left corner of the building's top floor.
See Photo # 80-G-451125 (complete caption) for identification of some of the ships present.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 144KB; 740 x 605 pixels

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

 


In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS Triton (SS-201). The following list features some of 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-42357
    USS Triton (SS-201) underway at sea, circa 1940, seen from a blimp. Photo dated July 1943, but taken about two or three years earlier.
    High aerial view, taken from off Triton's port side, forward. Her bow is cropped out of the view, and her after portion is somewhat obscured by the blimp's engine and its supporting structure. Triton is in pre-war configuration, with the "201" painted on her sail in large numerals.


  • Photo #: 80-G-206163
    USS Triton (SS-201) off Naval Air Station Dutch Harbor, Alaska, 16 July 1942.
    Port broadside surface view, relatively distant (Triton occupies about a third of the image's width), with a cloud-crowned mountain in the background.

  • Photo #: 80-G-206164
    As 80-G-206163, but port broadside view, taken from much closer to the submarine.

  • Photo #: 80-G-206166
    As 80-G-206164, but port quarter view.

  • Photo #: 80-G-206167
    As 80-G-206164, but taken from off Triton's bow, somewhat to starboard, as she approaches a pier.


    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."


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    Page made 30 April 2004