Figure 1: USS Tarpon (SS-175) underway on the surface, circa 1937. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Tarpon (SS-175) underway on the surface, circa 1937. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Tarpon (SS-175) recovering a practice torpedo, during exercises off San Diego, California, 22 August 1937. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Tarpon (SS-175) underway on the surface, circa 1937. Crewmen appear to be preparing to bring her 3-inch deck gun into action. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Tarpon (SS-175) surfacing, with her bow at a relatively steep "up" angle, circa 1937. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Tarpon (SS-175) underway with her deck awash, circa 1937. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Tarpon (SS-175) surfacing with her bow at a shallow "up" angle, circa 1937. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: 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 US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: 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 US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USS Tarpon (SS-175) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, at the conclusion of an overhaul, 30 September 1942. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: 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 US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12: 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 US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after a large, herring-like fish, the 1,316-ton USS Tarpon was the second of two Shark class submarines. The ship was built by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, Connecticut, and was commissioned on 12 March 1936. Tarpon was approximately 298 feet long and 25 feet wide, had a top surface speed of 19.5 knots and a submerged speed of 8 knots, and had a crew of 50 officers and men. The submarine was armed with six 21-inch torpedo tubes, carried a total of 16 torpedoes, and had one 3-inch deck gun.
After being commissioned, Tarpon was based at San Diego, California, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with Submarine Division (SubDiv) 13 for several years and then was assigned to SubDiv 14. In October 1939, Tarpon and SubDiv 14 were transferred to the Philippines to support the six old S-boat submarines that were based at Manila. These ships eventually were formed into Submarine Squadron 5 and in October 1941, SubDivs 15 and 16 were also transferred from Pearl Harbor to Manila. This increased the number of submarines in the US Asiatic Fleet to 29.
Two days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, 18 submarines left the Philippines and began their first war patrol. Tarpon patrolled an area to the southeast of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. Unfortunately, all of the Japanese ships Tarpon located were steaming at unfavorable firing angles, so the ship was unable to fire a single torpedo. Tarpon ended her first war patrol at Darwin, Australia, on 11 January 1942.
Tarpon’s second war patrol began on 25 January 1942 and it took her to the waters off the Moluccan Islands, which are part of present-day Indonesia. On 30 January, Tarpon located a Japanese convoy, but the convoy’s heavy escort prevented the submarine from attacking. On 1 February, Tarpon spotted a Japanese freighter and quickly fired a spread of four torpedoes at the ship. At least one torpedo hit. Tarpon fired two more torpedoes at the damaged Japanese merchant ship and both of them hit as well. Seeing that the freighter was sinking, Tarpon left the scene assuming the ship was finished. But postwar analysis of Japanese records did not confirm a “kill,” so the freighter must have somehow managed to stay afloat after Tarpon left. On the evening of 11 February, while steaming on the surface, Tarpon was suddenly illuminated by the searchlight of an enemy warship. Tarpon quickly dove and tried to escape her attacker, but was shaken badly after the Japanese warship dropped four depth charges on her. The underwater explosions knocked out Tarpon’s bow planes, rudder angle indicator, and port annunciator. Then on the evening of 23 and 24 February, while steaming on the surface the submarine ran aground while trying to go through Boling Strait, west of Flores Island. The crew jettisoned ammunition, fresh water, fuel, and even torpedoes in an effort to lighten the ship. But nothing worked. Then some natives in a small boat paddled to the grounded submarine. The natives met with the ship’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Lewis Wallace, and he agreed to send an officer with the natives back to the nearby island of Adunara for help. The natives took one of Tarpon’s officers back to Adunara where they met the only Westerner on the island, a Dutch missionary by the name of Pastor H. yon Den Rulst. The small group of men returned to Tarpon, where the Dutch missionary informed the captain that the next high tide would be between 1600 and 1800 hours. Pastor Rulst also warned Lieutenant Commander Wallace that there were a lot of Japanese aircraft patrolling the area and that the crew would simply have to wait until the tide came in, causing much tension on board the ship. Fortunately, the tide came in when the pastor said it would and, with three of Tarpon’s engines backing up at full speed, the ship finally managed to pull itself off the bottom. Tarpon arrived at Fremantle, Australia, on 5 March, a bit shaken but still intact.
Tarpon’s third wartime patrol began on 28 March 1942 and ended when she arrived at Pearl Harbor on 17 May. She had made no contacts except for an enemy hospital ship. The ship’s next patrol took her north of Oahu, Hawaii, but lasted only 10 days, from 30 May to 9 June. No enemy shipping was found and Tarpon was then sent to San Francisco, California, for a badly needed overhaul that lasted until 30 September 1942.
On 22 October 1942, Tarpon left Pearl Harbor and began her fifth war patrol which brought her to the waters north of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. The submarine spotted numerous fishing boats but no warships or merchant ships. Tarpon ended this patrol at Midway Island on 10 December.
Tarpon returned to Pearl Harbor for another overhaul and began her sixth wartime patrol on 10 January 1943. She was sent to the Japanese home waters, just south of the island of Honshu. At 2130 on 1 February, Tarpon fired four torpedoes at a large ship and scored one hit. The target turned out to be the 10,935-ton Japanese passenger-cargo ship Fushima Maru. Two more torpedoes were fired at the damaged Japanese ship and both hit, breaking the vessel in two. After the ship sank, Tarpon left the area and prowled the waters around the island of Truk. On 8 February, the submarine made radar contact with a large, unidentified enemy ship. Tarpon fired a spread of four torpedoes and all of them hit the target. Tarpon had to submerge and go deep because the escorts of the doomed ship raced after the American submarine. The stricken Japanese ship was the 16,975-ton transport Tatsuta Maru, bound for Truk with a large contingent of soldiers on board. The transport sank with heavy loss of life as Tarpon slipped away from the aggressive Japanese escorts. After that attack, Tarpon returned to Midway on 25 February.
Tarpon’s seventh patrol was conducted from 29 March to 15 May 1943, near Tarawa in the Marshall Islands. But no ships were sunk and the submarine returned to Midway. On 30 July, Tarpon was sent back to Japanese home waters for her eighth wartime patrol. The submarine sighted a Japanese task force which included an aircraft carrier, but the task force’s high speed made it impossible to attack. Then on 21 August, Tarpon spotted two large cargo ships under heavy escort. Tarpon fired a spread of three torpedoes at each cargo ship and damaged both of them. On 28 August, Tarpon sighted another Japanese freighter and damaged it as the enemy ship was leaving Mikura Shima. On 4 September, the American submarine sank a Japanese patrol ship, killing the entire crew. Tarpon returned to Midway on 8 September.
For her ninth war patrol, Tarpon returned to the Japanese island of Honshu from 1 October to 3 November 1943. On the evening of 16 October, Tarpon was patrolling of Yokohama when she spotted a large ship, possibly an auxiliary cruiser (basically armed merchant ships used as convoy escorts). Tarpon followed the mystery ship until 0156 the next morning, when she fired four torpedoes at her. At least one of the torpedoes hit and the ship stopped dead in the water. But the wounded enemy ship began moving again and headed straight for Tarpon. The American submarine submerged and moved directly underneath the wounded ship. Tarpon then came to periscope depth on the other side of the ship and fired a spread of three more torpedoes. One of them hit the enemy ship’s stern. Yet the ship still would not sink. Frustrated at the inability to sink this ship, the captain of Tarpon fired another torpedo at the mystery ship and hit it, causing a huge explosion. After the smoke cleared, the ship was gone. Postwar examination of enemy records showed that the ship sunk by Tarpon that night was the German surface raider Michel, which had been attacking unarmed Allied merchant ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Michel was one of the few German warships to be sunk by a US Navy submarine during World War II. At the end of her patrol, Tarpon returned to Pearl Harbor.
Tarpon made three more wartime cruises, all of them involving either special missions or lifeguard duties in the central Pacific. On 14 October 1944, at the end of her twelfth war patrol, the now elderly submarine was retired from combat duties. Tarpon left Pearl Harbor on 24 December and was sent to the East Coast, arriving at New London, Connecticut, on 17 January 1945. She spent what was left of the war as a training ship and was decommissioned at Boston, Massachusetts, on 15 November 1945. In 1947, Tarpon became a stationary Naval Reserve training submarine at New Orleans, Louisiana. She served in that capacity until 5 September 1956, when she was stricken from the Navy list. Tarpon sank while under tow off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on 26 August 1957, probably while being used as a target. USS Tarpon received seven battle stars for her service during World War II.
