ARGONAUT USS submarine 1928

[aukepalmhof]

Built as a submarine by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine for the USA Navy.
01 May 1925 laid down.
10 November 1927 launched as the V-4, christened by Mrs. Philip Mason Sears, the daughter of Rear Admiral William D. Macdougall. She was one of the Corsair class.
Displacement: surfaced 2,750 tons standard, 3,095 tons full load, submerged 4,228 ton. Dim. 109.7 x 10.3 x 4.88m. (draught).
Powered by 2 MAN direct drive 6-cyl. diesel engines, 1,400 hp each., 2 Ridgway electric motors 1,100 hp each. Twin screws, speed surfaced 15 knots, submerged 8 knots.
Test dive 90 meters.
Armament 4 – 21 inch torpedo tubes, carried 16 torpedoes. Fitted also with mine laying tubes aft. 2 – 6 inch Mark XII deck guns.
Crew 96.
02 April 1928 commissioned under command of Lieutenant Commander W.M.Quigley.

V-4 was the first of the second generation of V-boats commissioned in the late 1920's. These submarines were exempt by special agreement from the armament and tonnage limitations of the Washington Treaties. V-4 and her sister ships V-5 and V-6 were designed with larger and more powerful diesel engines than those which had propelled the earlier series of V-boats, which had proven to be failures. The specially-built engines failed to produce their design power and some developed dangerous crankshaft explosions. V-4 and her sister ships were slow in diving and when submerged, were unwieldy and slower than designed. They also presented an excellent target to surface ship sonar and had a large turning radius.
V-4 was designed primarily as a minelayer. She was the first and only such experimental ship ever built. She had four torpedo tubes forward and two minelaying tubes aft. At the time of her construction, V-4 was the largest submarine ever built in the United States. Following commissioning, V-4 served with Submarine Division 12 based at Newport, R.I. In January and February 1929, V-4 underwent a series of trials off Provincetown Mass. On a trial dive during this period, she submerged to a depth of 318 feet. This mark was the greatest depth which an American submarine had reached up to that time. On 26 February 1929, V-4 was assigned to Division 20, Submarine Divisions, Battle Fleet, and arrived at San Diego, Calif., her new home port, on 23 March. From there, she participated in battle exercises and made cruises along the west coast.
V-4 was renamed ARGONAUT on 19 February 1931 and was redesignated SM-1 on 1 July of that year. On 30 June 1932, she arrived at Pearl Harbor, where she was assigned to Submarine Division 7. The vessel carried out minelaying operations, patrol duty, and other routine work. In October 1934 and again in May 1939, ARGONAUT took part in joint Army-Navy exercises in the Hawaiian operating area. ARGONAUT became the flagship of Submarine Squadron 4 in mid-1939. The submarine returned to the west coast in April 1941 to participate in fleet tactical exercises.
On 28 November 1941, ARGONAUT left Pearl Harbor and was on patrol duty near Midway Island when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. After sunset on 7 December, ARGONAUT surfaced and heard naval gunfire around Midway. It was assumed that the Japanese were landing a large invasion force. ARGONAUT then submerged to make a sonar approach to the "invasion force." While designed to be a minelayer and not an attack submarine, ARGONAUT made the first wartime approach on enemy naval forces.
The "invasion force" turned out to be two Japanese destroyers whose mission was shore bombardment on Midway. The ships may have detected ARGONAUT, and one passed close by the submarine. They completed the bombardment then retired before ARGONAUT could make a second approach.
One week later, ARGONAUT made contact with three or four Japanese destroyers. Her captain, Stephen Barchet, wisely decided not to attack. On 22 January 1942, she returned to Pearl Harbor and, after a brief stop there, proceeded to the Mare Island Navy Yard for conversion to a troop transport submarine.
ARGONAUT returned to action in the South Pacific in August. Admiral Chester Nimitz assigned ARGONAUT and NAUTILUS (SS-168) to transport and land marine commandos on Makin in the Gilbert Islands. This move was designed to relieve pressure on American forces that had just landed on Guadalcanal. On 8 August, the two submarines embarked troops of Companies A and B, 2d Raider Battalion, and got underway for Makin. Conditions during the transit were unpleasant, and most of the marines became seasick. The convoy arrived off Makin on 16 August; and at 0330 the next day, the marines began landing. Their rubber rafts were swamped by the sea and most of the outboard motors drowned. The Japanese either forewarned or extraordinarily alert because of the activity on Guadalcanal-gave the Americans a warm reception. Snipers were hidden in the trees and the landing beaches were in front of the Japanese forces instead of behind them as planned. By midnight of 10 August, all but 30 of the troops had been recovered.
ARGONAUT arrived back in Pearl Harbor on 26 August. Her designation was changed to APS-1 on 22 September, and her base of operations was transferred to Brisbane, Australia, later in the year. In December, the submarine departed Brisbane to patrol in the hazardous area between New Britain and Bougainville, south of St. George's Channel. On 10 January 1943 ARGONAUT spotted a convoy of five freighters and their destroyer escorts. An Army aircraft was by chance flying overhead and witnessed ARGONAUT’S attack. ARGONAUT hit at least one of the destroyers with her torpedoes, and they promptly counterattacked. A crew member on board the plane saw ARGONAUT’S bow suddenly break the water at an unusual angle. It was apparent that a depth charge had severely damaged the submarine. The destroyers continued circling ARGONAUT and pumping shells into her. She slipped below the waves and was never heard from again. One hundred and five officers and men went down with the submarine, the worst loss of life for a wartime submarine. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 26 February 1943.
Japanese reports made available at the end of the war recorded a depth charge attack followed by gunfire, at which time they “destroyed the top of the sub”.
On the basis of the report given by the Army flier who witnessed the attack in which the ARGONAUT perished, she was credited with damaging a Japanese destroyer on her last patrol. (postwar, the JANAC accounting gave her none.) Since histories of none of the three escorting destroyers report damage on 10 January; the destroyer “hit” may have been a premature explosion.

Argonaut won two battle stars for her World War II service.
Kiribati 2005 75c sg?, scott?
Source: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Argonaut_(SM-1)