USS Apogon (SS-308)

History

United States
Builder:	Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine
Laid down:	9 December 1942
Launched:	10 March 1943
Commissioned:	16 July 1943
Decommissioned:	1 October 1945
Struck:	25 February 1947
Fate:	Used as a target for the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb test on 25 July 1946, and sunk
General characteristics
Class and type:	Balao class diesel-electric submarine
Displacement:	1,526 tons (1,550 t) surfaced, 2,391 tons (2,429 t) submerged
Length:	311 ft 6 in (94.95 m)
Beam:	27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)
Draft:	16 ft 10 in (5.13 m) maximum
Propulsion:	4 × Fairbanks-Morse Model 38D8- ¹⁄₈ 9-cylinder opposed-piston diesel engines driving electrical generators 2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries 4 × high-speed Elliott electric motors with reduction gears 2 × propellers 5,400 shp (4.0 MW) surfaced 2,740 shp (2.04 MW) submerged
Speed:	20.25 kn (37.50 km/h) surfaced, 8.75 kn (16.21 km/h) submerged
Range:	11,000 nmi (20,000 km) surfaced @ 10 kn (19 km/h)
Endurance:	48 hours @ 2 kn (3.7 km/h) submerged, 75 days on patrol
Test depth:	400 ft (120 m)
Complement:	10 officers, 70–71 enlisted
Armament:	10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 6 forward, 4 aft 24 torpedoes 1 × 5-inch (127 mm) / 25 caliber deck gun Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon

USS Apogon (SS-308), a Balao-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the apogon, a group of large-headed salt water fishes with oblong compressed bodies found in tropical or subtropical waters. The original name planned for the ship was Abadejo, but the name was changed on 24 September 1942 before the keel was laid down.

Apogon was laid down on 9 December 1942, by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine; launched on 10 March 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Thomas Withers, the wife of Admiral Withers; and commissioned on 16 July 1943, Lieutenant Commander Walter Paul Schoeni in command.

The submarine held shakedown in the waters off the New England coast and departed New London on 13 September, bound for Hawaii. Apogon transited the Panama Canal on 25 September and reported for duty on that date to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. She reached Pearl Harbor on 11 October and began three weeks of training.

After loading fuel and provisions, Apogon got underway on 3 November for her first war patrol. Her patrol area comprised the waters within a 60-mile (110 km) radius of Moen Island and those along the shipping lanes between Truk and Kwajalein. The submarine was acting in support of Operation Galvanic, the seizure of the Gilbert Islands.

After a brief stop at Johnston Island on 5 November to top off her fuel tanks, Apogon continued on to her assigned area. During this patrol, she sighted four contacts deemed worthy of torpedo expenditure and actually attacked three. The only major damage she inflicted occurred on 4 December, when the submarine sank Daido Maru, a former gunboat. On 18 December, she ended her patrol and moored at Midway Atoll.

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