USS Sand Lance (SS-381)

USS Sand Lance (SS-381) running post-repair trials off Oahu, Hawaii, on 15 August 1963
History
United States
Name:	USS Sand Lance (SS-381)
Builder:	Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine
Laid down:	12 March 1943
Launched:	25 June 1943
Commissioned:	9 October 1943
Decommissioned:	14 February 1946
Recommissioned:	6 April 1963
Decommissioned:	7 September 1963
Struck:	1 September 1972
Fate:	Transferred to Brazil, 7 September 1963
History
Brazil
Name:	Rio Grande do Sul (S-11)
Acquired:	7 September 1963
Struck:	15 September 1972
Fate:	Cannibalized for spare parts
General characteristics
Class and type:	Balao-class diesel-electric submarine
Displacement:	1,526 long tons (1,550 t) surfaced 2,391 long 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 38D8-⅛ 10-cylinder opposed piston diesel engines driving electrical generators 2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries 4 × high-speed Elliott electric motors with reduction gears two propellers 5,400 shp (4.0 MW) surfaced 2,740 shp (2.0 MW) submerged
Speed:	20.25 knots (37.50 km/h) surfaced 8.75 knots (16.21 km/h) submerged
Range:	11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Endurance:	48 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged 75 days on patrol
Test depth:	400 feet (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 Sand Lance (SS-381), a Balao-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sand lance, a member of the ammodytidae family. Her keel was laid down on 12 March 1943 by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. She was launched on 25 June 1943 sponsored by Mrs. Edith Burrows, and commissioned on 9 October 1943 at Portsmouth, with Commander Malcolm Everett Garrison in command.

Sand Lance conducted training exercises out of New London, Connecticut, until 18 December 1943 when she sailed for the Panama Canal. She transited the canal on 30 December and reached her base of operations, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 17 January 1944. On 8 February, she got underway for the first of her five war patrols. She stopped at Midway Island for fuel, then headed for the Kuril Islands.

Before entering her patrol area off Paramushiro on 24 February, she passed through two typhoons and encountered fields of slush ice and patches of drift ice. Sand Lance encountered her first victim, Kaika Maru, taking shelter from a blizzard in the lee of Paramushiro's southeast point. Her well-aimed torpedoes sent that enemy cargo ship to the bottom. Though her number-one periscope had been heavily damaged by drift ice, she pressed home attacks on a convoy on the night of 2 March and 3 March, sinking the 4521-ton cargo ship Akashisan Maru, and damaging other ships. A ship sunk by SS-381 on 3 March 1944 was the Soviet merchant ship "Byelorussia"