Six “S” class boats were lost during WWII, three of them from grounding.  The first of these three was USS S-36.  Charts of vast areas of the Pacific war zone were sketchy.  Not a few were labeled “from a survey by Capt. James Cook.”  Built to a WWI design and commissioned in the early 1920s, these boats were old and obsolete by the outbreak of war with Japan. They lacked the air-conditioning and radar of the later Fleet Boats of the SARGO, PERCH, GATO and BALAO classes of submarines. Yet brave men sailed these “smoke” boats into harm’s way.

The bell that hangs in the steeple of the Submarine Memorial Chapel was donated from the crew of USS Argonaut right before her last patrol, one she never returned from. On January 10, 1943 the entire crew of 102 was lost as the boat was sunk by Japanese destroyers.

“I am the voice of the USS Argonaut (SS 166).  I was later classified APS 1 (submarine transport), and I was the largest of the U.S. submarines to participate in World War II.  I was over 380 feet long and had a beam of over 33 feet.  I was originally built as a minelayer, and I had two mine laying chutes and special tubes built into a large stern room.  In 1942, I was converted to a cargo carrying and troop transport submarine, my mine laying gear was removed, and my stern room was fitted for troop berthing. I transported Marines for the Makin Island raid.  In January 1943, I was on patrol near Rabaul when I was attacked by two Japanese destroyers who were avenging the torpedoing of a third destroyer in a convoy.  The two destroyers hammered the water with depth charges; and my bow thrust above the surface and remained there for sometime as destroyers repeatedly fit it with gunfire.  Finally I slid with my crew of 102 men into the depths of the Pacific.”