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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
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WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Photo # 80-G-323879:  USS Tautog underway at sea, 29 May 1945

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Tautog (SS-199), 1940-1959

USS Tautog, a 1475-ton Tambor class submarine built at Groton, Connecticut, was commissioned in early July 1940. She served for the next ten months in the western Atlantic and Caribbean areas. In May 1941 Tautog was sent to the Pacific for basing at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and was present there on 7 December 1941, when the devastating Japanese surprise attack opened the Pacific War. During the next three years, in the course of making thirteen war patrols, she retaliated by sinking a total of 26 enemy ships, the most accounted for by any U.S. Navy submarine, and damaged several others.

Tautog's first patrol, into the Marshall Islands in late 1941 and early 1942, produced reconnaissance information but no sinkings. However, on her second visit to that area, in the spring of 1942, she torpedoed the Japanese submarines RO-30 and I-28, plus a freighter. Operating out of Australia between July 1942 and May 1943, Tautog went into the waters of the East Indies and Indochina on five patrols that cost the enemy the destroyer Isonami and seven merchantmen. She also laid mines off Haiphong and suffered through a depth charge attack in November 1942.

Following an overhaul at San Francisco, California, Tautog resumed operations from Pearl Harbor in October 1943, sinking Submarine Chaser # 30 and damaging a tanker and three freighters during this cruise, her eighth of the war. Her next four patrols, in December 1943 - August 1944, took her to the Japanese home islands, including the chilly northern Pacific. This period was a very productive one, with the destroyer Shirakumo and eleven Marus falling victim to Tautog's torpedoes. A stateside overhaul followed, with the submarine's thirteenth war patrol, into the East China Sea, beginning in December 1944. The next month she sank a landing ship and a motor torpedo boat tender to conclude an extraordinary combat career.

Assigned to training duty in February 1945, Tautog spent the rest of World War II in that role and supporting developmental work off Hawaii and the West Coast. She transferred to the Atlantic in November 1945, a few months after Japan's surrender, and was decommissioned in December. In 1947 Tautog went to the Great Lakes, where she was employed as a stationary Naval Reserve training submarine at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for nearly twelve years. USS Tautog was removed from service in September 1959. Sold some months later, she was scrapped at Manistee, Michigan, during the early 1960s.

This page features all the views we have related to USS Tautog (SS-199).


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: 80-G-323879

USS Tautog (SS-199)


Underway at sea, 29 May 1945.
Note the scoreboard painted on her conning tower, representing Japanese ships sunk by Tautog.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 135KB; 740 x 605 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: NH 98661

USS Tautog (SS-199)


Launching, at the Electric Boat Company shipyard, Groton, Connecticut, 27 January 1940.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 129KB; 600 x 765 pixels

 
Photo #: 19-N-21887

USS Tautog (SS-199)


Ship's Historical Data Plaque, 1940.
This photograph was received on 18 July 1940, shortly after Tautog went into commission.

Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

Online Image: 90KB; 740 x 515 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: NH 63790-KN (color)

USS Tautog (SS-199)

Artwork by Lawton, depicting the submarine's World War II battle flag. Photographed while on exhibit during the early or middle 1960s.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 95KB; 740 x 515 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98808-KN (color)

USS Tautog (SS-199)

Artwork of Tautog's World War II battle flag. Photographed circa the early 1970s.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 119KB; 740 x 510 pixels

 

Note concerning a related image:

  • Photo # NH 83109, a chart of ship locations during the 7 December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, locates USS Tautog in the lower right center part of the image, alongside a pier at the Submarine Base.


    In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS Tautog (SS-199). The following list features some of these images:

    The images listed below are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections.
    DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".



  • Photo #: 80-G-456120
    USS Tautog (SS-199) at rest, probably off New London, Connecticut, at the time of her completion in 1940. She is painted black, with large numerals ("199") on her conning tower side, and is fitted with a 3"/50 deck gun aft.
    Starboard quarter surface view.

  • Photo #: 80-G-317225
    USS Tautog (SS-199) underway at relatively high speed, 21 April 1945.
    Port bow (more bow than port) high aerial view.


    Reproductions of these images should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center.

    The images listed in this box are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".


  • If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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    Page made 26 August 2003
    New image added 6 September 2003