Pacific Fleet Service
Assigned to Submarine Squadron 3 on 10 July 1959 Medregal departed Norfolk 25 July and steamed to Pearl Harbor, arriving 24 August. She served in Hawaiian waters until sailing 9 January 1960 to the Far East, arriving Yokosuka on 26 January. During the next five months she conducted training and evaluation exercises with units of the Seventh Fleet, and ranged the western Pacific from Japan to the Philippines.
Returning to Pearl Harbor 1 July, Medregal resumed type and squadron operations between Hawaii and the West Coast. Between September 1961 and March 1962 she made a second deployment with the Seventh Fleet. In October she steamed to the West Coast for ASW and Reserve training out of Puget Sound. She returned to Pearl Harbor in mid-December and for the next two years she maintained her pattern of operations between the Hawaiian Islands and the West Coast.
Medregal departed Pearl Harbor for WestPac in mid-April 1965. Steaming first to Australia, she visited Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, and participated in the commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Thence, in May she sailed to the Philippines for operations out of Subic Bay. On July 13, 1965 she was in a collision with a freighter while submerged in the South China Sea. Returned to Subic Bay for repairs. Extensive damage was done to the sail, all periscopes and snorkel system were completely inoperative. After patched up in Subic Bay, returned to Pearl Harbor for a short while then to Mare Island, Vellejo, Calif. for major repairs. Arrived back in Pearl Harbor late December 1965.
Back in Pearl Harbor late in 1965, Medregal operated their until departure for Japan 2 July 1966. After reaching Yokosuka on 15 July, she joined Seventh Fleet aircraft carriers and destroyers for ASW operations in the western Pacific, and readiness and alert maneuvers with ships of the Republic of China Navy (based in Taiwan). During the rest of the year she continued to support peacekeeping operations in the troubled Far East.
In January 1967, Medregal returned to her home port in Hawaii where she resumed her type training and squadron exercises with SubRon 1. She continued duty out of Pearl Harbor until 1 May when she was assigned to SubRon 3 out of San Diego, California. On 1 May 1967, Medregal was reclassified with hull classification symbol AGSS-480.
On 6 February 1969 Medregal sank the USS Redfish (SS-395) as a target off the coast of California. Redfish was a combat veteran of World War II.
On 24 June 1969 Medregal departed San Diego for her final WestPac cruise. Stops included Hawaii, Guam, Viet Nam(twice), Subic Bay/Manila (Philippines), Chinhae (South Korea), Yokosuka/Kobe (Japan), Kaohsiung (Taiwan) and Hong Kong. Medregal arrived back in San Diego on 24 December 1969. She continued home port operations there until August 1970.
Medregal was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 August 1970 and sold for scrapping 13 June 1972.
Read more about this topic: USS Medregal (SS-480)
Famous quotes containing the words pacific, fleet and/or service:
“It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.... It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away.”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
“A man’s real faith is never contained in his creed, nor is his creed an article of his faith. The last is never adopted. This it is that permits him to smile ever, and to live even as bravely as he does. And yet he clings anxiously to his creed, as to a straw, thinking that that does him good service because his sheet anchor does not drag.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)