USS Sargo (SS-188)

USS Sargo (SS-188)

USS Sargo (SS-188), the lead ship of her class of submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sargo.

Her keel was laid on 12 May 1937 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 6 June 1938 sponsored by Mrs. Chester W. Nimitz (wife of the later admiral), and commissioned on 7 February 1939, Lieutenant E. E. Yeomans in command.

After shakedown along the eastern seaboard of South America, Sargo departed Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in July 1939 for duty with the Pacific Fleet. Transiting the Panama Canal, she arrived at San Diego, California, in mid-August. She operated in the eastern and mid-Pacific for the next two years, including a practice 40-day war patrol between Midway Island and the Marshall Islands in the fall of 1941. She departed Pearl Harbor on 23 October 1941, arrived in Manila on 10 November, and was there during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December.

Read more about USS Sargo (SS-188):  War Patrols Under Tyrell D. Jacobs, War Patrols Under Richard V. Gregory, War Patrols Under Edward S. Carmick, War Patrols Under Philip W. Garnett and Post-war Fate