Shows
Patrol Reports41 Cold War Sentinels - USS John Adams SSBN-620In the dark depths of the Cold War, one submarine carried the name of a Founding Father who believed peace could be preserved only through strength. USS John Adams, SSBN-620, was a Lafayette-class ballistic missile submarine built to ensure that no enemy would dare start a war it could not finish. From her launch in 1963 to her recycling in 1996, she patrolled the oceans unseen, part of the silent shield that kept the balance of deterrence intact.This episode tells her story, from her keel laying at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to her long patrols from Holy Loch and...
2025-10-3004 min
Patrol Reports41 Cold War Sentinels - USS Theodore Roosevelt SSBN-600Welcome to Dave Does History, where we surface the forgotten stories beneath the waves. Today, we turn our periscope toward the USS Theodore Roosevelt, SSBN-600, a submarine that carried the name of a president who believed in speaking softly and carrying a big stick. Launched in 1959 at Mare Island, she embodied the dawn of a new kind of strength, one that stayed hidden under the sea but kept the peace through quiet vigilance. For two decades, her crews sailed in silence, guardians of the Cold War’s uneasy calm. This is the story of the boat that bore Roosevelt’s na...
2025-10-2705 min
Patrol Reports41 Cold War Sentinels - USS George Bancroft SSBN-643George Bancroft was one of the great figures of nineteenth-century America, a historian, diplomat, and the founder of the United States Naval Academy. More than a century later, the Navy honored him by giving his name to a vessel that represented the cutting edge of Cold War deterrence. USS George Bancroft (SSBN-643) was a Benjamin Franklin-class ballistic missile submarine, part of the legendary “41 for Freedom.” From 1966 until 1993 she carried out seventy deterrent patrols, armed first with Polaris, then Poseidon, and finally Trident missiles. Her mission was never to fire, but to wait in silence, ensuring that no adversary would dare...
2025-10-0305 min
Patrol ReportsThe Sorcerer StrikesIn the autumn of 1944, the submarine USS Aspro slipped out of Fremantle and into the vast expanse of the South China Sea. This was her fifth war patrol, a mission that would test the nerves of her crew and the steel of the boat against Japan’s desperate efforts to keep its sea lanes open.For weeks the men endured the grind of patrol life, stalking convoys, dodging aircraft, and bracing against the thundering shocks of depth charges. The climax came on October 2, 1944, when Aspro closed in on a Japanese tanker hugging the coastline. With torpedoes running tr...
2025-10-0206 min
Patrol ReportsJack's Silver Star MomentOn June 26, 1943, the submarine USS Jack prowled the waters off Japan on her first war patrol. She was young, aggressive, and her crew carried a dangerous confidence. That morning, Jack struck hard, firing a spread of torpedoes into a convoy and sending two ships to the bottom. The crew was elated, convinced they had the war figured out.But in the shadow of victory came disaster. A Japanese bomber swooped down and dropped a depth charge so close it blew Jack’s stern clear out of the water, wrecked her diving planes, and sent her plunging out of...
2025-09-2807 min
Patrol ReportsFrom Harbor Tragedy to a Resilient Legacy: The USS R-6 (SS-83)In September of 1921, San Pedro Harbor was the bustling new home of the Pacific Fleet. Battleships filled the anchorage, destroyers patrolled the coast, and tied to the tender USS Camden was the small submarine USS R-6. She was a product of the pigboat era, a generation of submarines built during World War I that were experimental, cramped, and dangerous. On the night of September 26, her crew worked late into the evening preparing exercise torpedoes for the next day’s practice. What began as routine training turned into disaster when seawater suddenly surged into the forward torpedo room. Within minutes, R...
2025-09-2605 min
Patrol ReportsMrs. Hutchinson's Son - USS Sargo's (SS-188) Fifth War PatrolIn September of 1942 the submarine USS Sargo left Fremantle on her fifth war patrol, a mission that would take her deep into enemy waters of the South China Sea. For nearly a month she stalked empty horizons, her crew wrestling with leaking exhaust valves and the constant threat of discovery. Then came September 25, when Sargo fired at a Japanese freighter and nearly paid with her own life when one torpedo turned in a deadly circle. The target was finished with gunfire, but the victory was followed by twenty two hours of depth charge attacks that tested every man aboard.
2025-09-2505 min
Patrol Reports41 Cold War Sentinels - USS John Marshall SSBN-611The USS John Marshall was never meant to be famous. She did not fight great battles or fire weapons in anger. Yet her legacy is important. She shows how the Navy adapted in the Cold War, repurposing old ships for new missions, keeping pressure on adversaries, and supporting allies in ways that never made the papers. She carried the name of a man who defined the rule of law, and she embodied the paradox of nuclear weapons: built for destruction, but used to keep the peace.
2025-09-2405 min
Patrol Reports41 Cold War Sentinels: USS Henry L. Stimson SSBN-655The Cold War was fought in silence as much as in speeches. Deep beneath the Atlantic, submarines carried weapons that no one ever wanted to fire, and crews who lived in a world without sunlight to make sure those weapons remained ready. The USS Henry L. Stimson, SSBN 655, was one of those boats. She was part of the 41 for Freedom, the fleet of American missile submarines that kept the balance of power by disappearing. Her life tells us about the sailors who endured months underwater, the technology that changed with Polaris, Poseidon, and Trident missiles, and the legacy of...
2025-09-2105 min
Patrol ReportsThe Last Act of the USS O-9 Submarine TragedyOn September 20, 1941, the Navy confirmed what many had feared since that summer. The wreck of the USS O-9 had been found, lying deep off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Three months earlier, on June 20, the old submarine had slipped beneath the waves during a routine test dive and never returned. Thirty-three men went with her, lost in an instant when the Atlantic crushed her beyond her limits.For weeks, the Navy searched, divers risking their lives, families waiting for word, and oil slicks rising from the sea as the only sign of her fate. By September 20...
2025-09-2105 min
Patrol ReportsHow America’s First Submarines Launched the Silent Service: USS Plunger SS-2On September 19, 1903, the United States Navy brought a strange little boat into service. She was called USS Plunger, Submarine Torpedo Boat Number Two. At just over sixty feet long, with a gasoline engine that filled her hull with fumes and a single torpedo tube that may or may not have worked as advertised, she hardly looked like the future of naval power. But that is exactly what she became.Plunger never sank an enemy ship, never fought in a war, and yet she changed everything. She carried a President beneath the waves, trained the first generation of...
2025-09-1905 min
Patrol ReportsIn the Silent Depths: The Fighting Life of USS GurnardOn September 18, 1942, the USS Gurnard joined the fleet as one of the many Gato class submarines built to carry the war into enemy waters. She would go on to complete nine patrols across the Pacific, striking hard at Japanese shipping and earning her place among the hunters of the deep. The story of Gurnard is not only about steel and tonnage, but about the men who endured long weeks of silence and sudden bursts of terror as depth charges rained down and torpedoes ran true. From the sinking of the Taiko Maru to the famous attack on the Take...
2025-09-1805 min
Patrol Reports41 Cold War Sentinels - USS Von Steuben SSBN-632The USS Von Steuben was one of the silent sentinels of the Cold War, a ballistic missile submarine built not to fight battles but to prevent them. Commissioned in 1964, she carried her crews into the depths of the Atlantic on patrols that lasted months at a time, unseen and unheard, yet always ready. Her mission was deterrence, to make sure that any enemy understood an attack on the United States would never go unanswered.The sailors who served aboard lived lives of secrecy and routine, broken by moments of danger and long stretches of monotony. They worked...
2025-09-1705 min
Patrol ReportsUSS Guavina’s Fierce Attack - September 15, 1944On September 15, 1944, the crew of USS Guavina found themselves staring down the kind of target submariners rarely got a shot at. Anchored tight in Sarangani Strait was a Japanese light cruiser, sitting still but bristling with guns and men. What followed was not a quick strike or a clean kill. It was an all-day brawl against the sea, the current, and the stubborn will of a ship that refused to die easily.In this episode, we’ll take you inside the boat and through the log, minute by minute. You’ll hear how the men fought their way...
2025-09-1506 min
Patrol ReportsGrowlers Legendary Down-the-Throat Torpedo Attack of September 12, 1944On September 12, 1944, the USS Growler and her crew faced one of the most extraordinary days in submarine history. Operating as part of a wolf pack in the waters between Formosa and Luzon, Growler found herself in the middle of a heavily guarded Japanese convoy. What followed was a series of bold attacks that pushed both the submarine and her men to the limit.This was the day Commander Thomas B. Oakley Jr. ordered torpedoes fired straight down the throat of a charging destroyer. It was the day freighters were torn apart under fire, and a Fubuki-class destroyer...
2025-09-1206 min
Patrol ReportsA Cold War Legacy and 21st Century Vanguard: USS MichiganThis episode takes us beneath the surface, into the hidden world of one of the Navy’s most formidable submarines. USS Michigan was commissioned on September 11, 1982, as part of the Ohio class, carrying the weight of America’s nuclear deterrent during the darkest days of the Cold War. Later, she was transformed into a guided missile submarine, bristling with Tomahawks and carrying special operations forces into the 21st century.But this story is not just about steel and missiles. It is about the sailors who called her home, the long patrols, the close calls, and the friendships forg...
2025-09-1106 min
Patrol ReportsThe Turtle vs. HMS Eagle: America’s First Submarine Attack in the Revolutionary WarSpecial Guests Lena and Graham from the Patrol Reports Podcast join us today to talk about the first US Submarine attack in history… during the Revolutionary War…On the night of September 7, 1776, New York Harbor looked like a wooden forest, crowded with the towering masts of the Royal Navy. The British had come to town, and they came in force. Admiral Richard Howe’s fleet lay at anchor, its warships bristling with cannon, their lanterns glowing against the dark water. The American cause seemed desperate. Washington’s Continental Army had been chased from Long Island, morale was flagging, a...
2025-09-0706 min
Patrol ReportsUSS Paddle and the Tragedy of Shinyo MaruWelcome to another episode of Patrol Reports, where we bring you the stories of the Silent Service in World War II. Today we follow the USS Paddle on patrol during the first week of September 1944, a mission that would become one of the most tragic chapters of the submarine war in the Pacific.For the crew of Paddle, it was another dangerous assignment. They spent days dodging aircraft, slipping through narrow passages, and stalking Japanese shipping along the Mindanao coast. On September 7 they attacked a convoy, putting torpedoes into what appeared to be a freighter. The boat...
2025-09-0715 min
Patrol ReportsThe Silent Prowler and the Submarine School Graduate: USS Cod’s War Patrols 2 and 3 through the Eyes of Calvin BakerThe USS Cod was one of the Silent Service’s proud hunters in World War II, a steel prowler built to stalk and sink the ships that kept Japan’s war machine alive. Commissioned in June of 1943, she quickly entered the fight in the South China Sea and the waters off Java and Luzon. Aboard her during the second and third war patrols was Calvin Baker, a young man who had graduated from submarine school on September 3, 1943.Baker’s story is not about medals or headlines, but about stepping out of the classroom and into the unforgiving world...
2025-09-0306 min
Patrol ReportsUSS S-5: The Sunken Submarine That Cheated Death off Cape MayWelcome back to Patrol Reports. Today we’re taking you back to September 1, 1920, when the brand-new submarine USS S-5 went down off the Delaware Capes in what should have been a routine dive. Thirty-eight men were suddenly trapped in what one survivor later called a steel coffin on the ocean floor. Their air was fouling, chlorine gas was forming, and the Atlantic was doing its best to finish them. What followed was one of the greatest survival stories in American submarine history. A desperate plan to tilt the boat, a hole chiseled through thick steel, and a white undershirt on...
2025-09-0107 min
Patrol ReportsUSS F-4 Raised from the Depths: How the U.S. Navy Salvaged Its First Lost Submarine on August 29, 1915On August 29, 1915, the U.S. Navy accomplished something no one had ever done before: it raised a lost submarine from the ocean floor. The USS F-4, a pioneer of America’s early undersea fleet, had sunk off Honolulu months earlier, entombing her crew in the dark. Salvaging her seemed impossible. The boat lay more than 300 feet down, crushed by pressure and mud, beyond the limits of human endurance at the time. Yet through grit, ingenuity, and some downright stubborn determination, naval engineers and divers pulled off a miracle. Special pontoons were built, cables secured by divers who risked their li...
2025-08-2914 min
Patrol ReportsUSS Queenfish at the North Pole: Captain Jim Harvey Recalls the 1985 Arctic Submarine MissionWelcome to Patrol Reports, stories from the history of the United States Submarine Force, brought to you by the United States Submarine Veterans Bremerton Base. On this episode, we journey north—far north—with Captain Jim Harvey, former commanding officer of USS Queenfish (SSN-651). In August of 1985, Queenfish and her crew did what only a handful of submariners had ever done: they surfaced at the North Pole.Captain Harvey shares the planning, the challenges, and the nerves that come with taking a nuclear submarine under shifting ice and breaking through to daylight. He talks about precision training, the...
2025-08-2747 min
Patrol ReportsUSS Guitarro’s Moonlit Victory: The Surface Gun Attack and Sinking of Nanshin Maru No. 27 off Cape Calavite, August 27, 1944On August 27, 1944, the USS Guitarro found herself in the thick of Japan’s desperate effort to keep its supply lines open in the Philippines. By that stage of the war, large tankers and freighters were easy prey, so the Japanese turned to smaller intercoastal vessels, hoping their shallow drafts and coastal routes might spare them from American attack. That gamble ended when Commander Enrique D’Hamel Haskins brought Guitarro to the surface under a pale moon and engaged the Nanshin Maru No. 27.The battle began with torpedoes that missed their mark, but Haskins and his crew refused to l...
2025-08-2612 min
Patrol ReportsThe Routine of Torpedo Offloads and Berth Shifts in San Diego: USS Queenfish , August 1958In the summer of 1958, the USS Queenfish was not chasing enemy shipping or slipping through Pacific patrol zones. Instead, she was tied up in San Diego Harbor, carrying out the routine but necessary duties that kept the submarine force sharp. For her crew, it meant a long stretch of daily operations that rarely made headlines but defined the rhythm of Navy life. Torpedoes were offloaded, equipment was checked, and berths were shifted from one buoy to another as the boat prepared for her next assignment.On August 25, Queenfish made her move from the North Bay to a...
2025-08-2505 min
Patrol ReportsUSS Ronquil’s First War Patrol: Convoy Battles off Formosa, August 1944In late August of 1944, USS Ronquil, a brand-new Balao-class submarine, made her first serious mark in the Pacific war. After weeks of drills, training, and shakedowns, the crew finally got their chance at combat in the waters north of Formosa. What they found was a massive Japanese convoy, heavy with cargo ships and bristling with escorts. For a green boat on her first patrol, it was a dangerous assignment.Over the course of two days, August 23 and 24, Ronquil went head-to-head with the enemy, launching multiple torpedo attacks under cover of night and slipping away from the depth...
2025-08-2406 min
Patrol ReportsUSS Batfish and the Velasco Reef Strike, August 23, 1944The USS Batfish (SS-310) earned her reputation later in the war as the submarine that destroyed three enemy subs in just three days, a record that still stands. But before that legendary patrol, Batfish carved out her place in the Pacific with a series of bold and dangerous actions that tested her crew and her skipper, Lieutenant Commander John K. Fyfe.One of those moments came on August 23, 1944, during her Fourth War Patrol near Palau. Acting on a contact report, Batfish closed in on Velasco Reef and discovered what looked like a naval junkyard. Japanese ships were...
2025-08-2314 min
Patrol ReportsThe Deep Peril: Submarine Disasters and the Urgent Quest for Safety in 1928In 1928, the submarine force found itself caught between tragedy and transformation. The year opened with the lingering sorrow of the USS S-4, lost after colliding with the Coast Guard destroyer Paulding. Her crew of forty never came home, though their struggle and the desperate attempts to save them gripped the nation. Salvage teams fought the sea for months until the boat was finally raised, and the lessons of that disaster would change the Navy forever.Across the Atlantic, Italy’s F-14 sank in the Adriatic after a collision, her crew poisoned by deadly gas before rescuers could re...
2025-08-2212 min
Patrol ReportsThe Water Wolf - USS Muskallunge at Camranh BayWelcome to Patrol Reports, where we share stories from the history of the United States Submarine Force. Today we turn to USS Muskallunge, a Gato-class submarine whose name came from the legendary muskie, the fish of ten thousand casts.Built at Electric Boat and commissioned in 1943, Muskallunge was destined to play an outsized role in the Silent Service. She tested the torpedoes that helped turn the tide of the war, carried the first electric torpedoes into combat, and prowled the Pacific through seven war patrols.On August 21, 1944, she struck a Japanese convoy near Camranh Bay...
2025-08-2106 min
Patrol ReportsDamaged But Deadly: USS Gar (SS-206) and the Action of August 20, 1943On August 20, 1943, the submarine USS Gar went to battle carrying more than torpedoes. She carried damage. Earlier that day, she struck a floating log that bent her port screw and left her nearly crippled. On the surface she could barely make eleven knots, underwater only four. Most commanders would have turned back. But Gar pressed on.That afternoon, she sighted a Japanese freighter with an escort in Makassar Strait. Even hobbled, she closed for an attack. Three torpedoes left their tubes. Depth charges followed almost immediately, hammering her battered hull for nearly two hours. When the sea...
2025-08-2005 min
Patrol ReportsThe Destruction of Convoy Hi-71: USS Bluefish (SS-222) and the Night of August 19, 1944August 19, 1944. On that night, Bluefish would slip into history. Alongside USS Rasher, she fell upon one of the last great Japanese convoys, a lumbering mass of ships carrying men, supplies, and hope for a faltering empire. Out in the blackness, under rain squalls and against the pulse of enemy escorts, Bluefish delivered one of the decisive strikes of the submarine war. That night became her defining moment, and it remains a sharp reminder of how much damage a single submarine could do when opportunity met skill.
2025-08-1915 min