December 10 in US Submarine History

December 10 tends to sit quietly on the calendar, a date that rarely makes headlines and never asks for much. Yet, across the long and strange saga of the United States Navy Submarine Force, this ordinary wintery day has carried more weight than it lets on. It has seen explosions in cramped early hulls, the smoke of war hanging over Cavite, the long shadow of strategic deterrence, and the uneasy reality that even the most powerful navy in the world still depends on shipyards that run behind schedule and politicians who promise to fix them.

1910: A lesson written in gasoline fumes

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The Last War Shot: USS Spikefish SS-404

In the summer of 1945, USS Spikefish (SS-404) was a young boat in a veteran’s war. A Balao-class submarine commissioned only months earlier, she was part of the U.S. Navy’s relentless undersea campaign that had, by then, strangled Japan’s maritime lifelines. Built for endurance and stealth, the Balao class represented the peak of American submarine design in World War II, long-ranged, heavily armed, and capable of diving deeper than their predecessors. Spikefish was on her second war patrol in August 1945, operating in the waters south of Japan, where danger still lingered in every sonar ping and radar contact.

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Happy Birthday!

On April 11, 1900, the United States Navy quietly acquired a strange, torpedo-shaped vessel that would alter the nature of sea power for generations to come. It was not a battleship or a cruiser. It had no tall masts or broad decks. It did not fly into battle under a banner of cannon smoke and gallant brass. But it changed everything. That vessel, the privately built Holland VI, would become USS Holland, the first modern submarine commissioned by the U.S. Navy. Her acquisition on that date is now honored as the official birthday of the United States Navy Submarine Force.

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