USS Argonaut (SS-166) - San Diego, CA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 32° 44.151 W 117° 12.744
11S E 480099 N 3622023
The Memorial notes that over 100 men were lost when the Japanese sunk this submarine January 10, 1943.
Waymark Code: WMT1KR
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 09/09/2016
Views: 2
This Memorial is one of dozens at San Diego's Liberty Station Park.
The memorial has a photo of the vessel..a submarine and provides a history which Wikipedia (
visit link) echoes:
"USS Argonaut (V-4/SF-7/SM-1/A-1/APS-1/SS-166 (never formally held this classification)) was a submarine of the United States Navy, the first ship to carry the name. Argonaut was laid down as V-4 on 1 May 1925 at Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 10 November 1927, sponsored by Mrs. Philip Mason Sears, the daughter of Rear Admiral William D. MacDougall, and commissioned on 2 April 1928, Lieutenant Commander W.M. Quigley in command...
Sinking
Argonaut arrived back in Pearl Harbor on 26 August. Her hull classification symbol was changed from SM-1 to APS-1 (transport submarine) on 22 September. She was never formally designated SS-166, but that hull number was reserved for her and a photo shows she occasionally displayed it. Her base of operations was transferred to Brisbane, Queensland, later in the year. In December, she departed Brisbane under Lieutenant Commander John R. Pierce to patrol the hazardous area between New Britain and Bougainville Island, south of Bismarck Archipelago. On 2 January 1943, Argonaut sank the Japanese gunboat Ebon Maru in the Bismarck Sea. On 10 January, Argonaut spotted a convoy of five freighters and their escorting destroyers—Maikaze, Isokaze, and Hamakaze—returning to Rabaul from Lae. By chance, an army aircraft—which was out of bombs—was flying overhead and witnessed Argonaut's attack. A crewman on board the plane saw one destroyer hit by a torpedo, and the destroyers promptly counterattacking. Argonaut's bow suddenly broke the water at an unusual angle. It was apparent that a depth charge had severely damaged the submarine. The destroyers continued circling Argonaut, pumping shells into her; she slipped below the waves and was never heard from again. One hundred and two officers and men went down with her, the worst loss of life for an American submarine in wartime. Her name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 26 February.
The ship's bell of USS Argonaut - lost in combat in 1943 - still serves at the chapel of the Submarine base, Pearl Harbor
Japanese reports made available at the end of the war recorded a depth charge attack followed by gunfire, at which time they "destroyed the top of the sub".
On the basis of the report given by the Army flier who witnessed the attack in which Argonaut perished, she was credited with damaging a Japanese destroyer on her last patrol. (Postwar, the JANAC accounting gave her none.) Since none of the histories of the three escorting destroyers report damage on 10 January 1943, the destroyer "hit" may have been a premature explosion.
Before her crew left for their third war patrol, they donated Argonaut's bell. Nearly 20 months after her loss, a Submarine Memorial Chapel was built and dedicated on the Submarine Base in Pearl. The bell hanging in her steeple comes from Argonaut, and still rings today for services."