USS Albacore (SS-218) - San Diego, CA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 32° 44.212 W 117° 12.669
11S E 480216 N 3622136
This memorial records the names about 84 men who were lost when the sub hit a mine November 7, 1944.
Waymark Code: WMT2TJ
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 09/15/2016
Views: 1
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 Albacore (SS-218) was a Gato-class submarine which served in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II, winning the Presidential Unit Citation and nine battle stars for her service. During the war, she was credited with sinking 13 Japanese ships (including two destroyers, a light cruiser, and the aircraft carrier Taiho) and damaging another five; not all of these credits were confirmed by postwar JANAC accounting. She also holds the distinction of sinking the highest warship tonnage of any U.S. submarine. She was lost in 1944, probably sunk by a mine off northern Hokkaido on 7 November 1944.
Albacore was the second vessel of the United States Navy to be named for the albacore. Her keel was laid on 21 April 1941 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 17 February 1942 (sponsored by Mrs. Elwin F. Cutts, the wife of Captain Cutts), and commissioned on 1 June 1942, Lieutenant Commander Richard C. Lake (Class of 1929) in command...
Loss
Albacore left Pearl Harbor on 24 October 1944 (with Hugh Raynor Rimmer, Class of 1937,[13] in command), topped off her fuel tanks at Midway Island on 28 October, and was never heard from again. According to Japanese records captured after the war, a submarine (presumed to be Albacore) struck a naval mine very close to the shore off northeastern Hokkaido on 7 November 1944. A Japanese patrol boat witnessed the explosion of a submerged submarine and saw a great deal of heavy oil, cork, bedding, and food supplies rise to the surface. On 21 December, Albacore was presumed lost. Her name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 March 1945."