USS Pickerel (SS-177) - Seal Beach, CA - World War II Memorials / Monuments on Waymarking.com

The advancement of the submarine is a long and proud chapter in the history of the U.S. Navy. Through the efforts of the California Center for Military History and U.S. Submarine Veterans, a large memorial recognizes the name and crew of each submarine lost in World War II. The "World War II National Submarine Memorial - West" is located just outside the gate to the Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach. Bronze plaques identify the officers and men that gave their lives during the war. The plaques surround a central display consisting of a torpedo, flag, and time capsule. Groundbreaking for the memorial took place on January 13, 1977.

(The following is from the Naval Historical Center's Web site; link appears below.)

USS Pickerel, a 1330-ton Perch class submarine built by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, Connecticut, was commissioned in January 1937. Following a shakedown cruise to the south Atlantic, she went to the Pacific in November of that year. Subsequently operating along the West Coast and in Hawaiian waters, in the fall of 1939 Pickerel voyaged west to join the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines. She was based at Manila when war with Japan began in December 1941. Her first war patrol, off Camranh Bay on the Indochina coast, included several attacks, but no hits. Pickerel's next patrol, to southward in the direction of the East Indies, cost the enemy the Kanko Maru, a gunboat converted from a freighter. Operating near Timor in February and March, the submarine attempted an attack on a light cruiser, but the effort only produced a depth charge counterattack.

Pickerel was based in Australia for her fourth and fifth patrols, during April-August 1942. Neither generated any notable damage to the Japanese. After receiving an overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, she was based at Pearl Harbor. Pickerel's sixth World War II cruise, to the waters off northern Japan from late January to early March 1943, took a small freighter out of the enemy merchant fleet. Later in March she returned to that area for her seventh war patrol and, during the first week of April, appears from Japanese records to have sunk a submarine chaser and another small freighter. USS Pickerel was not heard from after that, and may have been the victim of enemy antisubmarine forces, though nothing certain is known about her fate. More than seventy officers and crewmen were lost with her.

Property Permission: Public Access instructions: Park in the lot just off the main entrance to the Naval Weapons Station Access times: From: 12:00 AM To: 11:59 PM Website for Waymark: [Web Link] Location of waymark: 800 Seal Beach Boulevard Seal Beach, CA USA 90740 Commemoration: USS Pickerel Date of Dedication: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   04/18/2010 senoritafish visited it