The Balao-class submarine USS Batfish (SS/AGSS-310), is a famed “sub-buster,” credited with sinking no less than three Imperial Japanese Navy submarines– RO 55, RO 112, and RO 113— in only four days while on a single war patrol. The secret was radar warning receivers picking up on Japanese emissions– the classic trace buster-buster, so to speak.
Navy photographers were waiting for her return to port to record the mighty Batfish’s sixth war patrol.
USS Batfish (SS 310). Battle flags fly from the boat’s superstructure as she heads for her base at the end of a war patrol, in May 1945. Note radars, periscope, and battle flag at the top of the scope. 80-G-468626
Batfish was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and earned six battle stars for her World War II service.
She claimed 14 ships sunk (7 warships and 7 merchantmen) and three others damaged during her seven war patrols. Over a period of four days in February 1945, she sank three Japanese submarines. For this feat, the “sub killer” was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. Her other WW II exploits included blasting a grounded destroyer, bombarding a Japanese village, and rescuing downed aviators.
Postwar, she was never Guppy’fied like most of her sisters, and instead largely kept her WWII layout, continuing to serve in USNRF training operations in the Caribbean and along the Gulf and East Coast until 1960 when she was laid up in Orange Texas.
Beating the scrappers, the Navy agreed to allow her to be epically towed up the Arkansas River system in 1972 for installation at Muskogee, Oklahoma for use as a museum.
Since then, she has been largely safe and sound on dry ground (except for a historic 2019 flood that left her afloat for the first time in 47 years), and it looked like she would endure as the last preserved Balao save for the USS Drum, which is likewise ashore in Mobile.
However, that may not be the case.
As reported by local news in Muskogee, the boat may be homeless at the end of the month:
The Muskogee Memorial Park, popular for its World War II submarine the USS Batfish, is being forced to move.
“To have a museum like this is just a reminder to the rest of the population what history is,” said James Erb, the museum’s curator.
For the last 50 years. the park has leased its property from the Port of Muskogee.
This year, the port didn’t renew their lease and is asking them to move. This has lead to rumors of the Batfish being scrapped. Erb says that isn’t true.
The park plans on moving everything to Three Forks Harbor.
“The land is confirmed, we just have to make financial arrangements to do it,” said Erb.
More here.