Подводная лодка «Тритон»: служба и гибель в годы Второй мировой войны.

Tambor class submarine in service 1940 1943

USS Triton (SS 201) was the fourth Tambor class submarine to be commissioned in the United States Navy in the years leading up to the country's December 1941 entry into World War II. Her wartime service was in the Pacific Ocean. She completed five patrols in the following 14 months, and is credited with the sinking of over 20,000 tons of Japanese shipping and warships. She was lost with all hands on or around March 15, 1943. Of the twelve Tambor class submarines, only five survived the war. Her keel was down on 5 July 1939 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 25 March 1940 sponsored by Mrs. Martha E. King, wife of Rear Admiral Ernest J. King, and commissioned on 15 August 1940 with Lieutenant Commander Willis A. "Pilly" Lent (Class of 1925) in command. She was the first submarine and third ship of the United States Navy to be named for Triton, a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the sea. The new submarine held her shakedown training in the Caribbean Sea from 14 January to 26 March 1941 and then conducted training and minelaying exercises in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire New London, Connecticut area. Triton departed Portsmouth on 1 July, transited the Panama Canal on 12 July, and arrived at San Diego, California, on 20 July. Nine days later, she and sister ship Trout headed for Hawaii and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 4 August 1941.

Assigned to Submarine Division 62, Triton made a training cruise to Midway from 30 August to 15 September, then participated in local and fleet operations in the Hawaiian area. On 19 November, the submarine headed west to conduct a practice war patrol and arrived off Wake Island on 26 November. On 8 December, she saw columns of smoke rising over the island but assumed it was caused by construction work being done ashore. That night, when she surfaced to charge her batteries, she was informed by radio Wake that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and was ordered to stay out of range of Wake's guns. The next morning, Triton observed the Japanese bombing the island. On the night of 10 December, she was surfaced, charging her batteries, when flashes of light from Wake revealed a destroyer or light cruiser on a parallel course. The submarine was silhouetted against the moon, and the enemy ship turned towards her. Triton went deep and began evasive action. When the Japanese ship slowed astern, the submarine came to 120 feet (37 m) and fired four stern torpedoes—the first American torpedoes shot during World War II—on sonar bearings. She heard a dull explosion 58 seconds later and believed one had hit the target, then went to 175 feet (53 m) and cleared the area. (No sinking was recorded, and she was not credited with one.) After their initial repulse on 11 December, the Japanese returned with two aircraft carriers, Hiryū and Sōryū; Triton was not informed, and made no attacks on them. Neither did she make any effort to evacuate the 350 Marines. She was off Kyūshū on 17 February when she contacted a freighter. The submarine launched four torpedoes and scored one hit in the stern. The target stopped for a few minutes and then slowly got underway. That evening, Triton attacked another freighter with two torpedoes at a range of One hit the Japanese cargo ship aft of her well deck, and the maru went dead in the water and began settling. Soon, several heavy explosions marked the end of Shinyo Maru Number 5. Four days later, the submarine intercepted two cargo ships. She sank Shokyu Maru with two torpedoes but could not attack the second ship because of its speed and the appearance of a four engine patrol plane. On the night of 27 February, the submarine was on the surface for a battery charge when she sighted a ship approximately three miles away. She closed to attack and launched two torpedoes. One torpedo hit, but haze over the water and smoke from the damaged ship prohibited a second attack. Triton made no further contacts and returned to Pearl Harbor on 17 March, where she was praised for an aggressive patrol, earning credit for two ships totalling 12,000 tons (reduced to 5,982 tons postwar), but criticized for excessive use of torpedoes, which were in extremely short supply.

Triton (now in the hands of C. C. Kirkpatrick, Class of 1931) got underway on 13 April to return to the East China Sea. Ten days later, the submarine contacted a 2,000 ton trawler near Marcus, astonishingly stopped and not blacked out. and at 15.20 spotted the crippled Shōkaku and a destroyer, returning from the Battle of the Coral Sea. At , with the target making , She sent a contact report, but it was not acknowledged. One day later, 17 May, in "one of the luckiest finds of the war", surfaced right in front of Triton; she fired her last bow torpedo from and parts of the target were blown 100 feet (30 m) into the air. I 64 (1,700 tons), the fourth Japanese sub sunk by the Pacific Fleet Sub Force, terminating at Pearl Harbor on 4 June, as the Battle of Midway began.