USS Silversides (SS-236) (Muskegon, Michigan)

 museum, military, submarine, historic landmark, United States Navy

Laid down on November 4th, 1940 as the 25th member of the Gato Class of Fleet Submarines at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, USS Silversides commissioned into service with the US Pacific Fleet on December 15th, 1941 and with war against Japan having been declared only five days prior, set to sea to begin her career against the Empire of Japan.

Arriving at Pearl Harbor in April 1942 after her shakedown cruise and crew training period, the Silversides departed on April 30th, 1942 on the first of what would become fourteen highly successful War Patrols against Japan’s Merchant Marine fleet. Operating throughout the Pacific Theatre from both American and Australian bases, the Silversides and her crew performed the typically unsung but absolutely vital service of destroying the maritime supply lines which kept the island Nation of Japan war industries functioning. Despite the very real dangers posed by Japanese Destroyers, Convoy Escort ships and anti-Submarine Aircraft, Silversides and her crew emerged victorious from several close-quarter engagements with enemy forces and survived several long-duration depth charge attacks which while testing the nerves of her crew and damaging the boat herself, did not sink her. As the war in the Pacific wore on into 1945, Silversides and her crew began to find less and less targets during their war patrols, as she and her sister Submarines had so completely decimated the Japanese Merchant Marine that the few vessels that were available to put to sea rarely had enough fuel supplies to do so. Ending her role in the Second World War on lifeguard duty off Honshū as Carrier Aircraft carried out strikes on Japan itself, the Silversides terminated her fourteenth and final War Patrol on July 30th, 1945 at Guam, where she was tied alongside a berth at Apra Harbor when word came of the Japanese Surrender. Owing to the tenacity of both ship and crew, Silversides was credited with received twelve battle stars for her World War II service, the Presidential Unit Citation and is credited with sinking 23 Japanese ships for 90,080 tons. These wartime totals put her in third place for total tonnage sunk during the war, behind only the USS Tang and USS Tautog.

Remaining in the waters around Guam until September 1945, the Silversides departed the Western Pacific and shaped a course for the Panama Canal, which she crossed into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time on September 15th before continuing onward to New York City where she and her crew took part in Navy Day Celebrations. Continuing onward to New London, CT the Silversides operated briefly with the US Atlantic Fleet as a training platform before she decommissioned into reserve on April 17th, 1946, formally ending her wartime career at four years, four months and two days. Remaining idle at New London for slightly over a year, the Silversides was selected for reactivation in October 1947 and promptly sailed for the Great Lakes, where she took up her new role as a Naval Reservist Training Ship out of Naval Station Chicago. Based out of the Navy Pier for the next twenty years, the Silversides performed her training duty as both a mobile asset and a static training aid until rapidly advancing Cold War Submarine Technology caught up with her, rendering the Veteran Submarine’s propulsion and operating systems obsolete. Formally deactivated and stricken from the Naval Register on June 30th, 1969, ending her 28-year Naval career. Over this time, the Silversides and her crews
Immediately purchased by the City of Chicago for use as a museum ship, the Silversides began a new career as a living museum piece and was gradually restored to her World War Two appearance and operational capability by a crew of dedicated volunteers through the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Unfortunately for the Sub and her new crew, serious difficulties between her board and those performing her restoration work began to sour relations between the Submarine and the City of Chicago, leading to the decision to relocate the Silversides to a new berth in Muskegon in 1987. Now forming the centerpiece if the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum, the Silversides has seen considerable effort directed towards her internal and external restoration and preservation and now regularly hosts tours, encampments and reunions. Efforts are presently underway to raise funds to drydock the Submarine for long-overdue hull maintenance and painting, allowing her to remain afloat and sound for as long as 25 more years.

www.navsource.org/archives/08/08236a.htm