USS STURGEON (SSN 637)

USS Sturgeon (1911 - 1912) SS-25
 

USS E-2, a 287-ton E-1 class coastal submarine built at Quincy, Massachusetts, was commissioned in February 1912. While under construction she was called Sturgeon, but was renamed in November 1911. Employed on experimental and training duties during her early service, E-2 operated in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in January-April 1914, and in Florida waters in February-May 1915. Following a hydrogen explosion in January 1916 that killed four men and injured others, she was decommissioned and used for battery tests. E-2 returned to active service in March 1918 and conducted anti-U-Boat patrols off the U.S. East Coast during the rest of World War I. Again used for training after the conflict's end, the submarine was decommissioned in October 1921 and sold in April 1922.

USS Sturgeon (1938 - 1948) SS-187
 

USS Sturgeon, a 1449-ton Salmon class submarine built at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, was commissioned in June 1938. She made a shakedown cruise to South America in October-December 1938, then operated along the West Coast and in Hawaiian waters until November 1941. Sturgeon then went to the Philippines, arriving a few weeks before Japanese attacks opened the Pacific War on 8 December 1941 (local time). Immediately afterwards, she began a war patrol off Formosa, during which she endured the first of many depth chargings by enemy escort ships. A second patrol, off Borneo, followed in late December and lasted through February, ending at Fremantle, Australia. As on her first combat cruise Sturgeon attacked Japanese ships, and probably inflicted damage.

On her third patrol, also off Borneo, Sturgeon sank her first ships, a freighter and an escort. She got a transport during her next cruise, off Luzon at the beginning of July 1942 and an aircraft ferry in the Solomon Islands on her fifth war patrol early in October. In early 1943, after her sixth patrol, she returned to the U.S. for overhaul.

Operating out of Pearl Harbor following the completion of this work, Sturgeon's seventh and eighth war patrols produced no sinkings, but her ninth, in Japanese home waters from December 1943 to February 1944, cost the enemy two freighters. Another was sunk in May and two more in June and July, during her tenth and eleventh patrols. Upon her return to Pearl Harbor in August 1944, Sturgeon went to the West Coast for another overhaul and was then retired to training service. Based at New London, Connecticut, she spent the first ten months of 1945 performing this duty. USS Sturgeon was decommissioned in mid-November 1945 and sold for scrapping in June 1948.

USS Sturgeon (1967 - 1994) SSN-637

USS STURGEON was the first ship in the STURGEON - class of nuclear powered attack submarines. Named after the large, bony-plated fish with an elongated body which is found in both fresh and salt water, especially in the North Temperate Zone, and which is an important source of caviar and isinglass, the USS STURGEON was the third ship in the Navy to bear the name.

After more than 27 years of service, the STURGEON was both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on August 1, 1994. The submarine subsequently entered the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA. Recycling of the USS STURGEON was completed on December 11, 1995.

Keel Layed:  10 August 1963
Christening Date:  26 February 1966
Commissioning Date:  3 March 1967
Decommissioned Date:  1 August 1994

USS STURGEON PHOTOGRAPHS

USS STURGEON (SSN 637)

USS STURGEON (SSN 637)

USS STURGEON (SSN 637)

USS STURGEON (SSN 637)