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Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	14 July 1941
Launched:	15 January 1942
Commissioned:	4 May 1942
Fate:	sunk by Japanese shore batteries
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1475 tons surfaced, 2370 tons submerged
Length:	311 feet 8 inches
Beam:	27 feet 4 inches
Draft:	15 feet 3 inches
Speed:	20.25 knots surfaced, 8.75 knots submerged
Depth:	300 feet
Complement:	six officers, 54 men
Armament:	one three-inch/50-caliber gun, six 21-inch torpedo tubes forward, four aft

USS Herring (SS-233), a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the herring, a type of small oily fish found in the temperate, shallow waters of the North Atlantic. Her keel was laid down 14 July 1941 by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was launched on 15 January 1942 sponsored by Mrs. Ray Spear, wife of Rear Admiral Ray Spear, Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, and commissioned on 4 May 1942 with Lieutenant Commander Raymond W. Johnson in command.

After shakedown, the new submarine was one of five sent to the Mediterranean Sea to take station off the North African coast prior to Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. Reaching her position off Casablanca on 5 November, Herring remained there spotting but not attacking several targets. On the morning of 8 November as the invasion was launched, the patient sub had her chance, sinking the 5700-ton cargo ship Ville du Havre. Herring returned to Roseneath, Scotland , on 25 November and departed for her second war patrol 16 December on which targets were scarce. On her third patrol Herring attacked and sank U-163 on 21 March 1943. The fourth war patrol, an antisubmarine sweep in Icelandic waters, and fifth patrol, which took her back to the United States on 26 July 1943, netted Herring no more kills.

Herring departed New London, Connecticut, for the rich hunting grounds of the Pacific on 9 August 1943. After intensive training at Pearl Harbor, she sailed 15 November 1943 on her sixth war patrol to join the ranks of the American submarines systematically decimating Japanese shipping and destroying the Japanese economy. She scored two kills, the 3948-ton Hakozaki Maru on 14 December and the 6072-ton Nagoya Maru to celebrate New Year's Day 1944. Herring's next patrol was a frustrating one as 24 March 1944 she stalked a large aircraft carrier but was detected and driven deep before she could attack.

Herring's eighth war patrol was to be both her most successful and her last. Topping off at Midway Island on 21 May 1944, Herring headed for the Kurile Islands patrol area. Ten days later she rendezvoused with Barb (SS-220), and was never heard from or seen again. However, Japanese records prove that she sank two ships, Ishigaki and Hokuyo Maru, on the night of 30 May-31 May. Herring's exact manner of loss can be determined from these records also. Two more merchant ships, Hiburi Maru and Iwaki Maru, were sunk while at anchor in Matsuwa Island on the morning of 1 June 1944. In a counter-attack, enemy shore batteries scored two direct hits on the submarine's conning tower and "bubbles covered an area about 5 meters wide, and heavy oil covered an area of approximately 15 miles." On her last patrol, Herring had sunk four Japanese ships for a total of 13,202 tons. In all she had sunk six marus totalling 19,959 tons, a Vichy cargo ship, and a German U-boat.

Herring received five battle stars for her service in World War II.

References