USS Croaker
1943 Gato-class submarine
USS Croaker (SS/SSK/AGSS/IXSS-246), a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the croaker, any of various fishes which make throbbing or drumming noises.
Construction and commissioning
Croaker′s keel was laid down on 1 April 1943 by Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 19 December 1943, sponsored by the wife of Admiral William H. P. Blandy, and commissioned on 21 April 1944, with Commander John E. Lee in command.
Service history
World War II
Croaker arrived at Pearl Harbor from New London on 26 June 1944, and on 19 July put to sea on her first war patrol, sailing to the East China and Yellow Seas. In a series of brilliantly successful attacks which won her the Navy Unit Commendation, she sank the cruiser Nagara on 7 August, an auxiliary minesweeper, Taito Maru, on 16 August, and two freighters, Daigen Maru No. 7 on 14 August and Yamateru Maru on 17 August. During this patrol, she served as lifeguard during air strikes on the Bonin Islands. She refitted at Midway Atoll from 31 August to 23 September, when she sailed in a coordinated attack group for the same area on her second war patrol. Again successful, she sank the freighters Shinki Maru on 9 October, and Hakuran Maru on 23 October. She shadowed a convoy on 23–24 October, sank the freighter Mikage Maru, and damaged Gassan Maru with her last torpedo.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2207722. Authority coordinates are 42.878, -78.882. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Croaker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.