A close friend of my mother’s family was lost with USS Harder off Luzon 8/24/44. For most of my life that’s been the date my thoughts turn to all lost submariners.
Thank you for posting this. They deserve to be remembered for their sacrifice.
If you can find the book about the lost boats, it was a privately printed issue without an ISBN number. I have a copy that I bought on the island years ago.
My own particular project is Tang.
The Gatos and Balaos were built in commercial yards and government yards. One way to tell them apart are the drain ports. Commercial yards had a D shape and Navy yards an oval shape.
Wahoo was built at Electric Boat, a commercial yard. Tang was built at MI. All the Gato models I’ve ever seen have the D shape drains, so building a Navy yard sub requires a pretty fundamental conversion.
The father of a friend of mine was on Cisco SS-290 when she was lost. Do you experts have any specific information about cisco’s appearance?
Thanks,
Rick
Balao class boat, lost on her first patrol in Sept '43. According to records she left Australia on the 20th, bombed by a Kate, and depthcharged by a captured patrol boat on the 28th off Luzon. The Japanese must have caught her on the surface almost as soon as she arrived in the patrol area.
Google USS Cisco, wiki info and navsourse. There are a few pics of her there. She was in trials in June, so her appearance would most likely be as seen then, as she was lost 3 months later.
The major appearance difference was the 'scope shears were different than the preceding Gato’s. Pressure hull thickness was a little more than the Gato’s, giving them the ability to dive deeper, by a hundred feet in test depth. Hull dimensions would be the same, so you could build her with a Gato kit, and I think you can get the fairwater and shears from Shapeways, along with her deck armament. Deck guns listed as a 4"/50 cal, 40mm and a pair of.50’s. The 4" was mounted on the forward deck. Looks like the 40 was in front of the bridge. The.50’s would most likely be on pintle mounts and movable around the fairwater, and stored below. A 1/144 model would be about 24 inches long. Big enough to do some nice detailing. I know the Shapeways 4"/50 and their 40’s are works of art in their own right
Thanks, I have those references too. I was wondering if anyone know of anything that might have distinguished Cisco from sisters in the Balao class.
Rick
If any of you guys are ever in the Los Angeles area and have a bit of spare time, stop by the West Coast Submarine Memorial at Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, which is open to the public. There is a main memorial with a Torpedo and a plaque listing all US subs lost, then arrayed around the main display are individual small pillars with plaques memorializing each sub and crewman lost.
The memorial is located off of Seal Beach Boulevard just under a mile north of Pacific Coast Highway.
She was built early in the class, and her fairwater reflects the changes over the first part of the war in reducing the visibility of a surfaced boat. As to differences from the design, I kind of doubt it as she never was able to get back for refit, normally done after 5-6 war patrols to overhaul equipment and install newer gear.