Qualla: USS Sailfish (SSR-572)

USS Sailfish (SSR-572): Introduction

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The deep-fat fryer nearly killed her. Over Thanksgiving weekend in 1961, a grease fire aboard USS Sailfish at a Rhode Island pier burned through nearly every cable in the after battery compartment, threatening to sideline the submarine for months. Instead, her entire crew worked around the clock for five straight days, rewiring the compartment by hand, and Sailfish got underway just six days after the fire to complete her assigned exercise. It was the kind of stubborn, improvised survival that defined the ship's entire career -- a submarine built for a mission the Navy abandoned, repeatedly refitted for new roles, and kept in service long after her original purpose had vanished.

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Image: Public domain

USS Sailfish (SSR-572): Built Obsolete

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Sailfish was laid down on December 8, 1953, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine -- the first submarine built expressly for radar picket duty. The concept was straightforward: station a large submarine with powerful search radar well ahead of a carrier battle group,...

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Image: Public domain

USS Sailfish (SSR-572): Three Oceans, Two Decades

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Stripped of her original purpose, Sailfish adapted. She spent her first years with the Atlantic Fleet -- shakedown cruises in the Caribbean, deployments with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, NATO exercises off New England. After the 1961 reclassification, she entered the Phi...

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Image: Public domain

USS Sailfish (SSR-572): The Sale That Never Was

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Sailfish was decommissioned on September 29, 1978, and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the following day. What should have been a routine disposal became an unlikely geopolitical footnote. The submarine was earmarked for sale to Bolivia -- a landlocked country with a smal...

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Image: Public domain

USS Sailfish (SSR-572): 1,451 Fathoms

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. In May 2007, the Navy decided how Sailfish would end. She was towed out into the Pacific, 121.2 nautical miles off the coast of Washington, for a SINKEX -- a fleet training exercise in which decommissioned ships serve as live-fire targets. A Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo, fired from a su...

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Image: Public domain