Following shakedown in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea, Shark transited the Panama Canal and arrived at San Diego, California on 4 March 1937. She spent the next year and one-half in training exercises and Army-Navy war problems as a unit of Submarine Squadron 6 (SubRon6). Following a regular overhaul at Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, Shark got underway from San Diego on 16 December 1938 bound for Pearl Harbor and reassignment to SubRon 4.
Following two years of operations in the Hawaii area, Shark set sail from Pearl Harbor on 3 December 1940 to join the Asiatic Fleet based at Manila, where she engaged in fleet tactics and exercises until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Departing Manila on 9 December 1941, she was at sea during the Japanese bombing raids on Manila the next day. For the next week, Shark patrolled Tayabas Bay until ordered back to Manila on 19 December to embark AdmiralThomas C. Hart, Commander-in-Chief, Asiatic Fleet, for transportation to Soerabaja, Java.
On 6 January 1942, Shark was almost hit by a torpedo from an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine. A few days later, she was ordered to Ambon Island, where a Japanese invasion was expected. On 27 January, she was directed to join the submarines patrolling in Molucca Passage,[13] then to cover the passage east of Lifamatola and Bangka Strait. On 2 February 1942, Shark reported to her base at Soerabaja, Java, that she had been depth-charged10nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) off Tifore Island and had failed to sink a Japanese ship during a torpedo attack. On 7 February, she reported chasing an empty cargo ship headed northwest, for which the Asiatic Fleet submarine commander, CaptainJohn E. Wilkes, upbraided Shane.[14] No further messages were received from Shark. On 8 February, she was told to proceed to Makassar Strait and later was told to report information. Nothing was heard and, on 7 March 1942, Shark was reported as presumed lost, the victim of unknown causes.[15] She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 24 June 1942.
Shark may have been the first U.S. submarine sunk by enemy antisubmarine forces. Post-war, Japanese records showed numerous attacks on unidentified submarines in Shark's area at plausible times. At 01:37 on 11 February, for example, the Japanese destroyerYamakaze opened fire with her 5-inch (127 mm) guns and sank a surfaced submarine. Yamakaze′s crew heard voices in the water, but made no attempt to rescue possible survivors.
^ abcdefBauer, K. Jack; Roberts, Stephen S. (1991). Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775–1990: Major Combatants. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 268–269. ISBN0-313-26202-0.
^ abcdefghijU.S. Submarines Through 1945 pp. 305–311
^Alden, John D., Commander, USN (retired). The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979), p.210.
United States
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
