Thursday, October 31, 2013

USS Burrfish aka HMCS Grilse--A Two-Navy Warrior (Part 1)

I wrote a brief item here about HMCS Grilse, which in 1961 became the Royal Canadian Navy's first submarine in forty years, apart from a pair of surrendered German U-boats. As I described, she was in her first life an American boat. In fact she had an illustrious career, long before she flew the maple leaf.
United States Submarine Burrfish (SS-312), as she then was, was a "Portsmouth boat", built in the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Maine in 1943. A Balao class boat, she was externally virtually identical to the earlier Gato class, which no doubt stood her in good stead when pursued by antisubmarine forces of the Japanese navy. One of the major differences compared to her earlier sisters was a diving depth of 400 feet, as opposed to 300. Perhaps her survival was at least in part due to the extra, highly classified  depth she could attain when under attack, as the enemy depth charges would explode shallow enough that she could creep away, unharmed.
More about the Burrfish soon.

My second historical novel, set in a Cold War submarine, is in the publishing pipeline. It will surface in late summer, 2014.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Julie H. Ferguson said...

Bravo! Periscope surfaces in March 2014...

Robert Mackay said...

I intend to be in line for Julie H. Ferguson's book when it is once again available.

Post a Comment