Class: Gato Submarine
Launched: August 26, 1941
At: Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California
Commissioned: December 15, 1941
Length: 311 feet, 8 inches
Beam: 27 feet, 3 inches
Draft: 17 feet
Displacement: 1,526 tons
Armament: Ten 21-inch torpedo tubes, one 4-inch/50 caliber gun, one 40mm gun, one 20mm gun
Address:
Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum
1346 Bluff Street
Muskegon, Michigan 49441
(231) 755-1230
Fax: (231) 755-5883
Email: contactus@silversides.org
http://www.silversidesmuseum.org/
Latitude: 43.2301242538, Longitude: -86.33276
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USS Silversides was commissioned into the U.S. Navy eight days after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. During World War II, the submarine served in the Pacific Fleet along Japan’s coasts, in the East China Sea, and through key enemy shipping routes around the Marianas, Carolines, Bismarck Archipelago, and along the Solomons to Guadalcanal. Its mission was to stop raw materials and supplies — oil, bauxite, rubber, coal, food, and iron ore — from reaching Japan. Silversides completed 14 war patrols and sank 23 ships, the third highest total of enemy ships sunk by a U.S. submarine during the war.
After the war, Silversides served as a reserve training boat near Chicago. Decommissioned in 1969, the vessel was saved from scrapping by the Great Lakes Navy Association in 1972. Virtually unmodified since her last refitting at Pearl Harbor in 1945, Silversides is on display in Pere Marquette Park along the Muskegon Lake Channel. Silversides conducts youth group overnight encampments.
USS Silversides is a National Historic Landmark.
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