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NavSource Online: Submarine Photo Archive

V-2 (SF-5)
Bass (SS-164)
Recommissioning - Scrapping


Radio Call Sign: November - India - Charlie - Romeo,
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Keel Laying - Decommissioning

Barracuda Class Submarine: Laid down, 20 October 1921, at Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, ME.; Launched, 27 December 1924; Commissioned USS V-2 (SF-5), 26 September 1925; Renamed Bass, 9 March 1931; Reclassified (SS-164), 1 July 1931; Decommissioned, 9 June 1937, at Philadelphia, Navy Yard, Philadelphia, PA.; Recommissioned, 5 September 1940, at Portsmuth, NH; Decommissioned, 3 March 1945, at Submarine Base, New London, CT.; Struck from the Naval Register, 10 March 1945; Final Disposition, sunk as a target, 12 March 1945, southeast of Block Island in 155' of water.

Specifications: Displacement, Surfaced: 2,000 t., Submerged: 2620 t.; Length 341' 6" ; Beam 27' 7"; Draft 14' 7"; Speed, surfaced 21 kts, Submerged 8 kts; Depth Limit 200'; Complement, 6 officers, 50 enlisted; Armament, six 21" torpedo tubes, four forward, two aft, 12 torpedoes; one 5"/51 deck gun; Propulsion, Busch-Sulzer Diesel Engine Co., diesel engines, hp 4100; Fuel Capacity, 90,935 gal., Elliot Motor Co., electric motors, hp 2400, Battery Cells 120, twin propellers.
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SS 164 32k Commemorative postal cover marking Bass's (SS-164) recommissioning, 5 September 1940, at Portsmouth, NH.
 Courtesy of Jack Treutle.
SS 164 20k Commemorative postal cover & photo inset marking first day postal service on Bass's (SS-164) recommissioning, 1 October 1940, at Portsmouth, NH.
 Courtesy of Jack Treutle.
SS 164 175k On 17 August 1942 while at sea, a fire broke out in the Bass's (SS-164) after battery room and quickly spread to the after torpedo room and starboard main motor, resulting in the death of 26 enlisted men by asphyxiation. This is a commemorative photo honoring their memory.Photo courtesy of Tom Kermen. Text courtesy of DANFS. Dante's Prayer courtesy of Loreena McKennitt via quinlanroad.com.
SS 164 50k Bass (SS-164) is shown here, newly converted to a cargo submarine, off the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 30 March 1943. Conversion was relatively simple because she had a pair of battery-charging engines in addition to the main engines that drove her propellers directly.
The battery chargers could drive her electrically (by being connected to her motors), with the main engines disconnected. Thus the main engines could be easily removed to leave space for cargo.
Similar flexibility made it relitively easy to remove one or two engines from a much later generation of diesel-electric Gato-class or Balao-class submarines after WW II. Foreign navies, whose submarines were generally directly driven by their diesels, enjoyed no such flexibility. 		Photo & text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press.
SS 164 31k Bass (SS-164) is shown as built (top) and as stripped for sinking (bottom) after having served unsuccessfully as a cargo submarine. The big compartments fore & aft of the control room (below the conning tower) were the forward & after engine rooms, respectively; the former accommodated the battery-charging engine.
Compartments abaft the main engine room were, forward to aft:the maneuvering room above the motor room, crew's quarters above the aft battery, crew's mess, the after torpedo room & the steering gear room.
Additional crewmen were accommodated in the small upper deck compartment above the forward engine room. Forward of it were officer's quarters above the forward battery & then the forward torpedo room.
As in the earlier submarines, the conning tower was a vertical cylinder. Conversion to a cargo carrier entailed removal of the main engines, so that the after engine room could be used for cargo. The forward & after torpedo rooms were used also for cargo storage. 		Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press.
Tolling The Boats 669k Active duty and veteran submariners stand together at the 29th annual "Tolling The Boats" Memorial Service held at the World War II National Submarine Memorial-West, Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, Calif. May 29, 2006. The ceremony honored members of the Silent Service who gave their lives during World War II and the Cold War for their country and the cause of freedom. U.S. Navy photo N-1159B-052 by Journalist 1st Class Brian Brannon, courtesy of navy.news.mil.
View the V-2 / Bass (SS-164)
DANFS history entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site.
Crew Contact And Reunion Information
U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation
Fleet Reserve Association
Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
Through the Looking Glass, A Historic Look at Submarines.
oneternalpatrol.com
BattleBelow.com. Barracuda Class
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