USS Remora (SS-487)

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	5 March 1945
Launched:	12 July 1945
Commissioned:	3 January 1946
Decommissioned:	29 October 1973
Fate:	sold to Greece
Stricken:
General characteristics
Displacement:	1570 tons surfaced, 2414 tons submerged
Length:	311 feet 8 inches
Beam:	27 feet 3 inches
Draft:	16 feet 5 inches
Propulsion:
Speed:	20 knots (37 km/h) surfaced, 9 knots (17 km/h) submerged
Range:
Complement:	76 officer and men
Armament:	one five-inch (127 mm) gun, ten 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Motto:

USS Remora (SS-487), a Tench-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the remora, a fish with a suctorial disk on its head enabling it to cling to other fish and to ships. Her keel was laid down on 5 March 1945 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was launched on 12 July 1945 sponsored by Mrs. T. W. Samuels, III, and commissioned on 3 January 1946 with Commander Robert Sellars in command.

Completing her Caribbean Sea shakedown in April 1946, Remora operated out of New London, Connecticut, as a training submarine until January of 1947. Then transferred to the Pacific, she transited the Panama Canal at midmonth and arrived at Mare Island, Vallejo, California, on 14 February to begin a Greater Underwater Propulsive Power Program (GUPPY) conversion. Early in November, she completed trials and on 22 February arrived at San Diego, California, her new homeport.

For the next two years, she remained in the eastern Pacific operating primarily off California, but during the summer and early fall of 1948, ranged as far north as the Aleutian Islands. On 1 May 1950 she headed west for her first deployment in the Far East. On 8 June she arrived at Sasebo, and on 11 June she shifted to Yokosuka, from which base she conducted ASW training exercises with units of Naval Forces Far East. Two weeks later the Korean War began.

A unit of TF 96, Naval Forces Japan Remora patrolled Soya Strait, between Hokkaidō and Sakhalin in late July and early August. Later in the month, she headed back to San Diego. During the next two years she underwent overhaul, provided services for the Line School at Monterey, California, and conducted local training exercises. She returned to the western Pacific in early 1953. Arriving at Buckner Bay on 15 March, she continued on to Japan in April and at midmonth rejoined TF 96. In June she was back in Okinawan waters for patrols and exercises, after which she returned to Yokosuka. On 2 July she headed east, reaching San Diego on 3 August.

After the fighting in Korea ended, Remora remained based at San Diego and through the decade continued to alternate training exercises and patrols in the western Pacific with similar First Fleet operations off the west coast and in Hawaiian waters. She remained in the eastern Pacific during 1956 and 1958, but, during the spring of the latter year, was engaged in extended exercises off Alaska.

In November 1961, Remora was transferred from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. The following year she underwent a seven-month Greater Underwater Propulsive Power Program (GUPPY) conversion which lengthened her hull by 15 feet (5 m) and her conning tower by five feet. Then, in 1963, she was employed to evaluate antisubmarine sonar in Hawaiian waters. In May of 1964, she resumed a schedule of annual six-month WestPac deployments which she continued into 1969. In August 1969, Remora shifted home ports, from Pearl Harbor to Charleston, South Carolina. With the exception of one Mediterranean Sea cruise, from 16 February to 26 June 1970, she continued to operate out of Charleston, along the Atlantic seaboard, in the Caribbean Sea, and in the Gulf of Mexico, until decommissioned 29 October 1973 at Charleston. On that date she was transferred to the Hellenic Navy and recommissioned as Katsonis (S-115).