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Tautog was one of the newest “fleet-type” submarines in the navy when World War II started and the class formed the basis of all future submarine classes built during the war, a highly successful basic design. Following commissioning, Tautog operated in the Atlantic and Caribbean until transferred to Pearl Harbor, where she arrived on June 6, 1941. With war clouds on the horizon, the Pacific fleet submarines began 45 - day simulated war patrols that year. Tautog’s turn came with a patrol near Midway from October 21 to December 5, 1941. On December 7th, Tautog was at the Pearl Harbor submarine base when the Japanese attacked. Tautog 's gun crews went into action within minutes, sharing credit with submarine Narwhal and a destroyer for shooting down a torpedo plane. By December 26, Tautog was on her first war patrol, beginning what would be one of the most successful and longest careers of any American submarine under three excellent and aggressive commanders.
- 1st Patrol: Reconnaissance of the Marshall Islands, no ships sunk.
- 2nd Patrol: During April - May 1942, Tautog returns to the Marshalls and Truk, sinking two submarines and one cargo ship.
- 3rd Patrol: From July - September 1942 off Indochina, Tautog sinks one ship.
- 4th Patrol: Tautog conducts mining in October 1942 off Haiphong, sinks one ship.
- 5th Patrol: In the Java Sea to January 1943, Tautog sinks two ships.
- 6th Patrol: February - April 1943, Tautog patrols Makassar Strait, two ships sunk.
- 7th Patrol: Tautog patrols the Dutch East Indies in May 1943, sinking two ships.
- 8th Patrol: Back from refit, October 1943, Tautog patrols Palau, sinking one ship.
- 9th Patrol: In Japanese home waters in December 1943, Tautog sinks one ship.
- 10th Patrol: Patrolling off the Kuriles in March 1944, Tautog sinks four ships.
- 11th Patrol: Tautog returns to the Kuriles in May, sinking four ships again.
- 12th Patrol: Off eastern Japan in July of 1944, Tautog sinks three ships.
- 13th Patrol: January 1945, Tautog patrols the East China Sea, sinking two ships.
Following this 13th patrol, Tautog, worn and stressed from long service, was retired from combat and spent the rest of the war in training duties in the Atlantic. When the war ended, older submarines like Tautog were obsolete. The ship was decommissioned at Portsmouth, New Hampshire on December 8, 1945, four years and a day after her combat debut at Pearl Harbor. Post war accounting by the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee officially credited Tautog with the largest number of ships sunk by a single American submarine - 26. Post-war, Tautog was scheduled to be a target at the Bikini atomic tests in 1946, but became a stationary training ship at the Milwaukee Naval Reserve Center in 1947 instead. Stricken from the navy list on September 11, 1959, Tautog was sold for scrap on November 15, 1959. (DBoyer 2007)
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