Aboard was a crew of sixty made up of six officers and some fifty-four enlisted personnel. Onboard provisions allowed the vessel and its occupants to remain at sea for up to 75 days and submerged for up to 48 hours (at a pedestrian speed of 2 knots however). In this period of submarine history, the electric-driven portion of the powerplant arrangement forced the boat to surface to recharge its battery packs and exhaust dangerous CO2 gasses.
Installed armament was the standard Gato-class arrangement of ten total torpedo tubes, six bow-facing and four stern-facing. Twenty-four total torpedo reloads were carried into battle. For surface work, the boat was equipped with the usual USN warship arrangement involving a deck gun and several Bofors and Oerlikon autocannons. For USS Ray, this encompassed 1 x 3" (76mm) /50 caliber deck gun as well as 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikon installations - all on trainable mountings. USS Ray carried a Torpedo Data Computer (TDC), first the Mk III series and then the Mk IV in 1943, to assist in targeting and attacking and, when radar fits became common to the Gato-class, USS Ray integrated this system with the new technology to broaden her tactical value.
USS Ray's first war patrol took place between November and December of 1943 where she operated in the Bismarck Archipelago. Her second outing was from December 1943 until January of the following year and the third took place from February to March 1944. War patrols four, five and six took up all of the rest of 1944 to which she ended her voyaging with entry into Pearl Harbor.
During war patrol number six, USS Ray attacked enemy freighters as usual but was herself attacked by enemy patrol planes and depth charges. Flooding from an unsecured hatch was controlled but damage sent the boat to Mios Woendi before the end of October. More enemy targets fell to Ray's torpedoes (the enemy cruiser Kumano was damaged by her) and helped in support of amphibious operations as well as many pilot rescues (22).
From there, the boat journeyed stateside (Mare Island Naval Shipyard) to undergo a much-needed refit and refurbishment. She was back in action from April to June of 1945 in Pacific Waters, which covered her seventh war patrol, and ended her career with war patrol number eight which spanned from July until the end of the Pacific War in August of 1945. She returned to New London, Connecticut on October 5th of that year. With the war over USS Ray was used as a crew training platform before being decommissioned for the first time on February 2th, 1947.
For her service in the Second World War, USS Ray was awarded seven Battle Stars and a US Navy Unit Citation to cover her exploits in war patrol number six. In addition to this, the boat was awarded the Philippine Republic Presidential Unit Citation.
With the growing threat posed by Soviet bombers against the American carrier fleet, the USN reinstated USS Ray for service as a radar picket submarine. Her hull was lengthened by 24 feet to take on the new equipment and she lost her aft-facing torpedo tubes to make more room for sleeping areas. Her sail was lengthened and enlarged to accommodate all-new systems including the BPS-2 search radar, the AN-BPS-3 height radar and the AN/URN-3 TACAM beacon. The conversion took place at the Philadelphia Naval Yard and this work resulted in the boat being given the new hull classification of "SSR-271" back in January of 1951. She was commissioned for a second time on August 13th, 1952 and this led to an initial period of crew training and official deployments across the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters with the USN and under the NATO banner. In the radar picket role, the submarine was used as a first-line of defense in searching and tracking for potential airborne dangers to the American battlegroup headed by its powerful aircraft carriers. This role was eventually overtaken by fixed-wing Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft launched from carrier decks themselves.
In June of 1958 she was removed from service and placed out of commission. Her name was struck from the Naval Register on April 1st, 1960 and her hull stripped of its military value. The boat was then sold off for scrapping in December of that year.
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Operators
Global operator(s) of the USS Ray (SS-271). Nations are displayed by flag, each linked to their respective national naval warfare listing.
[ Untied States (retired) ]