Sargo

About Sargo

See: Grunts

USS Sargo (SS-188), the lead ship of her class of submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sargo fish. Construction and commissioning Sargo′s keel was laid on 12 May 1937 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 6 June 1938, sponsored by Mrs. Catherine V. Nimitz, the wife of Captain (later Fleet Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz, and commissioned on 7 February 1939. Sargo batteries The Sargo was the first vessel equipped with a new lead-acid battery designed by the Bureau of Steam Engineering (BuEng) to resist battle damage, based on a suggestion by her commissioning commanding officer, Lieutenant E. E. Yeomans. It quickly became known as the “Sargo battery”. Instead of a single hard rubber case, it had two concentric hard rubber cases with a layer of soft rubber between them. This was to prevent sulfuric acid leakage in the event one case cracked during depth-charging. Leaking sulfuric acid would be capable of corroding steel, burning the skin of crew members it came into contact with, and if mixed with any seawater in the bilges it would generate poisonous chlorine gas. This remained the standard battery design…

USS Sargo (SS-188), the lead ship of her class of submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sargo fish. Construction and commissioning Sargo′s keel was laid on 12 May 1937 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 6 June 1938, sponsored by Mrs. Catherine V. Nimitz, the wife of Captain (later Fleet Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz, and commissioned on 7 February 1939. Sargo batteries The Sargo was the first vessel equipped with a new lead-acid battery designed by the Bureau of Steam Engineering (BuEng) to resist battle damage, based on a suggestion by her commissioning commanding officer, Lieutenant E. E. Yeomans. It quickly became known as the “Sargo battery”. Instead of a single hard rubber case, it had two concentric hard rubber cases with a layer of soft rubber between them. This was to prevent sulfuric acid leakage in the event one case cracked during depth-charging. Leaking sulfuric acid would be capable of corroding steel, burning the skin of crew members it came into contact with, and if mixed with any seawater in the bilges it would generate poisonous chlorine gas. This remained the standard battery design…