USS S-38 (SS-143)

USS S-38 (SS-143) was a United States Navy S-class submarine commissioned in the early 1920s that served through the interwar period and fought in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Built for coastal and fleet operations, she operated from bases across the Pacific, conducting patrols, reconnaissance, and offensive war patrols against Imperial Japanese Navy forces. Her service spanned peacetime exercises, early-war survival and combat, and eventual decommissioning and disposal.

Construction and Commissioning

Keel laid down during the closing months of World War I at the Mare Island Navy Yard or a Providence-area yard, S-38 was one of the later boats of the S-class submarine program designed for extended coastal and fleet support. She was launched amid the postwar naval drawdown and fitted out with diesel–electric propulsion, battery (electricity) systems, and four 21-inch torpedo tubes consistent with Submarine warfare design trends of the era. Commissioned into the United States Navy in 1923, her builders and sponsors followed the Naval Act of 1916 era procurement patterns that produced the S-class to replace aging H-class submarine and L-class submarine boats.

Interwar Service

During the 1920s and 1930s S-38 operated with the United States Pacific Fleet, participating in fleet problems, training cruises, and showing the flag at Pearl Harbor, Cavite Navy Yard, and ports throughout the Philippine Islands and California. She took part in tactical exercises involving the Battle Fleet and fleet problem maneuvers that included interactions with carriers such as USS Langley (CV-1) and battleships like USS Arizona (BB-39). Crews trained in antisubmarine warfare countermeasures, submarine rescue techniques, and long-range navigation between Guam and Shanghai. During peacetime modernization cycles she received habitability and sensor upgrades aligning with interwar submarine doctrine influenced by officers involved in the Naval War College and observers of London Naval Treaty constraints.

World War II Pacific Campaigns

At the outbreak of hostilities following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, S-38 was deployed to the western Pacific, operating from bases including Cavite Navy Yard and Surigao Strait staging areas. She conducted war patrols in the South China Sea, Java Sea, and approaches to the Philippine Islands, engaging enemy shipping and conducting reconnaissance in coordination with other submarines such as boats of Submarine Division 14 and Task Force 42. Missions included night surface attacks against convoys, shadowing movements of Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers and merchantmen, and special missions supporting forces tied to the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42) and subsequent Netherlands East Indies campaign. S-38’s patrols encountered anti-submarine escorts employing depth charge tactics learned from prewar trials, and she survived intense counterattacks that damaged contemporaries like USS Perch (SS-176) and USS Sculpin (SS-191).

As the war progressed, S-38 shifted roles to lifeguard duty during air raids on Japanese-held islands, to supply runs to besieged garrisons, and to training duties for newer submariners based at Cavite, Pearl Harbor, and later Bremerton Navy Yard. Her wartime record reflects the precarious early-war environment for outdated S-class boats facing improved sonar and aircraft patrols, yet she contributed to interdiction of shipping, rescue of downed airmen, and the accumulation of experience that informed fleet submarine tactics matured by boats like USS Tang (SS-306) and Gato-class submarine contemporaries.

Command and Crew

Throughout her career S-38 was commanded by a succession of officers drawn from United States Naval Academy graduates and submarine warfare specialists who advanced through billets influenced by doctrine from Submariners School (New London) and the Office of Naval Operations. Her complement included enlisted petty officers trained in torpedoman and machinist ratings, radio operators versed in Naval Communications procedures, and officers responsible for navigation, engineering, and weapons. Crew members rotated through shore duty at installations such as Naval Station Pearl Harbor and Submarine Base New London. Notable figures who served aboard or in her command lineage later held commands in wartime operations, contributing to postwar analyses compiled by the Submarine Officers’ Association and surviving veterans who participated in reunions and oral histories.

Loss and Fate

S-38 survived World War II but, as an obsolete S-class boat amid postwar reductions signaled by the Morgenthau Plan-era demobilization and the Yalta Conference-shaped order of battle, she was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Vessel Register in 1945. Rather than being preserved as a museum ship like USS Nautilus (SSN-571) or USS Constitution, she was sold for scrap and disposed of in accordance with postwar disposal practices that affected many aging World War II-era submarines. Her hull and components were dismantled, with former crew and associated veterans documenting her service in memoirs, reunions, and archives maintained by organizations including the Naval History and Heritage Command and submarine veteran groups. Category:United States S-class submarines