The USS Pampanito
World War II Fleet Submarine

You are looking at one lethal machine.

This is a World War II vintage photo of the USS Pampanito. Today it is docked at Pier 45 in San Francisco. During WWII this sub sank 6 Japanese warships and damaged 4 others on six patrols. It also rescued 73 Allied POWs.

The sub is 311 feet 9 inches long and 27 feet 3 inches across. It carried 24 torpedos and could shoot them from the front or rear. It also had three deck guns for surface fighting including two large anti-aircraft guns.

This is pretty funny. This is the Pampanito's battle flag emblem. A pampanito is a fish so these guys have a fish wearing a sailor hat while gripping a torpedo under each side fin. The Japanese flag on the sunken ship is also visible.

This is aft, or rear torpedo room of the sub. Danny has his back to two torpedos and is facing two more. The torpedos have a bright yellow nose. That is where the explosive was. The rest of the torpedo was an air flask and an engine. The shiny little round door is the door to one of the four torpedo tubes. These torpedos could make one hell of a hole in the side of a ship. The Pampanito was almost hit by enemy torpedos off the coast of Japan on her second patrol.

This is on the deck of the sub. You can see the larger of the two anti-aircraft guns near the top of the picture. The round door on the lower right of the picture was the door to an ammunition stash. If the sub had to engage in surface fighting, she would surface very quickly, the gunners and crew would race onto the deck and pop the ammo doors, load the deck guns, and start blasting away.

They wouldn't let Danny test the guns. Bummer.