USS Marlin (SST-2)

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Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	1 May 1952
Launched:	14 October 1953
Commissioned:	20 November 1953
Fate:	memorial
Stricken:	31 January 1973
General Characteristics
Displacement:	303 tons surfaced, 347 tons submerged
Length:	131 feet 3 inches
Beam:	13 feet 7 inches
Draft:	12 feet 2 inches
Speed:	10 knots surfaced, 10.5 knots submerged
Complement:	two officers and 16 men
Armament:	two torpedo tubes

USS Marlin (SST-2), a T-1-class submarine, was the second submarine of the United States Navy to be named for the marlin, a large game fish. She was originally known as T-2. Her keel was laid down on 1 May 1952 by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 14 October 1953 sponsored by Mrs. William R. DeLoach, and commissioned as T-2 on 20 November 1953 with Lieutenant Edward Holt in command.

After shakedown in the Massachusetts Bay area, T-2, one of the smallest operational submarines ever built for the Navy, got underway from New London, Connecticut, in late January 1954 for her home port of Key West, Florida. Assigned to Submarine Squadron 12, Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet, she immediately began operations in the sector from southern Florida to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. For a decade and a half she performed valuable service as a target and training ship and has helped to evaluate submarine and antisubmarine equipment and tactics.

In addition to target and training duty for the Fleet Sonar School at Key West, the submarine has participated in various fleet operations. In 1965, from 7 March to 4 April, T-2 joined her sister ship, T-1 (now Mackerel), Amberjack (SS-522), Batfish (SS-310), and Chivo (SS-341), along with a task force under Commander, Mine Force, in participating in mine warfare maneuvers. Renamed Marlin on 15 May 1956, the submarine deployed to Guantanamo Bay for services to the Fleet Training Group in January 1956, July and August 1958, March 1960, and December 1961. In March 1963 Marlin participated in the NSIA demonstration.

From 1963 she performed mainly target duty for both surface and air antisubmarine units out of Key West.

Marlin and her sister Mackerel (SST-1) were decommissioned on 31 January 1973, in a dual ceremony at the Naval Station, Key West, Florida; both were struck from the Naval Vessel Register on the same day. Marlin was put on display as a memorial submarine in Freedom Park at the Greater Omaha Marina at 2000 North 25th Street, in Omaha, Nebraska.

See USS Marlin for other ships of the same name.

References

This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.