USS Runner (SS-275)

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Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	8 December 1941
Launched:	30 May 1942
Commissioned:	30 July 1942
Fate:	sunk, probably by Japanese
Stricken:	30 October 1943
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1526 tons surfaced, 2410 tons submerged
Length:	311 feet 8 inches
Beam:	27 feet 4 inches
Draft:	15 feet 8 inches
Speed:	20.25 knots surfaced, 8.75 knots submerged
Complement:	60 officers and men
Armament:	ten 21-inch torpedo tubes, one three-inch gun, two .50-caliber machineguns, two .30-caliber machineguns

USS Runner (SS-275), a Gato-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the runner, an amberfish inhabiting subtropical waters, so called for its rapid leaps from the water. Her keel was laid down on 8 December 1941 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was launched on 30 May 1942 sponsored by Mrs. John H. Newton, and commissioned on 30 July 1942 with Commander F. W. Fenno, Jr., in command.

Following shakedown out of New London, Connecticut, Runner departed the east coast in late 1942, and arrived at Pearl Harbor via the Panama Canal on 10 January 1943. Her first patrol, 18 January to 7 March, was conducted in the area between Midway Island and the Palau Islands. Five Japanese cargo ships were torpedoed on this patrol, but none was confirmed as being sunk. In making the last attack of the patrol on a freighter off Peleliu, she was damaged by a near miss from a bomb dropped from a patrol bomber. The concussion knocked out her sound gear and the power supply for both periscope hoists. Runner made her escape by a deep dive, the crew made emergency repairs, and the ship returned to Pearl Harbor for overhaul.

On her second patrol, 1 April to 6 May, Runner's primary mission was to lay a minefield off Pedro Blanco Rock. Successful in this mission, Runner proceeded to Hainan Straits, off the Chinese mainland. One freighter was torpedoed, and the sound of a ship breaking up was heard over Runner's sound gear, but the kill could not be confirmed. The submarine returned to Midway Island on 6 May 1943.

On 27 May, she departed Midway for the Kurile Islands chain and waters off northern Japan. No report was heard from her. Captured Japanese records indicated that she sank the cargo ship Seinan Maru on 11 June in Tsugaru Strait off Hokkaido, and the passenger-cargo ship Shinryu Maru on 26 June off the Kurile Islands. Runner was declared overdue and presumed lost in July 1943 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 October 1943.

Runner was awarded one battle star for World War II service.

See USS Runner for other ships of the same name.

References

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