USS S-34 (SS-139) - Service History

Service History

Following commissioning, S-34 was ordered to New London, Connecticut, for engineering alterations by the prime contractor, the Electric Boat Company. Decommissioned on 25 October 1922, she was delivered to the company which completed the work in the spring of 1923. The submarine was recommissioned on 23 April; and, after further trials and various exercises off the East Coast and in the Caribbean Sea, she returned to the West Coast, arriving at San Diego, California, her home port, on 6 August. For the next year and one-half, she remained based in southern California, then, in 1925, she was ordered to the Philippines. She departed from San Francisco, California, in mid-April, arrived at the Submarine Base, Cavite, P.I., on 12 July; and, after voyage repairs and an overhaul, commenced operations as a unit of the Asiatic Fleet. From then until 1932, she rotated between exercises, patrols, and overhauls in the Philippines during the winter and deployments to the China coast in the summer for operations out of Tsingtao. In 1932, she was ordered back to the eastern Pacific Ocean. She departed Manila on 2 May and headed for Pearl Harbor, whence she operated until April 1941. She then returned to San Diego.

During the remaining months of peace, S-34 provided services for the West Coast Sound School. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, defensive patrol work off the West Coast was added to her duties. However, with the new year, 1942, she and other World War I design submarines were ordered prepared for service in the northern Pacific in defense of the Aleutian Islands. She underwent overhaul at Mare Island, and, in March, she moved north to the newly established submarine base at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska. On 12 April, she headed west on her first war patrol.