The USS TRITON -- SS-201 is one of 52 United States Navy submarines from World War II that remain on Eternal
Patrol.  This is in remembrance of the battle-wise combat veterans who were her officers and crewmen.

The USS TRITON was commissioned at the Portsmouth Naval Ship Yard, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in July, 1940.  She and her 74 officers and crewmen were on patrol off of Wake Island on December 7th, 1941. On    December 10th, TRITON torpedoed a Japanese destroyer near the island. Sometime later, TRITON became the first U.S. NAVY submarine to sink a Japanese vessel by gun fire, and by September, 1942, TRITON had sunk more Japanese tonnage than all other U.S. NAVY submarines operating out of Pearl Harbor.

USS TRITON made six very successful War Patrols against the Empire of  Japan, sinking 19 Japanese ships and damaging 7 more before being lost with all hands somewhere in the Pacific.

Concerning all Submarine Losses...Vice Admiral
Charles A. Lockwood, Jr., Commander Submarine Force, 1943-1946, would later say...

"I can assure you that they went
down fighting and that their
brothers who survived them took a grim toll of our savage enemy to avenge their deaths."

In a wartime Top Secret Naval AIR MAILGRAM, of 9 April, 1943,  the Commander of the South Pacific Forces (COMSOPAC) sent the following grim message:


"TRULY BITTER PILL IS THE LOSS OF THE TRITON.
A WONDERFUL SHIP MANNED BY A MAGNIFICENT CREW WHICH HAS BEEN OUTSTANDINGLY SUCCESSFUL FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AND HAS INFLICTED IRREPARABLE DAMAGE ON THE ENEMY X MACKENZIE MAINTAINED THE HIGH STANDARD SET BY HIS SKILLFUL PREDECESSORS LENT AND KIRKPATRICK X CARRYING ON WITHOUT THE TRITON MEANS THAT EACH OF US WILL HAVE TO FIGHT HARDER WITH HER DEEDS AS AN
INSPIRATION X"