USS Clamagore (SS-343) was a submarine, which operated as a museum ship at the Patriot's Point Naval & Maritime Museum outside Charleston, South Carolina from 1979 to 2022. Built in 1945 for the United States Navy, she was still in training when World War II ended. She was named for the clamagore. A National Historic Landmark, she was the last surviving example of a GUPPY III type submarine.

Construction

Clamagore was built by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut near the end of World War II. She was launched on 25 February 1945 and sponsored by Miss Mary Jane Jacobs, daughter of Vice Admiral Randall Jacobs and commissioned on 28 June 1945.

Operational history

Clamagore was first assigned to Key West, Florida, and reported there on 5 September 1945. She operated off Key West with various fleet units and with the Fleet Sonar School, voyaging on occasion to Cuba and the Virgin Islands until 5 December 1947, when she entered Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for GUPPY II modernization and installation of a snorkel. She had a hull extension added forward of the control room, a plastic sail and the BQG-4 PUFFS passive ranging sonar, which included the three sharkfin sensors on her deck. where she was moored as a museum ship along with aircraft carrier and destroyer .

Clamagore was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark on 29 June 1989.

According to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Clamagore was the last surviving GUPPY type III submarine in the United States. The GUPPY conversion submarines constituted the bulk of the nation's submarine force through the mid-1960s.

Due to severe degradation of the hull the Patriot Point museum had, on several occasions, looked for an alternate means to preserve the vessel. On 10 January 2017 the Palm Beach County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve funds for the vessel to be sunk as an artificial reef. On 16 April 2019 a group of retired submariners sued the State of South Carolina to save the Clamagore. In early 2020, the museum formed a plan to sink Clamagore at the Vermilion Reef site before the 2021 hurricane season.

During the summer of 2022, the museum began the process of scrapping the Clamagore. Her National Historic Landmark designation was withdrawn in September 2024.

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File:USSClamagore112403.jpg|USS Clamagore, 24 November 2003 (the three distinctive shark-fin domes are the PUFFS sonar).

File:21-24-123-clamagore.jpg|Interior of USS Clamagore

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Awards

  • Meritorious Unit Commendation
  • Navy Expeditionary Medal
  • American Campaign Medal
  • World War II Victory Medal
  • Navy Occupation Medal with "EUROPE" clasp
  • National Defense Service Medal with star

See also

  • List of National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina
  • National Register of Historic Places listings in Charleston, South Carolina

References

  • Patriot's Point Maritime Museum
  • Clamagore Veterans Association
  • History of Clamagore