The
371-foot long Narwhal was built by the Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard in Maine and commissioned in 1930. Together with Argonaut and
Nautilus, she mounted the largest deck guns of any American submarine:
two 6-inch guns; one fore; one aft.
This painting shows her on her 12th war patrol in
June, 1944, when she surfaced off Bula Ceram island in the South Pacific, and pounded the gasoline storage facilities and pumping station with 56 rounds from her 6-inch guns, leaving the facilities ablaze.
The Narwhal was stricken from the navy list in 1945 and sold for
scrap, but her two 6-inch guns survived and today stand guard at the Naval
Submarine Base in Connecticut.
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