--Originally posted 12/25/10--
Recently I discovered significantly more reference pics and data on S-37:
Including these of her ship's bell and one of her two diving-control wheels, which apparently remain preserved today, at the San Diego Ship Museum in San Diego, California.
But the real finds were several additional historical references - including not only more pics but also further notes/data on the several already in hand, such that a much more comprehensive photo-history for S-37 can now be pieced together:
Click on Image to Enlarge
FULL RES-----------------FULL RES---------------FULL RESBeginning with her origin, in the leftmost image above, S-37 slides down the ways June 20, 1919. To its right in the same frame, the next chronological pic shows her stern in October, 1923, as casualties of an engine room explosion were being removed.
At center, the next three pics all date from precisely 10/29/24: the top two wherein she is tied up (somewhere) within a nest of her all (then-) identical-looking mates of Division 17 alongside their tender Canopus in Apra Harbor, Guam. At bottom, on the same day S-37 is seen underway - no doubt very close to, if not within the same harbor. Note her sail has already acquired its final configuration, to be retained throughout her remaining (20 years of) service.
At right, three more pics from about this same period - "circa 1925" - show at-sea refuelling (right) and posing as if at gunnery practice (two at left), the latter annotated to have originating from Tsingtao, China. Note coarse deck planking appears limited to the circular gun platform only, with the foredeck remaining completely bare metal. Also note some great detail on the early 4" gun. (Though, posing - as the swab at lower-left - behind the breach of a recoil-mounted cannon is a
bad/stupid place to be!
)
But there are more discoveries - some of them, pure gold:
Click on Image to EnlargeAlso dating from sometime during 1925, S-37 is seen in drydock at Olongapo, Philippines - this view confirming our drawings' portrayal of several details: torpedo tube doors, forward and belly hull form, plating joints and lengthwise-running bumper/stabilizer vanes, along her beam and other stream lines both above- and below the waterline. Note the early-design hydrophone heads - a "T"-shaped fitting, protected inside a small cage, looking like a low handle - located on the foredeck, above and behind the partly-extended bow plane.
In the early-mid '30s, pics of S-37 are again attributed to Tsingtao, China:
Click on Image to Enlarge
FULL RES-------FULL RES-----At left, somtime during 1930, S-37 is again nested with her Division 17 sisters - undoubtedly alongside a sub tender, from which both pics were taken - while on "Asian Station" at Tsingtao. S-37 appears to be very close if not identical in every respect to her S-18 class companions S-36, -39 and -41, whose gun platform planking now appears finer than before (on S-37 in 1925) and continues, unbroken both forward- and aft, as well. At right, two pics dating to 1935 and again ascribed to Tsingtao, reveal coarser planking again returning to the gun deck, and extending unbroken (at least) aft. Note also details of the early 4" deck gun, whose barrel was secured, when not in use, to a heavy post, detachable from the gun platform.
Our next two pics of S-37 appear to date from about a year later:
Click on Image to EnlargeIn these two views - the bottom one dated "1936" and once more attributed to Tsingtao, China - S-37 is seen to be identical in practically every respect - even the photo/film quality looks very similar - and so the one at top is presumed likewise to have originated from (at least roughly) this same time, and place as well. In any case, the bottom pic demonstrates she has by now lost her aft skeg, in favor of a vertical cannister-looking escape trunk, and - visible in both pics - also acquired the characteristic, heavy, stepped-light posts which attended removal of the aft skegs, administered to the various boats between about 1925-35.
The final pair of historical pics, we can pretty firmly conclude, also came from a single time-period, and operating theater:
Click on Image to EnlargeThese are the only two pics found showing S-37 (the nearest/outboardmost sub, in both pics) painted overall black - shiny and brand-new paint, with white hull numbers of identical size and style in both. Though neither is dated, the bottom pic was annotated "Olongapo", Philippines, which is where the outbreak of WWII would find S-37. Likwise, the all-black/large-numbers paint job - and (at bottom) the later '30s-vintage hydrophone head, looking like a Tom-Tom (white), stood on-edge atop a low 5-legged mounting looking like a black spider - are both characteristic of the immediate pre-war to early WWII time frame. Indeed, (at least) several boats not upgrading to the newer hydrophone ("White-Ball-on-a-tripod") fit, in just the final weeks before WWII, would continue to retain the rig shown here until (at least) well into 1943. So these two pics could well show the precise apperance of S-37 (sans large, white numbers while on patrol, of course) at the pinnacle of her career: on February 8, 1942, when she sank the IJN destroyer Natsushio, in the Makassar Strait, southwest off the Celebes islands.
In any case, note also the bottom pic remains our earliest one which shows S-37 fitted with the conical, "trunk" fairing, protruding from the starboard side, abaft the crew access hatch, forward - though (maddeningly) no other views since 1930 even show the starboard bow area.
All-in-all, though, that's a pretty decent photo-journal of S-37 and her various (re)fits, over the years, eh? If anyone's got a line on yet more pics of S-37, please do - as always - sing out and let me know!
Cheers,
-Matty
