BILLFISH SS 286

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

Balao Class Submarine Keel Laid 23 July 1942 - Launched 12 November 1942 USS BILLFISH SS-286 Commissioned 20 April 1943 - Decommissioned 20 July 1946 Laid up in Reserve Fleet at New London BILLFISH SS-286 Placed In Service in Reserve 1 January 1960 as training submarine BILLFISH AGSS-286 Redesignated Auxiliary Research Submarine (AGSS) 1 December 1962 Placed Out of Service 1 April 1968 Struck from the Naval Register 1 April 1968 Sold 17 March 1971 for scrap

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

1. USS Billfish SS-286 Covers Page 1     (DATE RANGE)

 

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.
 
>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

 

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Postmark Date	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

 

Locy Type 3z (BTT)

1943-04-20

N/A

Commissioning, cacheted.

 

Other Information

USS BILLFISH earned the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal w/ 7 Battle Stars and the World War II Victory Medal during her Naval career.

NAMESAKE - Any fish, such as gar or spearfish, with bill-shaped jaws.

The ships sponsor was Mrs. Lewis S. Parks, wife of Lieutenant Commander Parks.

Two ships of the US Navy have borne the name BILLFISH - USS Billfish SS-286 and USS Billfish SSN-676.

 

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