A submarine sailor reads the comics while the boat’s mascot rests in the shade of the conning tower. U.S. Navy, National Archives. Click the photo to see it larger. The KNOWOL logo doesn’t appear on prints.
A sailor sits on the deck of a U.S. Navy submarine with his back against the riveted steel of the conning tower. He has a cigarette in his mouth, a ball cap on his head and a wedding ring on his left hand, and he is reading the comics page of a newspaper. On the other side of a steel pipe, a small white dog with a dark patch over one eye lies on the deck slats, panting. The Navy’s own caption names them only as types: “A submariner reading his favorite comic-strip. The submarine mascot pants in the shade of the conning tower.”
A Quiet Hour Topside
The boat is in port. At the right edge of the picture, the hull of a second submarine lies close alongside, with a man standing on its deck and a row of openings along its side. The sailor sits on the deck slats in the one patch of shade, and the dog has found the same shade on the other side of the pipe.
The Navy filed the photo under the title “Life beneath the seas on a U.S. submarine.” The next picture in the same file, number 80-G-335390, shows “U.S. Pacific submarine on war patrol.” The National Archives later gave this one War and Conflict number 872. That’s its number in the archive’s selection of American war pictures, published in 1990 as War and Conflict: Selected Images from the National Archives, 1765-1970.
Dogs Under the Sea
During World War II, many American submarines carried a dog or a cat as a mascot. Most of the dogs were small and of mixed breed, like the one in this photo. Crews bought them, were given them, or traded a case or two of beer for them. The sailors fed them steak and bacon, gave them identification cards and service records, and took them on liberty all over the Pacific.
USS Gar’s dog, Garbo, came aboard in Hawaii as a puppy small enough to fit in a sailor’s hat. She stayed for the rest of the boat’s fifteen war patrols. Her collar carried the combat submarine insignia and a star for each successful patrol, and at the end of the war Chief Motor Machinist’s Mate Jim Ellis took her home. On USS Whale, a white toy poodle named Betty was made “Dog First Class” and given service and medical records. USS Spadefish’s crew found their dog, Luau, in a bar in Vallejo, California, and won her over with a steak. Her skipper, Lieutenant Commander G. W. Underwood, wrote that she “contributed greatly to the morale.”
Why Morale Mattered
Below this deck, a fleet submarine carried a crew of 60 to 80 men. The boats were built with enough fuel for war patrols of 75 days, from Hawaii to Japan and back. The work was dangerous. The United States lost 52 submarines in World War II, and about 3,500 submariners were killed, more than one in five of the men who served.
The submarines also cut Japan’s supply lines at sea. U.S. submarines sank about 1,300 Japanese merchant ships and about 200 warships, which was 56 percent of all the merchant shipping Japan lost. By August 1945, Japan’s merchant fleet had less than a quarter of the tonnage it had in December 1941.
About This Photo
- Archive title: “Life beneath the seas on a U.S. submarine. A submariner reading his favorite comic-strip. The submarine mascot pants in the shade of the conning tower.”
- Date: Not recorded. The Navy file it’s in covers 1943 to 1958, and the next photo in that file shows a U.S. submarine on war patrol in the Pacific.
- Place: On the deck of a U.S. Navy submarine in port (the record doesn’t name the boat)
- Photographer: U.S. Navy (the record doesn’t give a name)
- Who’s in it: The sailor and the dog aren’t named in the record
- Collection: General Photographic Files, General Records of the Department of the Navy (Record Group 80), National Archives at College Park, Maryland
- Photo number: Archives number 80-G-335388, National Archives Identifier 520689, War and Conflict number 872
- Rights: Public domain, a work of the U.S. government
- Restoration: KNOWOL, 2026, from the Archives’ scan of the negative
KNOWOL prints this restored photo on luster photo paper in 12 x 12 and 16 x 16 inch sizes, plain or in a black or white wood frame. Click here to get your copy of the submarine sailor and mascot dog photo.
Sources
- National Archives catalog, “Life beneath the seas on a U.S. submarine”
- National Archives catalog, “U.S. Pacific submarine on war patrol” (80-G-335390, filed next to it)
- William Galvani, “Sea Dogs,” American Heritage, October 1994
- USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park, “USS Skate’s Chicken Mascot”
- “Allied submarines in the Pacific War”
- “Gato-class submarine”
