USS S-28 (SS-133)

S-28 was an S-1 class submarine completed Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company at Quincy, MA in December of 1923.

S-28 was providing training exercises for enlisted personnel and sonar exercises for destroyers. At 17:30 local time she was conducting a practice approach on the Reliance, a Coast Guard cutter when sound contact with S-28 was lost. It was briefly regained and then lost again. No distress signals were heard nor were there any sounds of explosions. S-28 was lost in 8,400 feet of water making rescue or recovery impossible.

After commissioning and trials, S-28 took part in winter exercises in the Caribbean. In April of 1924, she returned to New London. In June of 1925, S-28 was assigned to San Diego. She operated from there until mid-February of 1931. Then she was assigned to Pearl Harbor for the next eight years until she went back to San Diego in mid-1939 to resume work at the Underwater Sound Training School.

When the war broke out for the U. S. in December of 1941, S-28 was undergoing an overhaul in Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The overhaul was completed on 22 January 1942 and S-28 returned to duty at the Underwater Sound Training School in San Diego. However, she was soon needed to make patrols around the Aleutians. She completed five uneventful patrols from Dutch Harbor. From 15 March to 15 April 1943, she operated with the Royal Canadian Navy and then was overhauled in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

Her sixth patrol, from 13 July to 16 August 1943 was again uneventful. On 20 September 1943, her seventh patrol, she had her only victory, sinking a converted gunboat. Injuries to a crewman, followed by a case of appendicitis, caused the S-28 to end the patrol at Attu on 13 October 1943. The severe weather had taken a toll on the old S boat and she was ordered to Pearl Harbor for training duties where she would later be lost.

S-28 was lost on training duties after seven war patrols. JANAC credited her with one sinking for 1,368 tons total for her WW2 service.