USS Bonita (SSK-3)

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Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	19 May 1950
Launched:	21 June 1951
Commissioned:	11 January 1952
Fate:
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	765 tons surfaced, 1160 tons submerged
Length:	196 feet 1 inches
Beam:	24 feet 7 inches
Draft:	14 feet 5 inches
Speed:	13 knots surfaced, 6 knots submerged
Depth:	400 feet
Complement:	four officers and 33 men
Armament:	four 21-inch torpedo tubes

USS Bonita (SSK-3/SS-552), a Barracuda-class submarine, was the fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bonito, any of several types of fish including the tunny (Orcynus pelamys), the skipjack (Sarda Mediterranea), the medregal (Seriola fasciata), or the cobia (Elacate canada). The original contract for construction of Bonita (SSK-3) was let to New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey, but later transferred to Mare Island Naval Shipyard of Vallejo, California, where her keel was laid down on 19 May 1950. She was launched as K-3 on 21 June 1951 sponsored by Mrs. J.S. Clark, widow of Commander James Clark, and commissioned on 11 January 1952 with Lieutenant Commander Eric E. Hopley in command.

The three SSK boats, Barracuda (SSK-1), Bass (SSK-2), and Bonita (SSK-3), were built around the large BQR-4 bow-mounted sonar array as part of Project Kayo, which experimented the use of passive acoustics with low-frequency, bow sonar arrays. When the boat was rigged for silent running, these arrays gave greatly-improved convergence zone detection ranges against snorkeling submarines. The SSKs themselves were limited in their anti-submarine warfare abilities by their low speed and their need to snorkel periodically, but the advances in sonar technology they pioneered were invaluable to later nuclear-powered submarines.

K-3 joined Submarine Squadron 7 at Pearl Harbor on 15 May 1952 and performed experimental and normal submarine duties, making a cruise to Alaskan waters in August and September 1956. She was renamed Bonita 15 December 1955, decommissioned on 7 November 1958, and given hull classification symbol SS-552 on 15 August 1959.

See USS Bonita for other ships of the same name.

References

This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.