SS-394 USS Razorback Submarine Patch - 3 Inch Round

A razorback is a fin whale, not a wild hog, and USS Razorback SS-394 is the only U.S. Navy ship ever given the name. This patch keeps that straight, with a whale carrying a submarine's sail on its back and a torpedo at its jaw. She was built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, launched on January 27, 1944 and commissioned on April 3, 1944. She fought the last year of the Pacific war and then stayed in service through the Cold War and Vietnam. Today she sits on the Arkansas River, and submarine veterans can still walk her passageways.

Razorback was a Balao-class fleet boat. Her second war patrol, from November 1944 in Luzon Strait, sank the Japanese destroyer Kuretake and damaged two freighters. On her third, in the East China Sea, she sank four wooden ships in three gun actions, and on lifeguard station in May and June 1945 she pulled a P-51 pilot and four B-29 crewmen out of the water. Her last war patrol took her into the Sea of Okhotsk, where she sank six wooden cargo ships, and on August 31, 1945 she entered Tokyo Bay with 11 other submarines for the surrender, carrying five battle stars. Converted to a GUPPY IIA with a snorkel, she recommissioned in 1954 with Submarine Squadron 3 in San Diego and later earned four Vietnam campaign stars.

The patch is a 3 by 3 inch circle of black twill with a black merrowed edge. Gray banners carry SS-394 across the top and USS RAZORBACK along the bottom. Between them a gray-and-white whale arcs through the circle with a red sail and deck riding on its back, two masts raised, and a red torpedo at its mouth. A white burst of spray hangs off the bow. It has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on.

Razorback earned the Navy E in 1949, 1959 and 1969. She was decommissioned on November 30, 1970 at Hunter's Point and turned over to Turkey the same day, serving as TCG Muratreis (S-336) for 31 years. Turkey retired her in 2001, and in 2004 the city of North Little Rock bought her for $37,500 and brought her across the Atlantic and up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. She opened to visitors at the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum on May 15, 2005 and joined the National Register of Historic Places that September. Few boats came home from that far.

Mount it in a shadow box with a set of dolphins and a photo of the boat, or sew it on a vest for a submarine veterans reunion. It is a good gift for a sailor who qualified aboard her, or for a grandson who toured her in North Little Rock and came home with questions. Three inches is enough room for the whale.