USS Becuna - SS-319
International Radio Call Sign: November-Zulu-Quebec-Juliet
Launched in 1944, the Becuna (SS-319) completed five wartime patrols in the Pacific Ocean. Becuna is similar to many submarines built in Philadelphia for the U.S. Navy.
Becuna is a BALAO-class submarine built in New London, CT. During World War II, "Becky" prowled the Pacific Ocean for Japanese ships, and is credited with sinking 3.5 Japanese merchant ships. Converted in 1951 to a Guppy 1A type with sophisticated radar and torpedo equipment including nuclear warheads, she is the only Guppy 1-A submarine on display.
Becuna's Cold War missions often found her in the Atlantic, trailing Soviet submarines with eavesdropping equipment aboard. She served in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and ended her long and distinguished career as a training submarine.
Becuna was decommissioned in 1969 and has been part of Independence Seaport Museum's Historic Ship Zone since 1996. Becuna is a National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2001, Becuna received the American Welding Society's Historical Welded Structure Award is an official project of Save America's Treasures.
