This episode of “Silent Service” first aired in 1957, and portrays the commander of the submarine USS Tirante operating on WWII war patrol. The submarine may lose a target in the shallow waters of a Japanese-held harbor if the commander doesn’t surface — a dangerous maneuver with enemy ships operating close by.

This was the eleventh episode of “The Silent Service”, which was made by California National Productions. The series vividly portrayed submarine operations, and used a WWII submarine based in Long Beach for filming. The series ran for 78 episodes during 1957 and 1958 and focused primarily on WWII operations with a limited # of episodes portraying actual events in the Korean War.

The show was hosted by Rear Admiral Thomas M. Dykers, who was a bit of a Hollywood officer — her served as a consultant on feature films such as Torpedo Alley and Submarine Command.

The cast in this episode, which examines the war cruise of USS Tirante in 1945, includes Glen Veron, Kelly Thordsen, Thom Carney, Charles H Gray and Russell Johnson. Johnson played “The Professor” on the 60’s cult series Gilligan’s Island.

USS Tirante (SS-420), a Tench-class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tirante, a silvery, elongated “cutlass fish” found in waters off Cuba. Her keel was laid down on 28 April 1944 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard of Kittery, Maine. She was launched on 9 August 1944 sponsored by Mrs. William B. Sieglaff, wife of Commander Sieglaff, and commissioned on 6 November 1944 with Lieutenant Commander George L. Street III in command. In the ensuing two decades, Tirante conducted six more Mediterranean Sea deployments, interspersed with a regular schedule of exercises and maneuvers with Fleet units in the North Atlantic, off the east coast and in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Tirante received two battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation for her World War II service.