USS Cutlass: A Legendary Submarine That’s Still Active After Nearly 80 Years – SlashGear

Despite departing from Pearl Harbor — a few years after the 1941 attack that brough the U.S. into World War II – and patrolling Japanese waters, the Cutlass never saw any battles. It arrived near Japan a day after the Japanese surrender in 1945. The Cutlass patrolled the area for a little over a month before returning to Pearl Harbor and eventually settling on the United States east coast. In 1949, the Cutlass became the test submarine for Operation Rainbow, an exercise done to evaluate color schemes on subs as visibility was becoming a bigger problem since these vessels began to dive deeper than ever before.

From that point on, it mostly made trips around the Western Hemisphere before going to Europe in 1953. The Cutlass’ remaining time with the U.S. Navy consisted of patrols, exercises, and antisubmarine warfare training before it was retired from the military and sold off to Taiwan nearly 30 years after its launch.