PNS/M Ghazi (S–130) (previously USS Diablo (SS-479); reporting name: Ghazi), SJ, was a Tench-class diesel-electric submarine, the first fast-attack submarine in the Pakistan Navy. She was leased from the United States Navy in 1963. She served in the United States Navy from 1945 to 1963 and was loaned to Pakistan under the Security Assistance Program (SAP) on a four-year lease after the Ayub administration successfully negotiated with the Kennedy administration for its procurement. In 1964, she joined the Pakistan Navy and saw military action in the Indo-Pakistani theatres in the 1965 and, later in the 1971 wars. In 1968 Ghazi executed a submerged circumnavigation of Africa and southern parts of Europe through the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, due to the closure of the Suez Canal, in order to be refitted and updated at Gölcük, Turkey. The submarine could be armed with up to 28 Mk.14 torpedoes and had the capability of mine-laying added as part of her refit. Starting as the only submarine in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, Ghazi remained the Pakistan Navy's flagship submarine until in 1971, when she sank under mysterious circumstances near India's eastern coast while conducting naval operations en route to the Bay of Bengal. While the Indian Navy credits Ghazi's sinking to its destroyer INS Rajput, the Pakistani military oversights and reviews stated that "the submarine sank due to either an internal explosion or accidental detonation of mines being laid by the submarine off the Visakhapatnam harbour". In 2010, it was revealed the Indian Navy destroyed all records of their investigations into this matter in 1980 after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Nonetheless, Indian historians consider the sinking of Ghazi to be a notable event; as they have described the sinking as one of the "last unsolved greatest mysteries of the 1971 war."
Service with United States Navy Diablo, a long-range fast-attack Tench-class submarine was launched on 1 December 1944, sponsored by the wife of U.S. Navy Captain V. D. Chapline on 31 March 1945 with Lieutenant Commander Gordon Graham Matheson as her first commanding officer. She was the only warship of the United States Navy to be named Diablo, which means "devil" in Spanish. The submarine's assigned and issued insignia patch identified the caricature image of the devil running with a torpedo in the sea. After being commissioned at the Portsmouth Navy Yard on 31 March 1945, Diablo arrived at Pearl Harbor from New London, Connecticut on 21 July and sailed on her first war patrol on 10 August with instructions to stop at Saipan for final orders. With the ceasefire, her destination was changed to Guam where she arrived on 22 August 1945. On the last day of the month, she got underway for Pearl Harbor and the East Coast arriving at New York City on 11 October, except for a visit to Charleston, South Carolina in October where she remained at New York until 8 January 1946. From 15 January 1946 to 27 April 1949, Diablo was based in the Panama Canal Zone participating in fleet exercises and rendering services to surface units in the Caribbean Sea. From 23 August to 2 October 1947, she joined the submarines Cutlass and Conger for a simulated war patrol down the west coast of South America and around Tierra del Fuego. The three submarines called at Valparaíso, Chile, in September while homeward bound. Diablo sailed to Key West, Florida, for antisubmarine warfare exercises, from 16 November to 9 December 1947, and operated from New Orleans, Louisiana, for the training of naval reservists in March 1948. Diablo arrived at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, her new home port, on 5 June 1949, and participated in Operation Convex in 1951, and alternated training cruises with duty at the Sonar School at Key West. Her homeport became New London in 1952 and she arrived there 17 September to provide training facilities for the Submarine School. From 3 May to 1 June 1954, she was attached to the Operational Development Force at Key West for tests of new weapons and equipment. She participated in Operation Springboard in the Caribbean from 21 February to 28 March 1955, and continued to alternate service with the Submarine School with antisubmarine warfare and fleet exercises in the Caribbean and off Bermuda, as well as rendering services to the Fleet Sonar School and Operational Development Force at Key West. Between February and April 1959, she cruised through the Panama Canal along the coasts of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile for exercises with South American navies. On 27 May 1960, she entered Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for an overhaul which continued until October 1960. In 1962 her hull classification symbol was changed to AGSS-479. Diablo was decommissioned on 1 June 1964 and was commissioned in the Pakistani Navy the same day.
Awards Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal World War II Victory Medal National Defense Service Medal with star
Service with Pakistan Navy
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
