Militaria, Police, Watch & Disney Auction
Lot 311:
Description
Original 48 Star marked USS Parche on the hoist, with mild staining. This flag came out of the famed Dr. Clarence Rungee war flag collection. He collected flags from WWII ships when they were decommissioned and saved them in his archive, amassing an incredible collection. Many came with documentation and inventory forms, but some were separated from their paperwork throughout the years. This is one such example. It measures approximately 33×56 inches in size. USS Parche was commissioned into service in late 1943 and embarked on her first war patrol in Mar 1944 out of Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii as a member of a wolfpack with USS Tinosa and USS Bang. Her first war patrol saw her sinking a number of Japanese transports, but it was her second war patrol that would be her best, during which, in Jul 1944, she aggressively attacked a Japanese convoy in coordination with USS Steelhead and gained credit for two sinkings and sharing a third with Steelhead. She would embark on a total of six war patrols before the Pacific War drew to a close, and she was successful in five of them, earning two Presidental Unit Citation awards and one Medal of Honor medal (commanding officer Commander Lawson Ramage). After the war, she was used as a target ship for the Operation Crossroads atomic weapons testing. Surviving both the air burst and the underwater burst, she was decommissioned in Dec 1946 at Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California, United States. In Mar 1947, she was placed in reserve at Alameda, California. In Dec 1962, she was reclassified an auxiliary submarine and was made a training submarine based at Oakland, California. She was sold to Zidell of Portland, Oregon, United States for scrap in 1970. Parts of her structure were removed and now preserved at the Naval Submarine Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, United States.
Condition: See description for notes on condition. Please note that all items are sold as is without returns, so please ask questions in advance of bidding.
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