a 501(c)3 Ocean Outreach Project
Honoring the men their memory and their mission
USS S-35 Expedition
The S-35 lower hull underneath the control room and after battery is smashed in. This could indicate that the torpedo used to sink her detonated under the hull without actually striking it, most likely using a magnetic influence exploder. Strangely, the amount of damage doesn’t seem nearly bad enough if the weapon that was used was the typical Mk 14 or Mk 18 torpedo with their large 600 lb+ Torpex warhead. If one of those weapons had been used on the S-35 the most likely result would have been a completely broken keel with the wreck in two or more pieces. The weapon that might have been used could have been the Mk 27 “Cutie” homing torpedo. This was a much smaller weapon with a warhead of only 127 lbs. It was a new weapon at the time and there may have been a desire to conduct tests under real conditions to see how the weapon reacted.
