The history of the USS Irex SS-482:
Mar 1968 to decommissioning in Nov 1969
Under Captain Koehler

I learn from Grant Chambers QM2 (SS), who was aboard from 1967 to 1969, that the boat visited the Mediterranean twice and also the Caribbean, where he took some swimming party photos. Ken “Pete” Peters QM2 (SS) fondly recalls John Cressman, Vic Alverado, Grant Chambers, Bob Ball, Ed Houde, Fred Chicowski, Manny Sanchez, Jim McCarthy, and many others. Grant offers a nice set of photos, apparently from this Med cruise, showing the boat tied up in France and in Naples, and back in New London.

Victor Alvarado reports that the Med trip started in January 1968 under the command of R. L. Koehler. The boat visited Nice and tied up at the Douane pier to spend a week for a routine port of call. However, I also gather than Captain Koehler did not assume command until March 1968. The final two XOs were Roy Springer and Robert K. Slavin, Jr. The final COB was TMC Zangarelli.

The boat returned in the Spring. Anthony Skrzat TM2 (SS) reports that the Irex was returning from the Mediterranean with the Scorpion when she went down. I have no further information on operations in 1968.

In early January 1969, the Cob, EMC(SS) Frederick Allcorn, participated in a ceremony marking his retirement from active duty. He had served as COB for the previous two years.

The Irex participated in SPRINGBOARD in the Caribbean in January and was there a month, stopping in at St. Thomas and San Juan.

The cook Bruce Keswick reports being present and a member of the Eleven Grand Club when the Irex made its 11,000th dive on 8 February 1969.

There were local operations in February and April, and then in May off to Bermuda.

The Irex went to the Mediterranean in July, 1969. Stop overs in Rota Spain, through the Straits of Gibralter, and then participation in ASW operations in the Turrhenian Sea for 10–14 days. Then to Naples and Palma. A set of photos provided by Grant Chambers shows the boat recovering a torpedo in the Straits of Messinia in Greece. I'm guessing the photos belong to this cruise rather than the one to the Mediterranean in January 1968.

To the surprise of the crew, the Irex was ordered to cut this Mediterranean cruise short and return for decommissioning. Charles Hall QMC (SS) reports that the Irex sailed up the Thames with a “For Sail” sign on the side and a twenty-foot weather baloon trailing behind.

As of 13 September 1969 the plan was to sell the hull as scrap to the North American Smelting Company in Wilmington, DE. for $80,676. According to a list of hull dispositions written on 19 September 1969 (and held at the Sub Museum in Groton), the Irex at that time was being “non-industrially stripped” at a birth in New London.

Most of the subs on the list, which included the Becuna, were disposed of because of budgetary cut-backs, but not the Irex. The list calls the Irex the “ex-AGSS482” (the AGSS designation means Auxiliary Submarine) and indicated that the hull's ultimate disposition would be decided at a later date, apparently despite the agreement with North American Smelting Company.

Once stripped, the Irex was stricken from the Navy inventory (decommissioned) on 17 November 1969. The decommissioning ceremony on that date involved lowering the ensign, and, despite the reference to the “ex” SS-482, the captain, Cmdr Robert L. Koehler, painted over the hull number on the sail. The disposition of the ship's bell is unknown.

The hull disposition list anticipated that the ultimate disposition of the hull would be in 1970, but apparently it was actually scrapped in April 1971.

The boat's demise is reported in Commander John D. Alden, The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy (Naval Institute Press).