Service history Her
keel was
laid down on 9 February 1962 at the
Admiralty Shipyard in Leningrad (now known as
Saint Petersburg). She was
launched on 15 April 1967 and
commissioned on 28 December 1967. Transferred to the 9th Submarine Squadron of the
Pacific Fleet,
B-39 was homeported in
Vladivostok. She conducted patrols and stalked U.S. warships throughout the North Pacific, along the coast of the United States and Canada, and ranging as far as the
Indian Ocean and the
Arctic Ocean. After the end of the
Vietnam War, she often made port visits to
Danang. During the early 1970s,
B-39 trailed a Canadian
frigate through
Strait of Juan de Fuca to
Vancouver Island. In 1989, in the
Sea of Japan while charging batteries on the surface,
B-39 came within of an of the
US Navy. Both crews took pictures of each other.
Post-USSR history B-39 was
decommissioned on 1 April 1994 and sold to
Finland. She made her way from there through a series of sales to
Vancouver Island in 1996 and to
Seattle, Washington, in 2002 before arriving in
San Diego, California, on 22 April 2005 and becoming an exhibit of the
Maritime Museum of San Diego. During her sequence of owners she acquired the names "Black Widow" and "Cobra", neither of which she had during her commissioned career. When
B-39 was made a museum, the shroud around her attack
periscope was cut away where it passes through her control room. As built, a Foxtrot's
periscopes are only accessible from her
conning tower, which is off-limits in the museum. With the shroud cut away, tourists could look through the partially raised periscope (which is directed toward the museum, some away). However, the unidentified and unexplained change gave the false impression that one periscope could be used from the control room. In 2000, while stored in Vancouver,
B-39 was used as a stage for scenes in the
Stargate SG-1 episode "
Small Victories" (S04E01). In 2010,
B-39 was proposed to be sunk to create an offshore diving reef, but an outcry from teachers and enthusiasts ensured the sub would stay on display a while longer. In 2012,
B-39 was a stage for the film
Phantom (2013). During the 2010s,
B-39 had become badly rusted with large holes visible in the outer hull and upper deck. In October 2021, the Museum decided to withdraw the submarine from its collection. On February 7, 2022, she headed out to Ensenada, Mexico, to be scrapped. ==See also ==