USS Requin (SS/SSR/AGSS/IXSS-481) , a Tench-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named after the requin, French for shark. Since 1990 it has been a museum ship at The Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Construction and commissioning Requin′s keel was laid down on 24 August 1944 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine. She was launched on 1 January 1945, sponsored by Mrs. Slade D. Cutter, and commissioned on 28 April 1945 with Commander Slade D. Cutter in command. Initially, Requin carried heavier armament than usual for a fleet submarine, perhaps because Commander Cutter was one of the most decorated submarine commanding officers going to sea. She had an additional /25-caliber deck gun, as well as two 24-tube rocket launchers, which were intended for use in bombarding Japan during Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Kyūshū (Operation Olympic) and Honshū (Operation Coronet). Shakedown and first conversion Following shakedown off the New England coast, Requin departed Portsmouth, on 3 June 1945 en route to Hawaii. She joined the Pacific Fleet on 13 July at Balboa, Panama, and at the end of the month reached Pearl Harbor. However, two weeks after her arrival, three days before she was to begin her first war patrol, World War II ended, and Requin was recalled and ordered back to the Atlantic. Requin arrived at Staten Island, New York, on 18 September to begin what would be, in the words of Commander Cutter, "a dull and boring assignment," essentially becoming a target for sonar school ships. On 6 January 1946, she sailed for Key West, Florida, where she joined Submarine Squadron 4 (SubRon 4). August through November of that year was spent at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, being converted to a radar picket submarine. Her four stern torpedo tubes were removed, along with both of her deck guns and her aft anti-aircraft cannon. Two of her forward torpedo tubes were inactivated, and she was reduced to only ten torpedoes. She also received a new skipper; in October 1946, Commander George L. Street III, who earned the Medal of Honor during the war, took command. Radar picket operations After leaving the yard, she resumed operations in the western Atlantic and in the fall of 1947 moved north for exercises with her sister radar picket submarine ; on 13 November, she crossed the Arctic Circle. Given hull