November 1940, R-6 was assigned to SubDiv 42 and departed on 10 December 1941 for the submarine base at Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone, where she remained until 16 June 1941. She was transferred to SubDiv 31 at Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, on 22 June 1941 and operated from there until returning to New London on 8 October 1941 for a refit. R-6 next joined the anti-U-boat patrol operating roughly on a line between Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Bermuda. Through 1942, she rotated between New London and Bermuda, conducting submerged periscope patrols by day and surface patrols at night to protect coastal traffic. From 1943 to mid-1945, she was employed primarily in training destroyers and destroyer escorts in anti-submarine warfare. On 13 March 1943, R-6 was conducting torpedo exercises with the patrol boat in Block Island Sound off the coast of Rhode Island when four U.S. Navy TBF-1 Avenger torpedo bombers of Air Group 16 mistakenly attacked her with depth charges off the southwest corner of Block Island. The patrol boat and boats from Montauk, New York, came to her assistance. R-6 surfaced with no casualties or visible signs of damage and proceeded to port under her own power. R-6 was involved in testing the U.S. version of the submarine snorkel between April and August 1945. The Dutch had invented and perfected the snorkel, and they had offered the technology to the U.S. Navy, which rejected the offer. After invading the Netherlands in May 1940, the Germans took the technology and incorporated it into their submarines late in World War II. The U.S. Navy took notice of the German use of the snorkel and began to research a U.S. version. Operating from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, R-6 tested the first U.S.-made snorkel in August 1945. There is only one known set of photographs of the installation and configuration of the snorkel aboard R-6. Upon completion of trials of the snorkel, it was removed. In August 1945, R-6 and operated off Florida in the Port Everglades-Key West area. She decommissioned at Key West on 27 September 1945 and was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 11 October 1945. She was sold for scrap to Macey O. Scott, Miami, Florida, in March 1946. References Footnotes Bibliography Hinman, Charles R., and Douglas E. Campbell, . The Submarine Has No Friends: Friendly Fire Incidents Involving U.S. Submarines During World War II. Syneca Research