First kill?
 

What ship had the honor of the first recorded kill by the U.S. Navy submarine forces in World War II?

According to this site:
http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/silent.html

... it would be the Tautog on the 1st day of the war.
-Pv-

First confirmed enemy ship sunk was by the USS Swordfish on 16th December 1941.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Swordfish_%28SS-193%29

I cringe when I see someone use wikipedia as a source. To show my students why they could not use it as a source I got onto it one day during class and changed the definition of a teacher to someone who was responsible for teaching propaganda the government wants its citizens to know. I did not have to log in or say where I got the info from or anything. The best thing was that we got onto the site everyday for about a week before the definition was changed back to what it had before.

Oh ... could I take this and run with it. But I dont want to spin this into a political discussion. ;)

If we move to surface forces...
 

...first confirmed kill was the ramming and sinking of a Japanese miniature submarine by a US destroyer in the area of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

That would be the destroyer USS Ward, and the midget sub sank from flooding from a 4" shell hole in her conning tower. The sub was found by H.U.R.L. in 2002 using the DSV's Pisces IV and V.

You can look up sinkings by boat here. As Torplexed said, it looks like USS Swordfish gets credit for the first ship sinking by a US submarine (read her 1st war patrol report here). It's interesting though that the first official (ie. JANAC seal of approval) sinking was likely not, in fact, the first ship sunk by the Swordfish.

My post was responding to 1st "kill" by a submarine in WWII as worded in the question rather than 1st "sinking" by a sub or other craft.
-Pv-

There's no telling what those pro-Swordfish ranks have done! Down with the Tautog! The bitterness truly runs deep, but it is most certainly not silent.

Here you go Torplexed, confirmation other than your first source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesdec.htm
I should clarify, wikipedia is ok for main stream info that people look up everyday but the big problem with it is that you do not have to list any sources for the info you post there. SteamWake, thanks for holding back. I knew that I could have opened up a can of worms but I figured that most of us were above that and I was right, thank you again.

Also PV nailed it when he said that the first kill was made by the Tautog on Dec. 7th. If you want to read the action report filed by the CO of the Tautog check this link out: http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/pearl/ph88.htm.

FYI if anyone wants to read more battle reports about the attack on Pearl check out this link and open some of the links: http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/pearl/

I love that boat. The Terrible T!
http://www.rddesigns.com/subs/199.html

That's a legitimate concern given the fluid nature of wikipedia. I looked it up in a book first..but was feeling too lazy to transcribe all the details so I just googled USS Swordfish and got the wikipedia entry. I'm still not sure what the original poster was after. As noted already first kill could still mean the Japanese plane shot down by the crew of the Tautog on December 7th while still moored at the pier.