USS Volador, a 1570-ton Tench class submarine, was on the building ways at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, when her construction was suspended in early 1946. Work resumed in mid-1947 to a revised design that turned her into a much improved "Guppy II" submarine, with streamlined hull and sail, more powerful electric propulsion system and a snorkel, thus greatly increasing her underwater performance. Volador was commissioned in October 1948 and joined the Pacific Fleet early in 1949. Over the next thirteen years she made four deployments to the Western Pacific, including one during the Korean War, and one cruise to Alaskan waters, as well as maintaining a regular program of operations along the U.S. West Coast and in Hawaiian waters.

In 1962-1963 Volador was again modernized under the "Guppy III" program, which lengthened her hull and gave her up-to-date sonar and other electronic equipment. Following completion of this work she deployed four more times to the Far East, three times during the Vietnam War. In mid-1970 Volador was transferred to the Atlantic Fleet and made a cruise to the Mediterranean Sea in 1971. She was decommissioned in August 1972 and loaned (later sold) to Italy. Renamed Gianfranco Gazzana Priaroggia, she served in the Italian Navy until 1981.