Archive for the ‘Lost Subs’ Category

On Eternal Patrol: USS Barbel lost 4 February 1945

Lost Subs | Posted by Rebekah
Feb 04 2012

<sigh> it seems like no matter my intentions, eventually I get bogged down by sick kids, and constant mommying. Or exhaustion.  I worked 20 hours a week through college, did extracirriculars, worked two jobs every summer.  I thought I was tired then!  It’s nothing compared to active young ones!  I love it, but I now must apologize to the men of USS E-2, USS S-26, USS S-36, USS Scorpion (I), and my readers.  To the subs and your crews, your stories are not forgotten and will be posted (albeit retroactively).  To my readers, I know, I keep apologizing.  One day, I’ll get this right! Thanks for the understanding.

USS Barbel, SS-316, was built and Commissioned April 13, 1944.  She actually commissioned with her sister Razorback (now on display at the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum) and beat Razor to the war zone.

She had three successful war patrols under her commissioning officer, Cmdr. Robert A. Keating.  In an era when submarines were so successful they were starting to put themselves out of work, Barbel was a busy hunter.  During her first patrol she claimed four kills, three on her second patrol, and two on her third patrol, for a wartime total of nine ships in just five months.  Actually, rather impressive.  (The Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) later lowered that total to six, discounting one on the first patrol and two on the second)

During this time, the Allies were storming the Pacific.  The battle of Leyte Gulf happened during Barbel’s second patrol, and by her third patrol, the Allies were already deeply in the Philippines, landing on Mindoro Island.  Soon, the Japanese would be completely cast out of that nation.

Submarine bases were changing and moving too.  When USS Flier was pulling out for her last patrol on 2 August 1944, there were really only three (maybe four, if you counted Midway and no one wanted to R&R there.  No girls, only gooney birds.  Lousy dates!) bases: Pearl Harbor, Freemantle/Perth Australia and Brisbane, Australia.  But so much changed in the few weeks between 12 August when Flier left for eternity and 21 August when Barbel came in from her first run that she actually had R&R on Majuro Atoll with the submarine tender USS Bushnell (AS-15) who set up base that much closer to the front lines only a short time earlier.

After her second patrol, she R&R-ed in Saipan Harbor where she was refitted and sent out on her third war patrol in just seven days.

After her third patrol, she pulled into Fremantle, where her CO was replaced by Cmdr. Conde Raguet, and she headed back into the fray on 5 January 1945.

She was assigned to operate in a wolfpack with submarines USS Perch (II) and USS Galiban,  guarding the western entrances to Balabac Strait.  Since the losses of USS Robalo and USS Flier in or near Balabac Strait  in August 1944, Navy HQ decided to close it to all Allied traffic, but since the Japanese laid the minefields in the first place, they still used it.  So, submarines were assigned to guard either the western or eastern entrances, both which provided lots of entertainment.

According to “The History of USS Barbel” filed by the Navy in 1956, on 3 February, Barbel radioed Galiban as well as Tuna and Blackfin (who must have been in the area) that she was dodging more aerial patrols that usual.  Three times already that day, planes had buzzed overhead, dropping depth charges which she thus far, evaded.  Cmdr. Raguet said he would communicate more the following night (presumably, the 4th of February.)

No one heard from her that night.  Or the next.  On the 6th of February, Tuna sent a message to Barbel, ordering her to surface and rendezvous at a particular place and time on the 7th.  Barbel never answered and never showed.  This was reported to HQ and they listed Barbel as lost on 16 of February, 1945.

After the war, a record surfaced.  On 4 February, a Japanese pilot, spotting an Allied submarine SW of Palawan in the vicinity of Balabac Strait, dropped his two depth charges on her.  One missed.  The other hit the sub’s bridge, and she “plunged under a cloud of fire and spray.”  No other submarines were in that area or recorded an attack that day.  It’s likely this description was the Barbel’s fate.  Her loss date was therefore listed as 4 February 1945.  Her crew of 81 lie with her.

Following her loss, she was honored with a little sister: USS Barbel (II) SS-580.  The lead ship in the first designs of teardrop shaped hulls, Barbel (II) had an…interesting career.  Reading what little is in the public domain about her reminds me why I so admire the men (and now women) who crew these boats, and why I could never do what they do.  Barbel was decommissioned in 1990 and sunk as a target in 2001, but her triplet sister, Blueback (SS-581), is on display at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, if you ever want to see her.

Barbel (I)’s memorial is along the Oregon Trail Veterans Cemetery near Evansville, Wyoming.

To her 81 men, may I say, “Sailor, Rest Your Oar” and thank you, from a grateful citizen.

Photos of USS Barbel’s Memorial

Deck Logs of USS Barbel, including her official history (first three pages)

The Lost crew of USS Barbel

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The Grunion’s Ghost

Lost Subs | Posted by Rebekah
Aug 02 2010

To finish the post on the Grunion…

The USS Grunion, under the command of Cmdr. Mannert Abele, left their families on the East coast on 24 May 1942, and took their brand new boat to her assigned base in Pearl Harbor.  The trip to Pearl was eventful, since they ran across survivors of the USAT Jack which had been torpedoed by U-Boat 558.  These sixteen men reported that they had seen thirteen more in the waves right after the sinking, and Grunion changed course to head for the site of the sinking.  They found nothing, and after searching for twenty-four hours, continued on to the Panama Canal.  (They likely dropped off the survivors there, though they do not mention it).

They arrived at Pearl, trained for a few days, and headed off for their first patrol, in the Aleutian Island Chain, off Alaska.

USS Grunion, during her testing phase in 1941. Her bridge and periscope shears would be remodeld between when this photo was taken and when she sank, likely at Pearl Harbor. Photo from navsource.org

Why the Aleutians?  Well, one of the fears shortly after WWII began was the Japanese might try to attack North America not by crossing the ocean (since they had already done that once) but by skirting around the north and coming down the western coast.  These fears were actually well founded, and the Japanese invaded Attu and Kiska Islands in early June, 1942.  The American military struck back and re-took Attu Island in 1943, but on this date 68 years ago, the Grunion was sent to patrol through enemy territory.

They were highly successful, taking out two enemy patrol vessels.  On 22 July, Grunion was assigned to patrol the entrances to Kiska.  Crowley’s S-28 was in the area, also patrolling the entrances to Kiska.   On 30 July, the Grunion, tracking a ship later revealed to be the Kano Maru, came under attack.  At some point on the 30th of July, possibly early in the morning, they sent a message to their headquarters reporting they were under heavy anti-submarine attack.  HQ ordered Grunion back to Dutch Harbor, the submarine base in Alaska immediately.

Also on 30 July, HQ contacted the S-28 and the S 32, two submarines patrolling nearby and asked them to report immediately to the Kiska area.  They never saw Grunion, nor were they expecting to, and neither of them reported seeing a ship that day.  Commander Crowley, on the S-28 however, reported seeing a periscope around 10:45 am, and another (or the same one) at 2:38 pm that afternoon. S-28 never tried to identify that submarine as friend or foe and neither did the other (Japanese submarines were likely in the area.)  Both also recorded hearing underwater explosions between 2:36 pm and 10:31 pm on 31 July.  Both boats assumed that what they were hearing was the bombardment of Kiska Island.

After her transmission on 30 July, Grunion was never heard from again, and she was considered lost in August of that year, though the military, not hearing of any submarine attacks in the area and knowing of no mines, had no idea what happened.

Following the war, the Japanese records showed no anti-submarine attacks in that area around that date either, leaving the military to assume that Grunion may have been the victim of a mechanical failure or an unknown minefield.

But the sons of Commander Abele never gave up looking for their father, but they were faced with a huge problem:  that area of the ocean is large and treacherous.  Even during the summer, the weather may not hold.  S-28′s reports showed days of thick fog or storms when they couldn’t get a bearing.  it is also deep and full of reefs and shallow places.

Through an amazing lucky chance, a map to the final attack of the Grunion and her fate was discovered, and the Abele brothers set out to search for her remains based on the accounts of men who saw her final battle from the deck of her intended victim.  Published in the 60′s in a little known Japanese magazine, the map lead them almost straight to her, and over two seasons searching, once with sonar, once with an ROV, the Grunion finally came to light. (I’m truncating a lot of the story here, and will post a far better place to read the full story).

She’s been blown apart and rests almost ten times deeper than Flier.  Her bow is gone, and she imploded as she descended.  There is some evidence that she slid down the mountainside that she rests on.

The wreck is so deep there is no natural light down there. This artist used the photos and video brought back from the site to create this painting of what the Grunion looks like today. From ussgrunion.com

Perhaps, all those years ago, those underwater explosions that Crowley heard aboard S-28 was the Grunion’s dying breath.  Perhaps not.  But either way, it is interesting that Crowley was sent to the same area Grunion reported suffering a severe anti-submarine attack, and later, both the Grunion and the Flier, his future boat, would be found through the dogged determination of those left behind.

Grunion's periscope, photographed from above. From ussgrunion.com

S-28 was also lost during the course of the war near Hawaii.  Perhaps she will be the next one to come to light?


The Official Website of the USS Grunion, containing the story of her location, confirmation and photos of the wreckage, as well as theories as to what happened to her.

NavSource.org pages on the Grunion, containing many images and maps about Grunion

On Eternal Patrol’s website about Grunion, with photos of her crew.

Sailors, rest your oars.

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Grunion’s Ghost

Lost Subs, Where was Flier 66 years ago today? | Posted by Rebekah
Jul 31 2010

I was planning on making a larger and longer post today, but didn’t expect to find some interesting information which, if true, will make for a fascinating story.

Today is ths 68th anniversary of the disappearance of USS Grunion.

In many ways, she and Flier had similar stories:  they were both Gato boats, both built in Groton Connecticut (though two years apart) both had short careers and both left behind people determined to find them.  And both were, ultimately, found.

But as it turns out, there may be a link between Flier and Grunion far more interesting.  Because on July 31, 1942, Commander John D. Crowley was not the CO of Flier, he was the CO of the antique boat S-28, and was only a few miles from Grunion.

There’s a bit of an interesting point here that I’m still working on the maps for.  But the Grunion family have been so intrumental in finding all of our Flier families, and a number of them will be coming to the ceremony on August 13.

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More Exhibit things

Lost Subs, Memorial Ceremony, The Exhibit | Posted by Rebekah
Jul 21 2010

Well, one day closer to the memorial weekend, and if you need a hotel and haven’t gotten around to it yet, you might want to move.  In addition to the Holiday Inn, the museum also has some rooms at Shoreline Inn across the street. Depending on the room, both hotels have views of Muskegon Lake, and are within walking distance of the Frauenthal Theater, the Hackley and Hume Homes, Hackley Park, and LST-393 Museum (for another taste of WWII Naval History, this time, the European Theater!) plus a number of small independent stores and restaurants.   (Walking distance here being defined as within a mile)  My favorite food store in the whole world is only about a mile and a half away from those hotels too. Be careful if you visit, it’s ADDICTING.

I understand that the episode of Dive Detectives is beautiful and haunting,or at least, so I’m told.  The staff at the museum decided to run the movie completely through their system so they could get a replacement copy in time if there was a problem or glitch, and wouldn’t you know it, none of them seemed to have anything else to do while the test was running!  Some of you don’t know this, but I’m an independent contractor for the museum, and actually live about five hours away by car, so I haven’t seen it yet either!   AAArrghh!  But they said it was a beautiful film, very well done, so hopefully, we’ll all like it.

Here you see the scale depths of the five submarine wrecks discovered since 2005, as well as an overhead silhouette of a WWII-era submarine done to the same scale. (The triangles representing the wrecks are not to scale, but the depths are) All of these wrecks with the exception of the Grunion were explored using human divers.

One of the biggest problems they had in filming was the depth of the Flier herself.  Of the five submarines discovered since 2005, Flier is the deepest except for the Grunion.  She is, in fact, at the very edges to human endurance using SCUBA gear underwater.  For every dive aboard the Flier, which was three hours long, the divers were only able to take ten minutes on the Flier herself, so while they apparently did an amazing job filming, they were still limited to short takes and quick passes, since they had to document as quickly as they could.  If permission is granted later for a more thorough survey of the submarine, it would likely be done by ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) since they don’t have to take the precautions human divers do.

That being said, it is still, apparently, amazing.  If we weren’t down to one car now, I’d be half tempted to drive the 10-hour round trip to see it!

I’m finishing up the memorial booklet now.  I ended up doing the covers, Flier’s Story pages and the Flier’s crew page.  I finished everything except for the crew page, which is in the final stages right now.  (It’s really difficult to fit 79 men on two pages!) I hope everyone likes it, but you now know who to blame if you don’t!

As soon as this is done, I have to update some pages and work on the permanent exhibit layout.  Whew!  This is so going to be worth it!

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The Golet Goes to the Deep

Lost Subs, Where was Flier 66 years ago today? | Posted by Rebekah
Jun 17 2010

While Flier was attacking her convoy and having her stuffing pounded out of her, over two thousand miles away, another submarine saw her final day.

USS Golet was a Maitowoc boat and was built alongside the Redfin and  Robalo.  She launched just before Redfin and  Robalo were commissioned and shipped down the Mississippi.

On the day of her launch, she wore an unusual sign:  ”This Fighting Ship sponsored and made possible by war bond purchases of the people of Shreveport.”   I know of no other ship or submarine that bore a sign like that during their launch.  I wonder if the people of Shreveport had a celebration of her when she passed through the city on her way to the Gulf.

This is the Shreveport sign Golet wore just before her launch

She arrived at Pearl Harbor for final training then left on 18 March 1944 for her first patrol near the Kurile Islands, the island chain connecting northern Japan with the Kamchatka penninsula of Russia. (Herring was sunk in this chain a few days prior).  It was foul weather there, and between the rain, the fog and ice, she never really had a chance to get many targets.  During the entire patrol she only saw one thing that was worth of a torpedo, but it never got close enough to Golet.

The Golet during her trials on Lake Michigan the fall of 1943

She returned to Midway Island where her Commanding Officer, Philip Ross, was replaced with James S. Clark.  She was sent to patrol near the northeastern shore of Honshu on 28 May 1944.  She was never heard from again.

On 26 July, 1944, she was considered “Overdue and Presumed Lost”, though her men were listed as MIA, not KIA, as was normal for this time.

Following the war, Japanese records revealed that on June 14, 1944, a Japanese ship attacked a suspected submarine in Golet’s patrol area, and the attack resulted in debris of cork, rafts and a large pool of oil.  This was considered proof of Golet’s demise.

Perhaps owing to her unusual town sponsor, the state of Louisiana was given the Golet as their memorial submarine.  Her memorial stood on a  military base until its recent closing, and the memorial’s re-dedication has been postponed until a suitible site has been secured.

The Memorial Site for USS Golet and her crew

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The Map

Lost Subs, The Exhibit | Posted by Rebekah
Jun 14 2010

I am looking at the most extraordinary nautical chart today.

Over the weekend, I visited with the Jacobson family, and one of the items they allowed me to borrow was a chart of the Balabac Straits.  This, on its own,  would be interesting enough, but thanks to both Al Jacobson’s son, and Jim Liddell’s son, this chart is extraordinary.

From what I have been able to find out, after the Flier survivors reached the States, they went home to their families then on to their new assignments.  With the exception of Cmdr. Crowley and Lt. Liddell who were stationed together on USS Irex and remained close friends after the military, the survivors lost contact with one another.

But in 1994, with the help of Dr. Elaine Foster who located all eight Flier Survivors, they decided to meet together at Cmdr. Crowley’s home in Baltimore.  Only Crowley, Liddell, Jacobson, Miller and Russo were able to make it.

It was in a video recording of that meeting that I first saw this chart.  Lt. Liddell’s son came with his father, and recorded as the men pinned this chart up on the wall in Cmdr. Crowley’s living room and talked about where they had gone down and where they had swum.

In 1944, Cmdr. Crowley had to guess where the Flier went down, and he guessed “Comiran Island bearing 190 degrees T at 6700 yards”.  That bearing put the location of the sinking at 7 degrees, 58 minutes, 45 seconds North Latitude and 117 degrees, 13 minutes, 10 seconds East Longitude.  I marked that position below.

Now, the men also debated whether they swam in a straight line to the islands ans even which islands they landed on.  During WWII, Crowley decided that they must have landed on Mantangule, which you can see above, but Al, after studying the maps, was more inclined to believe that they landed on Byan, the tiny speck of green to the left of Mantangule.

They debated this for a while, and decided that the sinking position was correct, though they did land on Byan, not Mantangule, and probably either swam around the Roughton Reefs in the current, or swam between them.

It was a fascinating bit of video to watch.

In 1998, Al decided he wanted to go back to that area in the Philippines and see the places he didn’t mean to pass through in 1944. While there, he took this same chart along with him, and traced the route that he took in visiting his old haunts.  I can follow his 1998 boat coming down the eastern side of Palawan, passing within photo distance of Cape Baliluyan (where he met up with a guerilla outpost) snaking through the reefs until he made it to Comiran Island where they spotted the light that the lookouts on Flier saw moments before she went down, to the spot where she went down, back to Byan Island and Bugsuk Island, then back up the eastern coast of Palawan.  I also have the photos from this trip, which is helping me get a sense of what happened.  I’ll see if I can get permission to post them.

The most interesting thing to me is when Al got to the accepted coordinates of Flier’s sinking, he decided the surroundings didn’t match his memory from that night.  See, Al wasn’t watching the stern of Flier just before the mine hit, he was admiring the surrounding scenery.  It was, to his dying day, one of the most beautiful this he had ever seen.

So he asked the captain of his charter boat to keep moving until the scenery matched.  When it did, he marked it on the chart, but also recorded the GPS coordinates of it.  It was south(ish) of the accepted WWII estimate by more than a mile.

Al hoped someday that he could come back with professional gear and divers to look, but his health did not permit it.  When the Dive Detectives came calling after Al passed on, this chart was one of the things that they were given in the hope that the wreck could be found.

Al was always known for his thoroughness in his research and planning.  I wonder if he knew just how closely he had nailed the location.  From what I’ve been told,  when the Dive Detectives ship dropped the weighted sandbags down on the 1998 coordinates, they landed on the Flier herself.

Provided the Navy does not object to the display of this chart (they’re a little touchy about revealing the locations of their wrecks for security reasons) this map will hopefully make it into the exhibit.

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Play Catch Up and The Herring Greets Eternity

Lost Subs, Where was Flier 66 years ago today? | Posted by Rebekah
Jun 01 2010

So after Memorial Day Weekend, it’s time to play catch up with our three submarines.

The Robalo has safely made it into Fremantle Harbor sometime around May 30, and so now her crew would be on R&R while the relief crews and repair crews try to fix everything on the damaged list.

Redfin is only a day away from Lombok Strait on her way to her third patrol, and carrying the eight Signal Servicemen, bound for behind the lines reconnaissance work.  On the 30 of May, 1944, they spent the day next to Exmouth Gulf practicing getting these men and the massive amounts of gear off the Redfin, onto rubber rafts, and to shore.

Flier, of course, is still in the middle of nowhere, making her way west towards the battle fields.  She passed north of Wake Island, still occupied by Japanese forces, though due to the continuing advance of the Allies, the Japanese soldiers occupying the island were starting to starve.  American pilots would bomb the island occasionally, (in fact, a young pilot named George Herbert Walker Bush, bombed Wake Island during one of his first runs) but they were otherwise left alone.  All American military and civilians were gone from Wake now: some had been taken to POW camps elsewhere, and the 98 remaining civilians were executed in October 1943.  All American naval vessels steered clear of Wake, and she was slowly starving into submission.

As the Redfin and Flier are setting out on their patrols, and Robalo is taking her break, the Herring scored her last two kills and slipped into Eternal Patrol.

A Gato-class submarine built in Kittery Maine, Herring was one of the few boats who spent time in the Atlantic as well as the Pacific. For her first five patrols her homeport was Rosneath Scotland, where she first patrolled off Casablanca, Morocco in preparation for Operation Torch, the code name for the invasion of North Africa.  She later patrolled Icelandic waters and reported two kills, including a U-Boat (that was later not credited to her).

This photo, taken in Scotland around December 7, 1942, shows the Submarine Tender Beaver and two of her six sub charges. The six submarines stationed in Scotland at the time were the Herring, Barb, Blackfish, Shad, Gunnel and Gurnard. From navsource.org

Afterwards, she reported to the Pacific where she took down two ships on her sixth patrol and none on her seventh.

It was her eighth patrol, made with her Scottish mate USS Barb, which would be her most successful and fatal.  She left Pearl, re-fueled at Midway, and was assigned to patrol the Kurile Islands, which is string of islands trailing from Russia to northern Japan.  On May 31, according to the War Patrol Reports of USS Barb, (Pg. 155) they rendezvoused and decided to split the  patrol areas, Barb traveling the south and east way, and Herring taking the north and western islands, including Matsuwa Island.

She was never heard from again.

Post war records reveal that the night before seeing Barb, Herring sank two ships, the Hokuyo Maru, and the Ishigaki. In taking out the Ishigaki, Herring avenged her sister sub S-44, which the Ishigaki sank nearly eight months earlier.  After her meeting with the Barb, Herring found two ships at anchor, the Hiburi Maru and the Iwaki Maru, and promptly sank them.  This action cost her her life, since the sinking ships attracted the attention of the shore guns, which sank Herring, taking her eighty-three member crew with her.

USS Herring taken after her overhaul at Mare Island October 1943.

She has not been found.

Incidentally, Herring was assigned to Midway for overhaul between her sixth and seventh patrols, and she arrived there on January 8, 1944.  She was there when Flier grounded, when Macaw grounded and during the whole time the crew at Midway pried Flier free.  Even stranger, just as Flier lost a crewman to drowning, (James Cahl, on January 16) ,one of Herring’s crew, Louis Jones, also drowned at Midway on January 26, just three days after Flier was towed away.

She also had a connection with another lost ship, the Scorpion. According to Herring’s War Patrol Report, (page 96) one of Scorpion’s crew broke his arm and Scorpion requested a rendezvous and transfer of this man since they were heading out on patrol and Herring was nearby and returning.  The transfer was attempted, but the January seas made it impossible.  Since the arm appeared to be healing, the transfer was canceled, and the two submarines went on their way.  Scorpion was never seen again, and there are no Japanese records that hint at her possible fate.  What happened to her and where is a complete mystery, but the Herring was the last to see her.

An interesting article about the loss of the Herring. Note: a number of the links in the article are now disabled.

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Robalo Underway…and Farewell Thresher

Lost Subs, Where was Flier 66 years ago today? | Posted by Rebekah
Apr 11 2010

Sorry it took me so long to get back to the blog.

Saturday marked the 66th anniversary of Robalo leaving on her final complete patrol (her next one will be the fatal one) and the 47th anniversary of America’s first nuclear submarine disaster.

But first, the Robalo.  Sixty-six years ago yesterday, the Robalo pulled up anchor in Fremantle and took off for her second patrol, the first one under Commander Kimmel.  This patrol would be safe and successful, but would raise questions in September about the eventual fate of the Robalo.

The Robalo, underway in 1943

Fast forward to 1963.  While some WWII diesel boats ARE still in service, the American Navy is quickly replacing them with teardrop-shaped nuclear boats.  First the Nautilus in 1954, then the Seawolf III in 1957 (a liquid sodium cooling system that was quickly abandoned) and on an on, developing, improving, tweaking and changing, all under the intense (and some would say, terrifying) eye of Admiral Hymen G. Rickover.  Nine years of nuclear submarines and brand new technology in a dangerous and demanding environment without a massive loss.

Until April 10, 1963.  The USS Thresher, lead ship of her class, was at sea doing routine exercises.  A year earlier, she had been accidentally rammed by a tug boat during another exercise, and had been overhauled, and so was out testing all the new repairs.  She was accompanied by the Submarine Rescue Ship Skylark, just in case there were difficulties.

The Thresher, underway from the air. Notice the evolution in twenty years from a submarine like Robalo which was designed to fight and travel on the surface as well as temporarily underwater to the Thresher, which was designed to do everything underwater.

Just before 8 am, the submarine began a dive to her (officially published) test depth of 1300 feet.   She descended past a thermocline (see below) which caused her transmissions to be more garbled and difficult to hear.  Skylark kept calling Thresher, and, at 9:13 am, heard a very garbled but understandable message:  “Experiencing minor difficulty, have positive up-angle, attempting to blow.  Will keep you informed.”

The Skylark assured Thresher the sea was empty, in case she had to do an emergency surface.  Three minutes later, a garbled message was received, including the phrase “900N” the meaning of which is still unknown.   A minute after that, another garbled message, with only one intelligible phrase “…exceeding test depth…”  One minute later, the Skylark heard a low-frequency noise.  It sounded like an implosion.

That was it.  Nothing more was ever heard from the Thresher, though Skylark spent hours calling Thresher, asking her to respond via radio, smoke bomb, or any other means to show they were okay.

So 47 years ago today, the Navy announced the USS Thresher was lost at sea, with all hands, plus 19 civilian observers, a total of 129 people.

Dr. Robert Ballard, who would discover the Titanic a few weeks later (and those discoveries were connected),  discovered the remains of the Thresher in 1982.   From what was theorized in ’63 and confirmed in the imploded wreckage in ’82, the Thresher likely had a pipe burst in the engine room, flooding it.  These pipes were not welded like today’s subs (actually, the Thresher disaster is WHY modern sub pipes and hulls are welded) they were silver brazed, and it was known that there were some problems with some joints, though it was not considered a dangerous enough problem to need to fix.

This photograph is part of Thresher's hull, the white paint seen here used to say "593", the hull number of the Thresher. The Thresher was the lead ship of her class ("Thresher Class Submarines") but following her loss, many people called the class "Permit Class Submarines" after Thresher's next sister.

The water spray probably shorted out some electrical systems, prompting an automatic emergency shutdown of the nuclear reactor.  The ship tried to blow her ballast tanks, to surface, but later tests showed ice probably formed in the valves, keeping the ballast tanks water filled.  With the Engine Room flooding, the sub eventually sank, went past her crush depth and imploded. She tore herself into six main pieces.

The only mercy might be that when death finally came, it was nearly instantaneous.

Upon discovering the submarine had gone down due to mechanical failure (not Soviet interference) the US Navy instituted the SUBSAFE program, designed to rigorously and obsessively track and document the quality of construction of US Submarines (for example, welds are X-rayed to make sure there are no weak spots or air bubbles that would give way under pressure, and those X-rays are stored in case something happens to the sub) to make sure that slipshod construction never cost another crew their lives again.  Such attention to detail is one of the reasons why a submarine is, foot for foot, the most expensive naval vessels to build.

It was a sad end to 129 gallant souls the largest loss of life in a single submarine incident in American History.  May they rest in peace.

SO WHAT’S A THERMOCLINE?  The top surface of the ocean is repeatedly warmed by the sun by day and cooled at night.  The deeper the ocean goes, the cooler and more steady the temperature gets.  This does not happen at a steady rate.  A Thermocline is a layer in the ocean where the temperature falls more quickly than the layer above and below.  Thermoclines are very important for submarines, since they can be used to hide under and help deflect Sonar.  As the Thresher story shows, however, thermoclines can work against a submarine.

On Eternal Patrol’s Memorial Page for USS Thresher

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Pickerel

Lost Subs, Where was Flier 66 years ago today? | Posted by Rebekah
Apr 03 2010

Sixty-six years ago today, Flier was finishing up her repairs, Redfin was on patrol, and Robalo was completing training runs day and night to get ready for their next patrol.  It was also the anniversary of the Pickerel’s destruction.

When WWII began, Pickerel was already an older submarine, a sister of the Perch.  She was operating near the Philippines on December 8, and as soon as she heard of the invasion, she started hunted enemy ships.  She completed six war patrols, sinking two ships, before leaving Pearl Harbor for her ill-fated seventh patrol.  After topping off fuel at Midway, she departed for Honshu, the northern main island of Japan, and was never heard from again.  In August, the Navy announced her “overdue and presumed lost”.

She took 74 men with her.

The USS Pickerel as she appeared after her Mare Island refit. Notice the unusual additional torpedo tubes added to her bow up near the deck. When she was launched, she only had four torpedo tubes in her bow, rather than the six that soon became standard. Should she ever be found, these tubes would be a strong identifying marker, as would the odd shape of her bullnose, or the loop through which the mooring line is threaded on the tip of her bow.

After the war, Japanese records revealed that Pickerel likely sank at least two ships on her last patrol, then was destroyed by a depth charge attack  on or around this date.   It’s impossible to know what sank her, a ship or a plane since there were several ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) attacks in Pickerel’s patrol area at the same time.

Her wreck has not been found, and until it is, we’ll likely not know her exact fate.

On Eternal Patrol’s page of USS Pickerel’s Last Crew

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USS Trigger Fades into the sea

Lost Subs | Posted by Rebekah
Mar 30 2010

In 1941, three fearsome sisters were being constructed at Mare Island: The Silversides, the Trigger and the Wahoo.   They were sisters in every respect, they were built in the same yard, they were numbered consecutively (Silversides: SS-236; Trigger: SS-237; Wahoo: SS-238)  They were launched and commissioned within weeks of each other, and they looked like each other, down to the limber holes and lookout rings.

And according to Edward Beach, no three sisters created more havoc for the Japanese.  Between them, they sank 62 Japanese ships totaling 236,670 tons.  At least one CO from each sister is a top-scoring WWII submarine commander.

Wahoo went down in 1943, but the Trigger almost made it.  She made 12 patrols, and sank 18 ships for a total of 86,552 tons.  (This makes her the 11th most successful submarine in terms of ships sunk and 7th most successful in terms of amount of tons sunk.)

USS Trigger rigged out with her bunting just after she was launched at Mare Island.

In March of 1945, the war was drawing to a close.  The Philippines had been retaken.  There was a new submarine base at Guam so the subs didn’t have to travel all the way to Australia to re-fuel (a change not exactly welcomed by the crews: there were not many women on Guam and forget the pubs, bars, and theaters!).  Trigger, under the command of her fourth and brand new CO, David R. Connole, left Guam for her newest patrol area: near and around the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.  Two of the islands in this chain were Iwo  Jima, which was in the midst of the Marine Invasion, and Okinawa, which was next on the list.

She sank two ships, and was closely observing convoys through a particular strait (trying to figure out where the safe passage around the minefields were) when HQ ordered her to join a Wolf Pack (a group of submarines working together) named Earl’s Eliminators.  (The Sea Dog and Threadfin operating under the command of Sea Dog’s CO Earl T. Hydeman).

Later that day, she sent in a weather report, but no acknowledgment that she’d heard her orders.  HQ re-sent the message.  She never responded.  She was ordered to proceed to Midway on April 4, but did not respond.  When she hadn’t been heard from or arrived in Midway (or anywhere) by May 1, she was considered “overdue and presumed lost”.

After the war, a cross reference of Japanese ship records and American submarine records revealed Trigger’s likely fate:    A Japanese plane had spotted a submarine and lead two destroyers to the spot, where they attacked until an oil slick appeared on the surface (usually a sign of a ruptured and sunken sub).  Nearby, the Silversides, Hackleback, Threadfin and Sea Dog all heard the depth charges, but only Threadfin was lightly attacked.  Silversides heard the death of her second sister, without knowing it for nearly another year.

Trigger has never been found.  She does, however, live on in an unusual manner:

One of Trigger’s most famous crewmen was Edward L. Beach.  He was an officer assigned aboard during her commissioning, and was the last of these original officers to leave the Trigger over two years later.  He had served as her Executive Officer for one of those years.

Following the war, Beach, who had transferred to the Tirante before the fateful 12th patrol, continued to command submarines, including becoming the First Commanding Officer of Trigger II in 1952.

But what he’s now known for is his writing.  He wrote “Run Silent, Run Deep”, a novel based on fictional submarines, but the Trigger he immortalized in his second book, SUBMARINE!  Her men will forever live on in these pages.

The Memorial Page for Trigger’s final crew

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