The Tragedy of SEAWOLF
3 OCTOBER 1944
THE TRAGEDY OF SEAWOLF
The Sargo-class fleet submarine SEAWOLF (SS-197) was a veteran of the Pacific war by this date, having served nearly continuously since the Pearl Harbor raid. The 71,608 tons of enemy shipping she had sent to the bottom was the third highest total among contemporary SUBPAC boats. On 21 September 1944 she slid out of Brisbane to begin her 15th war patrol. This would be the second for her new skipper, LCDR Albert M. Bontier, who had been reassigned to this older boat after the unfortunate circumstance of running the newer Balao-class RAZORBACK (SS-394) aground. Her task on this cruise was to transport a 17-man US Army special operations squadron from Manus Island (near New Guinea) to the Philippine Island of Samar and drop off stores for friendly guerrillas operating there. Her course took her 1100 nautical miles WNW to Morotai, where she entered the designated “submarine safety corridor” to travel north through enemy waters to Samar. Heavy seas had put her 24 hours behind schedule, but at 0756 on the morning of 3 October she exchanged signals with NARWHAL (SS-167) off Morotai and headed north on the surface.
An alert lookout on the conning tower spotted an incoming aircraft around noon. Though she was cruising in the “no-fire” corridor, SEAWOLF took no chances. “Dive! Dive! Dive!” was heard over the 1MC. She submerged just in time to avoid a pair of 335# aerial bombs, and aware that his position had been disclosed, Bontier kept the boat submerged. As expected, the screws of a warship could be heard shortly, followed by the pinging of surface sonar. Bontier recognized the signature sounds to be those of an American warship and was undoubtedly surprised to hear the splashes of depth charges. In a frantic effort to communicate with his misguided attacker, Bontier sent acoustic recognition signals–but to no avail. Activities in the minutes that followed aboard SEAWOLF will never be known.
When SEAWOLF failed to return from her 15th patrol it became apparent that she had been the mistaken victim of RICHARD M. ROWELL’s (DE-403) attack. A Board of Inquiry discovered that though SEAWOLF had properly communicated her presence in the safety corridor to 7th Fleet headquarters, the message had not been passed to “Taffy 3.” The most current reports in ROWELL’s hands identified no friendly submarines within 70 miles. LCDR Harry A. Barnard was called to task for prosecuting a submarine in the safe corridor, and for his judgment that the contact’s signals were an attempt to jam his sonar. However the Board excused Barnard considering the sinking to be, “due to over-zealousness to destroy an enemy,” an attribute the Navy did not wish to censure in 1944.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 10 OCT 23
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 98, 422-23.
Holmes, Harry. The Last Patrol. Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1994, pp. 128-29, 191-98.
Roscoe, Theodore. Pig Boats: A True Account of U.S. Submariners in Gallant Battle Against Imperial Japan. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1982, pp. 356-58.
Roscoe, Theodore. United States Destroyer Operations in World War II. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 413-14.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: SEAWOLF is one of two American submarines believed to have succumbed to friendly fire during WWII. The other was DORADO (SS-248) that is surmised to have been mistakenly sunken 12 October 1943 while in transit on her maiden voyage from New London to the Panama Canal by a patrol plane operating out of Guantanamo Bay. DORADO was also lost with all hands.
RO-41 did not survive the war. She was sunk by HUDSON (DD-475) after a successful four-hour attack on 5 April 1945 off Okinawa.
SEAWOLF’s name is carried on today in the naming of our nuclear powered, 21st century attack submarine, SSN-21.
