Loss of POMPANO
25-27 SEPTEMBER 1943
LOSS OF POMPANO
On Thursday, September 30th, 1943, the staff of COMSUBPAC in Pearl Harbor awaited the arrival of USS POMPANO (SS-181), completing her seventh war patrol. She had last been seen five weeks earlier on 20 August, when LCDR Willis M. Thomas and his crew of 50 shoved off for a dangerous mission hunting down enemy shipping directly off the Japanese home islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. PICKEREL (SS-177) had failed to return from the northern Honshu area in April. RUNNER (SS-275) had been sent there later that summer but was overdue since 11 July. POMPANO was to patrol until 27 September, then shape a course back to Hawaii for refit. But nothing had been heard from her. More days passed. Weeks passed. Then it became apparent that LCDR Willis and his crew would not be returning.
Commissioned several years before World War II erupted in Europe, the Porpoise-class SS-181 was a veteran of the Pacific war by this point. Thomas had been her skipper since her third patrol, credited with sinking the seaplane tender SAGARA MARU, the picket boat NANSHIN MARU, along with several smaller ships, and damaging four others. Destroyers were considered low-priority targets at this stage of the war as efforts concentrated on denying the island nation of shipping. But on this cruise, POMPANO had attacked and missed two destroyers and even fired in a radar-guided night attack at a large blip thought to be a carrier.
It was not until Japanese naval records were recovered after the war that further information about POMPANO was learned. These records showed that on September 1st the 451-ton coaster Nankai Maru fell victim to a torpedo. On September 3rd, the 5600-ton transport Akama Maru was introduced to Davy Jones. Nanking Maru was damaged in a 9 September attack but managed to limp away. And the 2958-ton auxiliary Taiko Maru went down on this day, all in the area POMPANO was patrolling. (Taiko Maru was later credited to USS WAHOO (SS-238)). These same captured records showed no anti-submarine attacks by Imperial Japanese Navy vessels in the area at this time, although the presence of a newly laid minefield was revealed.
Today it is thought that POMPANO, and probably PICKEREL and RUNNER before her, fell victim to that minefield. The exact circumstances are not known, perhaps they were positioning for submerged attacks, or perhaps transiting on the surface, but the mine explosions apparently happened so quickly and so violently that all hands on all three boats were lost. In view of these losses COMSUBPAC RADM Charles A. Lockwood decided to give the area a temporary reprieve. From the point of view of our submarine Navy PICKEREL, RUNNER, and POMPANO remain on patrol to this day.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 29 SEP 26
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Blair, Clay, Jr. Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Vol 1. New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1975, p. 433.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, pp. 345-46.
Holmes, Harry. The Last Patrol. Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1994, pp. 47-48, 55-58.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 163.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: According to custom, the Pompano name was re-assigned to SS-491, laid down in July 1945. But SS-491 was canceled on the ways when the war ended a month later. LCDR Thomas was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. His widow was honored on 5 March 1951 as the sponsor of USS BARRACUDA (SSK-1).
