Last Cruise of TANG
24 SEPTEMBER-24 OCTOBER 1944
LAST CRUISE OF TANG
The Balao-class WWII submarine USS TANG (SS-306) had amassed an enviable 18 ship sinkings totaling 120,476 tons, including a tender and two military transports, on her first four patrols. On 24 September 1944, TANG put out from Pearl Harbor on her fifth war patrol. CDR Richard H. O’Kane had been given orders to patrol the strait between China and the northwest coast of Formosa. She topped-off with fuel at Midway on 27 September and headed west, after which TANG was not heard from again. The story of her last cruise was untold until her commanding officer was released from a Japanese POW camp at the end of the war.
The first month of the patrol was extremely productive, eclipsing the record of any previous submarine by sinking 13 Japanese vessels. She had fired only twenty-two of her new Mark XVIII electric torpedoes, and prospects to increase the toll were excellent. On the night of 24 October TANG returned to the site of a previous attack to finish off a transport that had been stopped but not sunken. From the surface under the cover of darkness, O’Kane fired a torpedo. It was observed to be running true, and a second was fired. This second torpedo malfunctioned, curving sharply to port, porpoising several times, then circling back toward TANG. O’Kane ordered emergency speed and threw the rudder hard to starboard. This maneuver only succeeded in having the torpedo strike from astern rather than amidships. The explosion was so violent that sailors in the forward compartment suffered broken limbs. Three of the nine crewmen on the bridge were able to swim free as the submarine sank by the stern. She came to rest at 180 feet with a fire in the battery compartment having chased the crew forward. Escape was delayed by a Japanese patrol dropping depth charges. Then as the intense heat was melting paint on the bulkhead, thirteen men escaped through the forward hatch; eight reached the surface.
Two more were lost during the night, leaving only nine crewmembers to be rescued by the Japanese frigate CD-34. Beaten by their captors, CDR O’Kane allowed, “When we realized that our clubbings and kickings were being administered by the burned, mutilated survivors of our own handiwork, we found we could take it with less prejudice.” The nine were put to forced labor in the mines of Ashio, Japan, where all survived the war.
For her unsurpassed record of sinking 31 vessels for a total of 227,800 tons, and damaging two others, TANG was the recipient of two Presidential Unit Citations. Her commander, Richard H. O’Kane, has been praised as the submarine force’s most outstanding officer and was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 6 OCT 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 37-39.
Holmes, Harry. The Last Patrol. Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1994, pp. 136-39.
O’Kane, Richard H. Clear the Bridge! The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1977.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: TANG’s wreck was investigated by Japanese salvage divers during the war, though no recovery efforts were begun. Later, during an early 1950s brush between Taiwan and mainland China, a patrolling US destroyer located a submarine contact lying on the bottom. Depth charges were dropped until it was recognized that the contact lay in the approximate position of TANG’s sinking.
Among the 78 sailors lost with TANG was Rubin MacNiel Radford, who, at age 15, may have been the youngest American serviceman to be lost in combat during WWII.
When the nine were rescued, the bow of the transport they had attempted to sink was still protruding vertically from the sea.
Submarine torpedoes were launched with a burst of compressed air. However, this occasionally jammed the torpedo’s rudder, causing it to circle back toward the submarine.
