OPERATION “CAESAR”

On 5 December 1944 the Type IX long-range U-boat U-864 departed Kiel, northern Germany, for Penang, Indochina (modern Malaysia).  The Japanese coveted German jet aircraft technology and U-864’s mission was to transport Messerschmitt “Swallow” jet engine parts and two aeronautical engineers, Rolf von Chlingenspreg and Riclef Schmerus, to the Emperor.  This mission, Operation “Caesar,” was one of several U-boat shipments in the final months of WWII.  Two Japanese nautical engineers, Tadao Yamoto and Toshio Nakai, were on board hitching a ride home.  As well, 1857 flasks (65 tons) of the strategic metal mercury, used for explosive primers, were packed as ballast along the keel.

But U-864 had problems.  Avoiding the many British patrols of the North Sea required cruising submerged, running her diesel engines via a schnorkel breathing device.  Korvettenkapitän Ralf-Reimar Wolfram hugged the Norway coast, at least until he ran aground and had to put in at Bergen, Norway, for repairs.  While there, on 12 January, the Bergen submarine base was bombed by the British, damaging U-864 further.  Wolfram could not get underway again until 30 January, trying to make a 10 February rendezvous with an escort off the Hellisoy Light on Fedje Island, Norway.  But on this day the U-boat’s starboard engine began missing, a noisy problem that demanded a return to Bergen.

Little did Wolfram know that the British were aware of his movements.  Code breakers at Bletchly Park had deciphered the German “Enigma” encoder and were reading the message traffic to U-864.  The submarine HMS VENTURER had been dispatched to the Hellisoy Light where LT James S. Launders, RN, lay in wait, submerged.  His passive sonar now picked up a strange motor noise.  Turning his periscope in the direction of the noise he spotted the feather wake of a schnorkel.  For two hours he remained submerged, tracking the contact with passive sonar and plotting her movements.  Launders then took up a position along her expected path and at the calculated moment fired a spread of four torpedoes.

Wolfram knew his noisy engine would give away his position and was zig-zagging underwater back to Bergen.  For several hours he coursed invisibly–he thought.  But out of nowhere the sonarmen suddenly heard high-speed propeller noises.  The first, second, and third torpedoes passed into the distance, but the fourth struck U-864 amidships.  She broke in two and sank, taking all hands, in this first recorded duel between two submerged submarines.

The wreck of U-864 was located in 2003.  Though she is a war grave, the mercury aboard represents a serious environmental hazard, and clean-up efforts by the Norwegian government are ongoing.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History’  13 FEB 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Brasse, Marc, Christopher Rowley and Karl Vandenhole, Directors.  “U-864: Hitler’s Last Deadly Secret.”  Military Channel documentary (November 2012), Discovery Communications, 2007.

Tarrant, V.E.  The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, p. 137.

Wynn, Kenneth.  U-Boat Operations of the Second World War  Vol 2: Career Histories, U511-UIT25.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, pp. 177-78.

The post Operation “Caesar” appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                           OPENING THE ARCTIC

The 1950s saw the United States embroiled in a “Cold War” to halt the spread of Soviet Communism.  Indeed, by the late 50s the Soviets, once thought to be technologically backward, appeared to have a leg up on the US.  They had shocked the West with the explosion of their first atomic bomb on 29 August 1949, as they did with their launch of the first successful earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik, on 4 October 1957.  American planners genuinely worried that the Soviet Union would eclipse our capabilities.  Defense in this day hinged on atomic weapons that by the 1950s could be delivered by ballistic missiles deployed on stealthy nuclear-powered submarines–with one shortfall.  The 1500-mile range of the Polaris missile then under development would not reach deep within the Soviet Union unless our submarines operated dangerously close to the Soviet coast.  Attention focused immediately on the Arctic Ocean.

In July of 1958, USS NAUTILUS (SSN-571) made the first-ever sustained sortie under the Arctic ice cap, culminating on 3 August with her arrival under the ice at the magnetic North Pole.  Meanwhile on 30 July, USS SKATE (SSN-578), too, penetrated the Arctic.  She cruised for ten days under the ice, traveling some 2400 miles and surfacing eight times in polynyas (open water breaks in the ice).  In conjunction with Project “Ice Skate” she cooperated in underwater homing exercises with two Air Force drift stations near the Pole.  Then in the early hours of this day, SKATE became the second naval vessel to reach the North Pole.

NAUTILUS had been content simply to reach the Pole, but CDR James F. Calvert had a further goal to accomplish.  Technology of that day still required submarines to surface to conduct most of their operations; thus, SKATE began searching for a break in the ice.  Within a few hours a polynya was located, and Calvert carefully positioned his sub under the opening.  All engines stopped.  Water was slowly pumped from the ballast tanks.  But as the sub inched upward, the current carried her, and at 0647 her stern nudged against the underside of the ice.  Her sail had already broken the surface and Calvert steadied the boat here as Executive Officer LCDR John Nicholson sent this message:

REACHED GEOGRAPHIC NORTH POLE AUGUST ELEVENTH.  NOW IN POLYNYA ABOUT FORTY MILES FROM POLE.  ALL WELL.

The message electrified our Naval command.  Our nation’s strategic defense was assured with SKATE’s achievement of a successful surfacing near the Pole.  And the entire Arctic Ocean was opened for operations by our Navy!

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  18 AUG 25

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, p. 524.

Hewlett, Richard G. and Francis Duncan.  Nuclear Navy 1946-1962.  Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1974, pp. 370-71.

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, pp. 209, 212.

Williams, Marion D.  Submarines under the Ice:  The U.S. Navy’s Polar Operations.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, pp. 134-38.

The post Opening the Arctic appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                      LAST CALL FROM GRUNION

On 30 June 1942, LCDR Mannert L. Abele conned the new Gato-class submarine USS GRUNION (SS-216) out of Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol.  WWII was seven months old, and the first glimmers of success in the Pacific had been recorded weeks earlier at the battles of Coral Sea and Midway.  Efforts to reverse Japanese gains were beginning, in particular, their annoying presence on American soil in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.  GRUNION was to patrol in that area, assigned to the sea lanes north of enemy-held Kiska Island.  Her first action came on 15 July when she fired three torpedoes unsuccessfully at a destroyer and was depth-charged for her efforts.  Later that same day Abele’s crew battled three sub chasers, this time sinking Ch. 25 and Ch. 27 and damaging the third.  She prowled the area for the next two weeks despite increasing Japanese wariness.  On this day, GRUNION reported heavy anti-submarine activity at the approaches to Kiska Harbor, receiving a recall to Dutch Harbor as well.  When nothing further was seen or heard from her thereafter, on 5 October GRUNION was officially listed as overdue and presumed lost.

Her demise remained a mystery, for Japanese records failed to report any sinking around the time of GRUNION’s disappearance.  Then in March 1963 a sailor claiming to have been the superintendent aboard the 8572-ton freighter Kano Maru came forward with the story that on 31 July 1942, the day after GRUNION’s last report, the freighter was steaming in heavy fog off Kiska.  Suddenly two torpedoes streaked toward her, one missing and the other penetrating without exploding aft of her starboard engine room.  Her machinery flooded and her generator and radio were knocked out.  Japanese merchant sailors sprang to their 8cm gun and began firing at a periscope wake to starboard.  Another torpedo passed harmlessly under the keel, followed by three more, two of which struck but again failed to detonate.  Kano Maru’s attacker then broke the surface to port in an apparent attempt to employ her deck gun.  A lucky shot from the Japanese gun riddled her conning tower just as her main deck went dry.  Then a tall spout of water erupted near the submarine, and she slipped beneath the waves.

If the above account truly describes GRUNION’s loss, modern navalists doubt that a single hit to her “sail” would have sunk the boat.  It is theorized that one of her own errant torpedoes may have circled back to strike GRUNION, a dangerous defect of early WWII torpedoes.  In any case, her 70 crewmen remain unaccounted for.  LCDR Abele was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, and before the end of WWII he was further commemorated with the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733). 

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  5 AUG 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 170.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, p. 222.

Holmes, Harry.  The Last Patrol.  Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1994, pp. 24-25.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol VII  Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1951, pp. 7, 12.

“Search for the USS Grunion.”  AT: http://ussgrunion.com/blog/2006/ 09/22/whitefish-engineer-returns-from-stormy-bering-sea-with-tale-of-discovery/, 5 October 2006.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  As illustrated above, the Mark 41 torpedo that was in use early in WWII was notoriously defective.  It often deviated from its set depth, and the fusing mechanism failed when the torpedo made a directly perpendicular hit (the desired attack angle).  Modern torpedoes do not arm until they have traveled a prescribed distance to prevent disaster if a torpedo accidentally circles back to its launch point.

In the years since WWII, surviving relatives of LCDR Abele conducted an intensive search for GRUNION.  After months of privately funded, open-ocean searching with towed side-scanning sonar, in August 2006 they announced the discovery of a hard target appearing to be the wreckage of a WWII submarine 2700 feet down off Kiska, just north of McArthur Reef.  This location supports the story of the Japanese sailor from 1963.  The identity of GRUNION’s wreck was confirmed by the Navy in October 2008.  Her 70 crewmen remain aboard.

USS MANNERT L. ABELE was also lost in WWII, falling victim to kamikazes off Okinawa 12 April 1945.

The post Last Call from GRUNION appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                          “THIS CAN’T BE GOOD”

“This can’t be good,” Chief Paul DeLange thought to himself as he stood on the deck of the attack submarine USS FINBACK (SSN-670) early this morning overseeing the aft line handlers.  Disco music blared from speakers rigged on the sail as FINBACK got underway from the Port Canaveral facility in Florida.  But what held the Chief’s attention was on the port fairweather dive plane.  As a tugboat towed the nuclear sub through the restricted waters of Canaveral inlet, a go-go dancer clad only in a thong and sneakers gyrated on the dive plane to the obvious delight of the crew!

Unorthodox actions were not foreign to CDR Connelly D. Stevenson, skipper of FINBACK.  Previously, he had converted the wardroom dining table for ping-pong.  He was notorious for wearing non-regulation head gear on the bridge, often exchanging his ballcap with pilots in foreign ports.  His thoughts were for his crew who had just finished a laborious, long-hours overhaul.  Morale was low in the Navy in this post-Vietnam era.  Retention was poor, funding inadequate, substance abuse was common, facial hair abounded, and discipline was problematic.  Surely a bit of levity as the boat began this long deployment would brighten the crew’s outlook.

Cathy “Cat” Futch was a dancer known to many of the 121-man crew from the Cork Club, a local Port Canaveral hotspot.  The crew had convinced Stevenson to let her perform as they got underway.  After about ten minutes of dancing FINBACK glided past the “boomer” ALEXANDER HAMILTON (SSBN-617) and at this cue Ms. Futch stopped, re-donned her long white robe, pocketed cash collected from the crew, and transferred to the waiting pilot boat.

Word of the event rose as high as the Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger.  On August 1^st, shortly after FINBACK reached her station near the Bahamas, a message from SUBGRU Six commander, CAPT Austin Scott, instructed Stevenson to abort his mission and return to Norfolk.  A month later the Washington Post broke the story, and the Navy had a major public image debacle on her hands.  Ms. Futch was instantly the most popular go-go dancer in the country, and later stated, “I never saw such a smiling bunch of men go to sea.”  Within the Navy opinions ranged from solid support to categorical rejection.

CNO, ADM James L. Holloway III ultimately decided Stevenson’s fate, detaching him for cause and awarding a Letter of Reprimand and a fine.  The punishment was later reduced to a Letter of Admonition and the fine was waived.  This allowed Stevenson to retain eligibility for promotion, though all agreed his chances were remote.  He was reassigned to the Naval Research Laboratory in London and subsequently left the Navy. 

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  14 JUL 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Taylor, Robert A.  “Cat on a Cold Steel Dive Plane.”  Naval History, Vol 24 (1), February 2010, pp. 40-43.

Trescott, Jacqueline.  “After Dancing Topless on a Submarine, the Bar Scene Isn’t the Same.”  Washington Post, 25 June 1977.

Wilson, George C.  “Topless Dance on Sub Gets Skipper Beached.”  Washington Post, 9 September 1975, p. A1.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Secretary of the Air Force, John L. McLucas, seized the occasion to jab at the Navy, “even the Navy thinks $100 million is far too much to spend for a go-go dancer platform.”

Cat Futch enjoyed her fame briefly, claiming familiarity with the Navy from having been previously married to a sailor.  After a series of dead-end jobs that followed, she enlisted in the US Marine Corps.  But she was dropped from boot camp at Parris Island for medical reasons, problems she blamed on her treatment at the hands of resentful instructors and officers.

FINBACK was decommissioned 28 March 1997 and broken up for scrap.

The post “This Can’t Be Good” appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                WORLD WAR I AT OUR DOORSTEP

The bright sun and calm seas off Delaware’s coast this morning belied the sinister intent with which U-151 cruised the surface.  Germany and the US had been at war for a year, and U-151 had entered US waters with orders to lay mines in major American roadsteads.  On May 22^nd she had surfaced in the Chesapeake Bay and laid over 50 floating mines at its entrance.  While working on deck to do so, her crewmen had watched the lights of Virginia Beach and had listened to weather forecasts, sports news, and stock quotes from an Arlington radio station.  She then coursed north to the Delaware Bay, destroying the freighters SS Hattie Dunn, Hauppage, and Edna along the way.  More mines were laid inside Cape May, after which U-151 then shaped a course for New York City.  There the sub had dragged a cutting bar back and forth across the entrance to the harbor, severing two transatlantic telephone cables.

This day found U-151 prowling for unwary freighters off our coast.  Commercial ships of sail still operated in 1918, and a sail on the horizon turned out to be the merchant schooner Isabel B. Wiley, outbound from Philadelphia.  A shot across her bows halted the surprised schooner, but as her crew was coming to grips with a German submarine in US waters, another form appeared on the horizon.  U-151’s skipper, Korvettenkapitän Henrich von Nostitz und Jänckendorf, instructed Wiley to heave to and sped off after the steamer Winneconne.  The unarmed steamer’s crew had heard rumors of a U-boat in the area and once halted, accepted a prize crew.  Winneconne was conned back to Wiley, who had, curiously, stood by dutifully into the wind.  Both ships were destroyed with TNT.

U-151 left US waters in July having avoided the US Navy.  Her first such contact occurred on her return to Germany when she spotted a familiar silhouette, the former Norddeutsche Lloyd liner Kronprinz Wilhelm, then serving the US Navy as the troop transport USS VON STEUBEN (SP-3017).  A torpedo attack missed.

None of the seven German U-boats that operated off the American coast from May through October 1918 were originally built to be combatants.  Rather they were designed as submersible blockade runners, a novel innovation of the German Merchant Marine.  They smuggled sorely needed supplies from America to Germany past the British blockade.  U-151 had started her career as the merchant sub SS Oldendorf.  But after the US entered WWI and the Kaiser’s ships were no longer welcome in US ports, the German Merchant Marine converted the “U-cruisers” for military use.  The seven are credited with sinking 44 American freighters totaling 110,000 tons.  And a mine, probably sown by U-156, sank the only US Navy capital ship to be lost in WWI, the armored cruiser USS SAN DIEGO (ACR-6).

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  6 JUN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Harding, Stephen.  Great Liners at War.  Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1997, p. 45.

Scheck, William.  “Under the British Blockade:  The Cruise of the Deutschland,”  Sea Classics, Vol 28 (9), September 1995, pp. 58-63, 67-69.

Tarrant, V.E.  The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 70-71.

Thomas, Lowell.  Raiders of the Deep.  New York, NY: Award Books, 1964, pp. 254-93.

van der Vat, Dan.  Stealth at Sea:  The History of the Submarine.  New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994, pp. 105-06, 119.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The story of Germany’s unarmed merchant subs is an interesting twist of naval history.  WWI occurred at the dawn of the age of submarines, and this was only one of several novel German experiments into methods of U-boat deployment.  The most famous of these merchant subs was SS Deutschland, who made two successful cargo voyages between the US and Germany in 1916-17.  When sailing as unarmed merchantmen these “U-cruisers” were not commissioned into the Kaiser’s Imperial Navy and of course flew the German Tricolor (black, white and red vertical bars) rather than the Kaiser’s Eagle war ensign.

The fact that the Germans used submarines to mine the Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York waterways in both WWI and WWII was not widely publicized.  The fact that several American ships were destroyed by these mines continues to be poorly appreciated today.

The post WWI at the Doorstep appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                           “DOWN THE THROAT”

USS WAHOO (SS-238) is one of best remembered submarines of WWII, and her third war patrol from 14 January to 7 February 1943, under CDR Dudley W. “Mush” Morton, is perhaps the most noteworthy of her career.  Assigned to reconnoiter the Japanese anchorage at Wewak, New Guinea, Morton’s transit from Brisbane was preceded by three days of anti-submarine exercises with the destroyer PATTERSON (DD-392).  On the afternoon of the last exercise day, PATTERSON spotted WAHOO’s periscope wake and charged.  Morton took advantage of the circumstance to drill his crew in the chancy maneuver of a bow-on attack.

On this day, WAHOO made New Guinea but was chased from Victoria Bay on Kairiru Island by two Chidori-class destroyers.  Morton moved nearby to a narrow strait between Kairiru and Mushu Islands, known to be a foul-weather anchorage for the Japanese.  Unable to see into this anchorage or maneuver to the other side of the island, Morton realized the only way to scout the refuge was to penetrate its shallow waters.  He sneaked nine miles up the narrow strait undetected, with only the tip of the periscope visible.  Here he lined up on a tender and fired three torpedoes.  They missed, and now a destroyer closing from 10^o to port turned to charge headforemost down the torpedo wakes.  Prudence dictated that Morton crash dive and shoot from sonar bearings.  Confined by the shallow water however, and fresh from his encounter with PATTERSON, Morton chose a more daring option.  He instantly recognized that if he fired at a range greater than 1200 yards the destroyer would have time to turn away.  Yet if he fired at less than 700 yards the torpedoes wouldn’t run long enough to arm.  And, the 30-knot destroyer would traverse the 500 yards of vulnerability in only 30 seconds!

Morton used the tick marks in the periscope’s crosshairs from the destroyer’s masthead and the waterline to gauge distance and estimated his shots.  At 1400 yards the first torpedo leapt free.  An interminable few seconds later the enemy reached 850 yards and the second “fish” gushed forth.  WAHOO dove, passing 80 feet by the time the first torpedo should have hit.  But the only sound was the now deafening screw noise of the onrushing destroyer!  His men braced for the inevitable depth charges; the first “crash” jarred the sub seconds later.  But this blast was quickly followed by the crackling sound of steam hitting cold water.  Everyone in the control room exclaimed almost in unison, “We hit the son of a bitch!”  WAHOO surfaced to see the destroyer cut in two just forward of her stack.  But now in great danger of discovery, WAHOO turned and slipped back to the open sea.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  31 JAN 25

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, pp. 354-57.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 52-53.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 30.

O’Kane, Richard H.  WAHOO:  The Patrols of America’s Most Famous WWII Submarine.  Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1987, pp. 122-23, 135-40.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 158.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This brazenly daring maneuver did not end the heroics of this cruise, for the following day WAHOO located a small convoy at sea.  She dodged escort attacks to sink three and damage a fourth ship, earning “Mush” Morton the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal, and the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, for this cruise. 

The episode above was in part the inspiration for Edward Beach’s novel and the 1958 Hollywood classic “Run Silent, Run Deep” starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.  In that film Gable plays the skipper of a fictitious submarine “USS Nerka,” who drills and drills his crew, then successfully executes a bow-on shot at the climax of the film.  The exterior shots for this movie were filmed at the SubBase in San Diego, using USS REDFISH (SS-395).  The film debuted on 1 April 1958 with a special showing to an audience of US sailors aboard USS PERCH (SS-313).

The post “Down the Throat” appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                          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.

The post Last Cruise of TANG appeared first on Today in Naval History.

FIRST SUBMARINE

The world’s first operational submarine was the brainchild of physician and inventor David Bushnell while a student at Yale College in 1771.  During the 1775 British blockade of Boston, he and his brother Ezra gave the idea physical form.  Their efforts produced a one-man craft that was able to fully submerge and surface by flooding or pumping her bilges.  Forward motion was accomplished with a forward-mounted propeller connected to a manual crank inside.  The pilot navigated through glass portholes in a short conning tower.  By virtue of her egg-shaped hull, Bushnell named her Turtle.  She carried a single “torpedo,” a 100# gunpowder charge that floated externally tethered to a bolt.  That bolt could be screwed into the underside of an enemy vessel by means of a hand crank.  A timer would trigger detonation after one hour, hopefully enough time for the sub to retire.

By TURTLE’s launch, the British had vacated Boston for New York, where the sub made her debut late this night north of Staten Island.  Ezra Bushnell had fallen ill, and ironically it was a SGT in the Continental Army, Ezra Lee, who became the world’s first submariner.  Lee departed the dock about 2230, moving toward the largest warship in the British anchorage, HMS EAGLE, 64, the flagship of ADM Richard “Black Dick” Howe.  The novel craft proved surprisingly stable as Lee approached from the stern.  He was able to glide undetected to within earshot, where he opened the cocks and submerged as planned.  But as Lee rose under EAGLE’s hull he encountered a problem.  Copper sheathing (or perhaps marine fouling) prevented the bolt from penetrating.  Following a lengthy second attempt Lee, who was still new at the controls, accidentally broached beside the warship.  Luckily, he remained undetected, but the approach of dawn broke off Lee’s attack.

The speed of the little craft left much to be desired, and by sunrise Lee was still within sight of the British fort on Governor’s Island, cranking steadily.  A few curious British, unaware of what they were seeing, set out in a launch to investigate.  And as they rowed nearer, Lee imagined his capture to be inevitable.  In a last act of sacrifice he released the torpedo, hoping to destroy both his sub and the British launch.

His pursuers, however, lost interest and returned to shore.  The torpedo drifted with the tide and detonated harmlessly inside the enemy anchorage.  The explosion did startle Howe however, who slipped his cables and moved the fleet to the south of Staten Island.  Lee safely regained the dock.  He made two equally futile later attempts at enemy warships before TURTLE was lost in the Hudson River while escaping a British incursion.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  12-13 SEP 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. 354-55.

Friedman, Norman.  U.S. Submarines through 1945:  An Illustrated Design History.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1995, pp. 11-12.

Wagner, Frederick.  Submarine Fighter of the American Revolution:  The Story of David Bushnell.  New York, NY: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1963.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Only one week earlier, on the night of 29-30 August, GEN George Washington had escaped certain capture in the Brooklyn Heights when John Glover’s “Marbleheaders” ferried Washington, his troops, their horses, and their cannon across the East River in a stunning 9-hour night evolution.  Miraculously, the British fleet of “Black Dick” Howe had been prevented from blocking the East River by contrary winds.

TURTLE stood seven feet high and was constructed of wooden staves, much like a barrel.  Some texts refer to this craft as American Turtle.  As above, TURTLE rose and sank simply by flooding her bilges, then hand-pumping them dry.  The same system was used in the later Civil War submarine H.L. HUNLEY.

History commonly credits inventor John Ericsson of Civil War fame with the innovation of the screw propeller.  But in truth the propeller on TURTLE, though spindly and underpowered, looks much like a modern propulsion screw.

Underwater pumpkin carving contests are popular with sport diving clubs in October.  And as anyone who has attempted to carve a pumpkin underwater will attest, the effort above to screw a bolt into an enemy hull was doomed to fail.  At neutral buoyancy one is “weightless” underwater, and any force applied to the carving knife against the pumpkin simply results in your weightless body being pushed backward.

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                                             PALAWAN RESCUE

On the night of 13 August 1944, USS FLIER’s (SS-250) surface transit of the Balabac Strait off Borneo was suddenly blasted by a deafening explosion.  Like her sister, ROBALO (SS-273), two weeks earlier, FLIER had struck a Japanese mine.  The screech of twisting steel, the rush of water, and the cries of men only briefly split the night, for within 30 seconds the sub slipped 300 feet below.  Only 13 reached the surface.  After struggling for 15 hours in the water, eight washed up on Mantangula Island in the Philippines.

News of the overdue ROBALO and FLIER crackled across the radios at 7^th Fleet Headquarters in Brisbane, Australia, on 24 August.  Friendly natives had delivered the eight worn-out FLIER survivors to an Army coast watcher near Brooks Point on the Philippine island of Palawan.  Four earlier survivors from Robalo had not been so lucky.  They had fallen in with natives allied to the Japanese and been turned over to the enemy.  Evacuation was requested, but first 7^th Fleet Intelligence began a devilish game of confirming the message.

The coast watcher dispatch read as if it had been drafted by a naval officer, and it was signed by “Crowley”–FLIER’s skipper was CDR John D. Crowley.  Over the next days, however, Brisbane’s rescue scenarios were put on hold after it was learned that the non-com OIC of the Palawan coast watcher unit, an Army SGT named Corpus, had committed suicide (not an unusual fate among WWII coast watchers in the South Seas).  This news was followed on the 28^th by another transmission from Crowley requesting a pick-up at 2000 on 30 August off the Brooks Point lighthouse.  Security signals to be used by the survivors and by the lighthouse were detailed.  Crowley concluded with an additional request to co-evacuate several British missionaries and their families, who were fugitives from the Japanese.  This turn threw the authenticity of the message into question.  US intelligence held that the Brooks Point lighthouse was under enemy control.  Had the coast watch station been overrun?  Was it being used to lure an American sub into a trap?

In truth, the lighthouse was in the possession of pro-American guerrillas, and, in disregard for the possible danger, the “go-ahead” for a rescue was given.  Braving enemy waters on her 4^th war patrol, REDFIN (SS-272) appeared off Palawan this night and successfully retrieved CDR Crowley, his FLIER crewmen, and the missionaries.  Similar rescues by US submarines occurred throughout the war.  Were they retrieving shipwrecked seamen, extracting covert operatives, or recovering downed pilots, “lifeguard” operations by WWII submariners stand as one of their greatest unsung contributions.

Watch or more “Today in Naval History”  6 SEP 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Burns, R.C.  “Palawan Rescue”.  Proceedings, Vol 76 (6), June 1950, pp. 652-53.

Campbell, Douglas A.  Eight Survived.  Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2010.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2, “C-F”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1963, p. 416.

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                                                RESCUE OF S-39

The 51 submarines of our S-class represented one of our most prolific post-WWI classes.  Built between 1917-1920, their technology was shortly eclipsed during a time of rapid advancements in submersible design.  The “Sugar” boats remained in service nevertheless, S-39 (SS-144) being assigned to our Asiatic Fleet, with whom she split her time between Manila and Tsingtao, China.  With the December 7^th attack on Pearl Harbor, our far Pacific S-boats were pressed into combat service despite their outdated technology.  On December 8^th, S-39 was sent from Manila to the San Bernardino Strait, where she sank a 5000-ton freighter on the 13^th.

By the spring of 1942 the overwhelming Japanese onslaught had pushed those few remaining US warships first to Java, then to Australia.  On August 10, S-39 left Brisbane under her new skipper LT Francis E. Brown, to patrol in the Coral Sea near the Louisiade Islands (off eastern tip of Papua/New Guinea).  Here, upon rounding Rossel Island at 0220 on the night of 13-14 August, S-39, lacking a fathometer, ran up on submerged rocks in heavy seas.  The ebbing tide settled her to a 35° port list while 15-20-foot waves crashed over her.  Brown jettisoned fuel, blew the ballast tanks, and ordered emergency aback–but to no avail.  With high tide the following morning, more fuel was dumped and the four Mark 10 torpedoes in her bow tubes were deactivated and fired to lighten her bows.  Not only did this fail, but heavy waves that day pushed the boat further onto the reef and turned her broadside to the seas.  Now in dire straits with her batteries drained, the ballast tanks ruptured and she fell to a 60° list.  Brown allowed anyone who wanted to attempt a swim to shore, but only LT C.N.G. Hendrix and Chief Commissary Steward W.L. Schoenrock jumped overboard, hauling lines to the shore.  And using these riding lines, 32 of Brown’s 44-man crew safely reached the beach.  Brown and the rest remained aboard to struggle on.

On this day, the Australian Navy corvette HMAS KATOOMBA arrived to assist.  By now S-39 had been badly beaten, too damaged for salvage.  All 44 of S-39’s crewmen were brought aboard and KATOOMBA turned back toward Australia on the 16^th.  The submarine was left to the seas that shortly completed her destruction.

Stirrings of a court-martial for Brown circulated among the COMSUBPAC staff.  However, RADM Ralph Christie appreciated Brown’s pluck and persistence.  Rather than censure, Brown was returned to command of S-43 (SS-154).  He later commanded S-44 (SS-155) as well.  And it was aboard this latter that Brown lost his life on 26 September 1943 when S-44 was sunk by the escort frigate IJN ISHIGAKI in Alaskan waters.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  20 AUG 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Alden, John D.  U.S. Submarine Attacks During World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, p. 1.

Blair, Clay, Jr.  Silent Victory:  The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Vol 1.  New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1975, p. 275.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 201-02.

Gugliotta, Bobette.  Pigboat 39: An American Sub Goes to War.  Lexington, KY: Univ Press of Kentucky, 1984, pp. 196-205.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol III  The Rising Sun in the Pacific.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1948, p. 225.

Roscoe, Theodore.  United States Submarine Operations in World War II.  Annapolis, MD; USNI Press, 1958, pp. 153-54.

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