25 OCTOBER 1944 DIVINE WIND Sometime after 1000 this morning five Japanese planes of LT Yukio Seki’s Shikishima special group took off from Malabacat, Luzon, and headed at wavetop level to the American ships off Samar. There, by 1050, RADM Clifton Read More
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, Read More
9 SEPTEMBER 1942 OREGON FIREBOMBING “All is ready, Sir,” reported Warrant Flying Officer Nubuo Fujita to his skipper, CDR Meiji Tagami, of the submarine I-25. “Very well. Good luck, Fujita.” With that Fujita and his flight observer Petty Officer Shoji Okuda Read More
24 AUGUST 1944 HAKE, HARDER, AND HADDO CDR Samuel D. Dealey commanded a three-sub “wolfpack” off the Philippines comprised of his boat, HARDER (SS-257), along with HADDO (SS-255) and HAKE (SS-256). US planners were anticipating the invasion of those islands in Read More
18 AUGUST 1944 WOLFPACKS IN THE PACIFIC? Hitler’s U-boat wolfpacks in the Atlantic innovated the deployment of submarines in that theater. According to Winston Churchill, those U-boats came close to crippling England’s economy. American submariners in the Pacific took note and Read More
30-31 JULY 1944 “RED” RAMAGE Parche is the name of a small, colorful fish remarkable for its uncanny ability to maneuver, even sideways and upside down, among the clefts and crevices of a coral reef. On this night 82 years ago Read More
6 MAY 1942 FALL OF CORREGIDOR The Japanese invasion of the Philippines began within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Landing in the Lingayen Gulf, they swept southward across the island of Luzon toward Manila, Subic Bay, and the Bataan Read More
6-7 APRIL 1945 YAMATO’S DESPERATION SORTIE A second offshore phase of operation “Ten-Go” involved the Imperial Navy. Its warships were to sally forth and blast what remained of the Allied invasion fleet after the April 6th kikusui raid. But by this Read More
6-7 APRIL 1945 “FLOATING CHRYSANTHEMUMS” The Japanese plan for defense of Okinawa was known by the language characters “Ten-Go.” While defenders on land waged a battle of attrition, Japanese air and naval forces would engage the American invasion fleet. But the Read More
28 FEBRUARY 1945 PhM1c JOHN HARLAN WILLIS By D-Day + 9 on Iwo Jima, intense fighting was raging in several acres of low hills and gullies that would come to be known as the “meat grinder” just west of the central Read More