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 15^th 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 15^th 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 7^th 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, 21^st century attack submarine, SSN-21.

The post The Tragedy of SEAWOLF appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                  THE LOSS OF SHELTON (DE-407)

On this day, Task Unit 77.4.3, affectionately known as “Taffy 3,” centered around the escort carriers FANSHAW BAY (CVE-70) and MIDWAY (CVE-63), was operating north of Morotai.  The island had been taken quietly from the enemy three weeks earlier to serve as a staging base for the planned assault on the Philippines.  Unbeknownst to “Taffy 3” the Japanese had sent five fleet submarines into this area to harass the Allies.  One of these, RO-41, stumbled undetected upon the Task Unit.

About 0810 a wary lookout on board USS SHELTON (DE-407) spotted the incoming torpedo wake.  But in the lurching maneuver to dodge this missile, a second unseen torpedo struck SHELTON on the starboard screw.  The explosion lifted her stern, killing 13 officers and men working in spaces adjacent to the fantail.  SHELTON went dead in the water and began to settle by the stern.  Her sister escort, RICHARD M. ROWELL (DE-403), answered her calls for assistance, standing by, circling, as damage control parties secured the stricken DE.  The rest of the escort carrier unit responded quickly to exact vengeance on SHELTON’s assailant.

SHELTON lay helpless for several hours.  The explosion had destroyed one prop and bent the shaft of the other.  Flooding in adjacent spaces had given her a list, but salvage teams remained hopeful that the escort could be saved.  Morale was bolstered around noon when one of MIDWAY’s TBM “Avenger’s” sighted a sub cruising on the surface about 18 miles over the northern horizon.  Her pilot dropped two bombs that missed and a dye marker.  ROWELL raced to the spot and there, about 1310, made sonar contact with a submarine.  Confident that this was SHELTON’s attacker, LCDR Harry A. Barnard made a depth charge run then circled to listen.  The sonarmen picked up faint, wavering acoustic signals that sounded to be Morse Code, which Barnard interpreted as Japanese attempts to jam ROWELL’s sonar.  A series of “hedgehog” runs were then made–on the sixth run a large air bubble littered with debris rose to the surface.  ROWELL’s crew thought they saw pieces of a periscope among the debris.

Back aboard SHELTON things were not going well.  Her flooding had not been as easy to control as initially guessed.  The remaining crew, including the 22 sailors wounded in the initial explosion, were taken aboard ROWELL.  Lang (DD-399) arrived to tow the stricken SHELTON to temporary shelter at Morotai.  Screened by STEVENS (DD-479), LANG passed a towline and secured her charge.  But the attempt to save the stricken escort failed.  SHELTON capsized while under tow and had to be destroyed by shelling to avoid falling into enemy hands.

Over the following weeks the Japanese submarines detailed to the Morotai area began to trickle back into home waters.  Among the arrivals was RO-41.

Continued tomorrow…..

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 479.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 12  Leyte.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1958, pp. 27-28.

Roscoe, Theodore.  United States Destroyer Operations in World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 413-14.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  USS MIDWAY above should not be confused with the fleet carrier currently docked in San Diego as a museum ship.  CVE-63 was commissioned in August 1943 and served in the Pacific for a year.  Her name was changed to ST. LO (after a battle at the French village in Normandy) in July 1944 to free-up the Midway name for the new fleet carrier then completing construction, MIDWAY (CVB-41)

The post The Loss of SHELTON (DE-407) appeared first on Today in Naval History.