“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 the submarine USS PARCHE (SS-384) lived up to this attribute.  CDR Lawson P. “Red” Ramage was commanding PARCHE’s second war patrol in company with STEELHEAD (SS-280) and HAMMERHEAD (SS-364).  Borrowing the tactics of German U-boats, they formed “Parks’ Pirates,” a wolfpack named for boss CDR Lewis S. Parks riding with Ramage.  At 1030 on the morning of 30 July CDR John C. Martin in HAMMERHEAD scouted a Japanese convoy in the Formosan Straits.  PARCHE and STEELHEAD caught up with the convoy that evening off Takao.  Using U-boat tactics again, the latter two attacked after nightfall from the surface where the low silhouette of the subs made them difficult to spot, and Japanese sonar was useless.

“Red” led the attack by darting boldly between two of the enemy escorts, inserting himself inside the destroyer screen and triggering a pyrotechnic carnival of Japanese flares and star shells.  Before he could shoot, “Red” watched a freighter take several of STEELHEAD’s torpedoes and begin listing.  The intensifying confusion made “Red’s” position inside the convoy increasingly dangerous.  Not only did he invite detection and attack, but he now found himself dodging panicked merchantmen.  Ramage cleared the bridge of everyone but himself, and through a melee of bullets, flames, and shells deftly conned the sub.  His first target was a freighter that passed within 200 yards before taking two hits.  A spread of four covered the tanker Koei Maru from cutwater to wake, and she disintegrated into a ball of flame.  PARCHE barely avoided being rammed by other onrushing freighters but continued to jockey for firing positions.

In the flurry of targets that presented, the freighter Kokura Maru and the troop carrier Manko Maru were the next casualties.  Another was hit and damaged.  At one point, PARCHE found herself face to face with the charging troopship Yoshino Maru and sent three torpedoes “down the throat.”  His bow tubes emptied, Ramage turned and fired a fourth from his stern!  Yoshino, too, disappeared.

Coupled with a sinking by STEELHEAD, this 48-minute attack proved one of the boldest and most successful of the war.  PARCHE scored 12 hits with 19 torpedoes and escaped without casualties or consequential damage.  She was awarded the highest honor that can be conferred on a ship, the Presidential Unit Citation.  For his bravery while standing exposed in the face of deathly peril, Ramage was awarded the Medal of Honor.  Our modern Arleigh Burke-class destroyer DDG-61 bears his name.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”   6 AUG 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Alden, John D.  U.S. Submarine Attacks During World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 119-20.

Blair, Clay, Jr.  Silent Victory:  The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Vol 2.  New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1975, pp. 653-55.

Holmes, W.J.  Underseas Victory II, 1943-1945:  The Tide Turns.  New York, NY: Zebra Books, 1979, pp. 110-12.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 8  New Guinea and the Marianas.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1953, pp. 25-26.

Roscoe, Theodore.  Pig Boats:  A True Account of U.S. Submariners in Gallant Battle Against Imperial Japan.  New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1982, pp. 306-10.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Ramage was credited with sinking Manko Maru, Kokura Maru, and Koei Maru, and damaging a fourth.  Ramage and CDR David L. Welchel of STEELHEAD were jointly credited with sinking Yoshino Maru.  STEELHEAD damaged six others in addition.  At the time CDR Ramage was the only living submariner to receive the Medal of Honor.

USS PARCHE survived the war and subsequently survived target ship duty at the Bikini Atoll atomic tests.  She was mothballed in 1947 and ultimately scrapped in 1969.  Prior to scrapping, however, her conning tower was removed, restored to its WWII configuration, and mounted in a park near the BEQ at Naval Station Pearl Harbor Submarine Base.  It can be seen there today.  The interior machinery of this conning tower has been removed and is displayed as a walk-through exhibit at the Bowfin Submarine Museum in Pearl City, Hawaii.

The Sturgeon-class PARCHE (SSN-683) carried on the honorable name until her decommissioning in 2004.  VADM Lawson P. Ramage passed away on 19 April 1990.  He rests in Arlington National Cemetery.

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