Patrol Reports

On October 30, 1944, USS Salmon (SS-182) attacked the Japanese tanker Takane Maru and suffered a devastating depth-charge counterattack. Flooding and unable to control her depth, Salmon surfaced into the path of four enemy escorts. Her crew now had to keep the submarine afloat while fighting their way clear. In this episode of Patrol Reports, USSVI National Historian Dave Bowman follows the coordi...

In October 1965, sailors aboard USS Barracuda honored an unusual final request: they launched Rear Admiral Hiram Cassedy’s ashes into the Atlantic through a torpedo tube. In this episode of Patrol Reports , we follow Cassedy’s Navy career, from his Navy Cross rescue off Japanese-occupied Timor to his command of USS Tigrone. At the center is a tense exchange with USS Snook in April 1945. After narr...

How did a Wisconsin city far from the ocean build 28 submarines for World War II, and who would keep their story alive when the fighting ended? In this episode of Patrol Reports , explore the legacy of Manitowoc’s submarine builders, the Pacific service of USS Cobia (SS-245), and the community effort that helped establish the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. A 1970 newspaper headline, “Citizens Must Hel...

On October 27, 1944 , USS Kingfish (SS-234) launched two torpedo attacks and survived eighteen depth charges near Iwo Jima. Yet her crew ended the day without knowing the full results of their actions. In this episode of Patrol Reports, Dave Bowman follows Kingfish’s ninth war patrol through a night attack complicated by failing torpedo-setting equipment and an afternoon encounter that appeared to...

A short notice in a Texas newspaper carried the loss of a submarine into one family’s home. Wayne Houston Cotton was nineteen when USS Seawolf (SS-197) disappeared in October 1944, taking with her 83 crewmen and 17 Army passengers. This episode of Patrol Reports remembers Cotton, examines the probable friendly-fire loss of Seawolf , and considers the responsibility expressed in the USSVI Creed. Pr...

Before I discovered Cary Grant and Tony Curtis in Operation Petticoat , I knew John Astin and the pink submarine from ABC’s 1977 television remake. The original movie was better, but the sitcom had something worth remembering: a real fleet submarine beneath that improbable paint job. In this episode of Patrol Reports , revisit the short-lived series, Jamie Lee Curtis’s connection to her father’s f...

On October 24, 1944, USS Snook (SS-279) pressed repeated torpedo attacks against Japanese shipping in the South China Sea, then went deep as escorts answered with depth charges. Her crew survived the engagement, but identifying the ships they struck would leave questions that persisted long after the war. In this episode of Patrol Reports, Dave Bowman follows Snook’s seventh war patrol into a conv...

While the Philippines endured Japanese occupation, American submarines carried weapons, medicine, radios, and intelligence teams to guerrillas still fighting behind enemy lines. On October 25, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur publicly revealed the undersea supply campaign that had helped sustain their resistance. In this episode of Patrol Reports , USSVI National Historian Dave Bowman explores SPYR...

USS Croaker (SS-246) stalks a coastal freighter by radar, launches four torpedoes, and closes to within 400 yards of a three-masted schooner. It is October 23, 1944, off Korea’s west coast, and a recurring gun malfunction is about to complicate the night’s fighting. In this episode of Patrol Reports, USSVI National Historian Dave Bowman follows Croaker’s second war patrol through the submarine’s o...

October, 1945. Portland, Oregon. Just weeks after Japan's surrender, USS Hawkbill (SS-366) prepared to do something extraordinary. Before a crowd gathered along the Willamette River, the World War II submarine submerged beneath the muddy waters, leaving behind a blanket of flowers honoring the American submariners who never came home. For the spectators, it was a remarkable sight. For the sail...

How did two American submarines help open the Battle of Leyte Gulf and strike a devastating blow against the Imperial Japanese Navy? On October 21, 1944, as American forces fought to liberate the Philippines, USS Darter (SS-227) was patrolling the dangerous waters near Palawan Passage. Commander David H. McClintock knew that Japan's powerful surface fleet would soon respond to the invasion of...

On October 20, 1943, deep in enemy waters off Japan, USS Tarpon (SS-175) was closing in on one of the Imperial Japanese Navy's most valuable assets: an aircraft carrier. But this was no chance encounter. American naval intelligence had intercepted Japanese communications, providing Commander Thomas Lincoln Wogan with information that could place his submarine directly in the carrier's path...

USS Narwhal (SS-167): The Secret Mission to Negros | October 19, 1944 On October 19, 1944, just one day before General Douglas MacArthur's forces landed on Leyte, an American submarine surfaced off the coast of Japanese-occupied Negros Island. Her mission wasn't to sink enemy ships. It was to deliver the weapons, ammunition, and supplies that could help turn a guerrilla resistance into a f...

Nine enemy ships. Scattered escorts. One American submarine. And a commander willing to take an extraordinary risk. On the night of October 18, 1944, USS Raton (SS-270) found herself with an opportunity few submarine commanders would dare attempt. Somewhere off the coast of Luzon, a Japanese convoy was struggling to recover from a disastrous day. Lieutenant Commander Maurice W. “Mike” Shea had a c...

October 17, 1943. At the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, the United States Navy launched USS Shark (SS-314), a new Balao-class submarine destined for combat in the Pacific. Just one year and one week later, Shark and all 87 men aboard would be lost. In this episode of Patrol Reports , we follow USS Shark from her launching and commissioning under Commander Edward N. Blakely through...

USS Pickerel USS Grenadier USS Gudgeon USS Snook USS Thresher

Remembering the US Submarines and men lost in the month of March: USS F-4 USS H-1 USS Perch USS Grampus USS Triton USS Tullibee USS Kete USS Trigger

In late February 1944, the USS Grayback was at the height of her power and the edge of her fate. Fresh off a string of devastating attacks in the East China Sea, she had already sunk tens of thousands of tons of Japanese shipping and earned her place among the most successful submarines of the war. But success has a way of narrowing your options. By February 25, she had only two torpedoes left. Or...

The USSVI Bremerton Base remembers the US Submarines lost in the month of February

On a January morning in nineteen forty four, a small town in Ohio learned how the war really worked. Not through headlines about victory, but through a quiet notice. A sailor was missing. No details. No explanation. Just absence. That sailor had been aboard USS Corvina. Corvina was new, capable, and sent on her first war patrol into some of the most dangerous water on earth. She never came back. E...

She was built to disappear, and that may be the most important thing about her. In the long shadow of the Cold War, USS Benjamin Franklin did not chase enemies or make headlines. She waited. Silent, hidden, and relentlessly prepared, she carried a responsibility that most Americans never saw and rarely thought about. As one of the last of the “41 for Freedom,” she formed the quiet backbone of a st...

The USS Alexander Hamilton was built to operate in silence, and for three decades that silence carried enormous weight. Commissioned in 1963 at the height of the Cold War, she was part of the Forty One for Freedom, a fleet designed to make nuclear war unthinkable by making retaliation unavoidable. From patrols out of Rota and Holy Loch to Arctic operations beneath the ice, the Hamilton spent her l...

In the early months of the Pacific War, American submarines were sent to sea with imperfect weapons, incomplete intelligence, and almost no margin for error. There was no polished doctrine yet, no comforting sense that victory was inevitable. What there was, instead, were crews learning in real time what survival would require. On this episode of Patrol Reports, we return to the night of February...

The USSVI Bremerton Base remembering the US Navy Submarines lost in the month of January

We remember the : USS S-26 USS S-36 USS Argonaut USS Scorpion USS Swordfish