by Don Keith
Then, over two hours after the attack, and after the destroyer had apparently decided to leave them alone, the men inside the Cavalla heard four numbing explosions in the direction of where the carrier had been hit. They had been listening to sounds of minor blasts and the undeniable noise of creaking metal, crushed by water pressure, ever since the torpedoes hit their big target. The groaning and creaking of a massive vessel sounding its death knell soon followed this latest quartet of detonations. That was a racket all submariners longed for after launching their fish. Water rushing into breached compartments, its awful pressure literally bending beams, renting steel plates, breaking the vessel apart as it pulled the ship down toward the distant bottom of the sea.
As soon as he safely could, Kossler brought the Cavalla to the surface and radioed the message back to Honolulu:
“Hit Shokaku-class carrier with three out of six torpedoes. Received 105 depth charges during three-hour period. Heard four terrific explosions in the direction of target two and one half hours after attack. Believe that baby sank!”
That last line became a running gag around the Pacific sub command, but nobody was happier to hear the news than Admiral Charles Lockwood and the rest of the headquarters crew. Based on intelligence reports, they strongly suspected the vessel that the Cavalla had sent to the bottom was not just a Shokaku-class aircraft carrier but the Shokaku herself!
The big carrier had been the vengeful target of numerous Allied ships during the war already. Reviled for her role in the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was high atop the list of most desired objectives for not only submarines but for every other warship and airplane in the Pacific. Others had come close. She had been damaged badly enough to be taken out of service twice already, but she was back in the fight, ready to launch her deadly aircraft against the Allies.
That is, until the USS Cavalla took care of her once and for all that historic June morning.
Captain Kossler was awarded the Navy Cross and the Cavalla and her crew received the Presidential Unit Citation for their accomplishments that day. In the immediate wake of that sinking, however, there was little time to celebrate their triumph. Once they had shaken the destroyer and its depth charges, the primary thing on their minds was fuel. They were already seriously low on diesel when the attack on the Shokaku began. Now they could only hope that they could make it to Saipan, the nearest friendly port, where a tanker awaited them.
They did make it. Once on the island, they were only too happy to have everyone in sight buy them beers to celebrate the big blow they had struck against the emperor and his empire.
The Cavalla was back on patrol, performing lifeguard duty about ten miles off the Japanese island of Honshu, standing by to pick up downed flyboys, when word came that the war was over. Kossler authorized breaking out the medicinal liquor aboard for every man not on watch, and a toast was made to the victory.
The giddiness did not last long. Shortly after copying the radio message that hostilities had ceased, a Japanese aircraft suddenly appeared in the sky and proceeded to attack the Cavalla, seemingly conducting business as usual. The skipper assumed this particular pilot had not received the news yet and ordered a hard-right maneuver to dodge the bomb the plane dropped. At the same time, they executed an emergency dive before they became the first sub sunk after the war was over.
The airplane’s bomb hit the wave tops and exploded only about fifty yards off the port side of the dodging and ducking submarine, dousing her decks.
Later, when he could safely surface and report the incident, Kossler angrily dashed off a note for the radioman to send back to headquarters, telling them what had happened so others could be warned. Shortly thereafter, Fleet Admiral William Halsey issued a curt message to all naval vessels in the Pacific, telling them that if any Japanese aircraft should launch an attack, then the commanders should feel perfectly justified in shooting them out of the sky.
“But do it in a gentlemanly fashion,” the admiral sarcastically suggested in his missive.
Shortly thereafter, the Cavalla received orders to join the flotilla of vessels that would enter Tokyo Bay, the first Allied units to go into Home Island waters after the hostilities ended. There was still a good deal of concern about entering former enemy territory. There were rumors that the whole thing was a clever ruse, that suicide boats and planes would attack those vessels entering Tokyo Wan, that the harbor was mined, that the Japanese had their own atomic weapon, just not the ability to deliver it to U.S. territory yet, and that they would set it off as soon as the victory party was in the confined waters.
Of course, none of that came to pass. On August 31, 1945, the submarine and eleven of her sisters steamed into the harbor and berthed next to the tender USS Proteus (AS-19). From there, they were within sight of the surrender ceremony on the decks of the battleship Missouri. Some of the submarines set up speakers on their decks so everyone could listen to the brief ceremony, but the cheers and shouts of their happy crews blotted out most of it.
The war was truly over. The “leap year boat” had done her job and she had done it well.
She contributed mightily to making VJ Day a reality.
The Cavalla enjoyed a second life in service to her country. She was one of the few boats reconfigured as an “SSK,” and colorfully dubbed a “hunter-killer submarine.” In the process, the sail and bow so familiar among the diesel fleet boats were each replaced with an aerodynamic-looking sail that portended the look of nuclear submarines that would come a few years later. She also received an odd, uncharacteristically rounded snout that allowed more room for sophisticated electronic equipment that was eventually installed there.
In 1966, after more than two decades of service, she was unceremoniously retired for good, and then ushered off to the reserve fleet in Orange, Texas. That was typically a graveyard for older vessels that were no longer of any value in their country’s defense. There, she was on the verge of being sold to the scrap dealers when her leap year luck intervened once again.
Through the efforts of a dedicated group of submarine veterans, she became a memorial to one of her sister vessels and crew, a sibling that was not nearly so blessed as she was.
That group of Texas vets had long been talking about establishing some kind of fitting submarine memorial for those who had not made it back from the war. They also sought a memorial for one boat in particular. The sub vets named their group the Seawolf Base, deliberately taking the tag from the USS Seawolf (SS-197). That vessel had been lost with all hands in a friendly-fire incident in 1944. What better memorial could there be for their shipmates who were still on eternal patrol than a real, live submarine, one that visitors could climb aboard, tour, and inspect as they learned more about the silent service and the heroes who were a part of it all?
The old sub sailors of the Seawolf Base convinced the navy to let them have one of the submarines they knew were about to go to a scrap dealer. They also talked the city of Galveston, Texas, into dredging them a place to park their submarine once they got one. They would put it out near the old immigration station on Pelican Island, a spot the city someday intended to turn into a park anyway. The city fathers and sub vets mutually decided they would call the place Seawolf Park, and that it would fill the bill as a proper memorial to the more than thirty-five hundred submariners lost in World War II.
At first, the sub USS Cabrilla (SS-288), the recipient of six battle stars and a bona fide hero ship because of her assistance to the Philippine guerrilla fighters during the war, was chosen. She was made ready and towed down to Galveston from Houston. She had originally come out of service as a reserve training vessel when she was replaced by—of all boats—a lady named the Cavalla. The Cabrilla was temporarily moored next to the navy pier in Galveston and was opened temporarily to the public as a museum ship while the better location at Pelican Island was made ready for her permanent home. But it took the city much longer than anticipated to prepare the spot.
The Cabrilla, already in bad
shape from years of cannibalizing and neglect, quickly rusted away. She was so far gone that the sub vets were unable to do proper maintenance on her, especially below the waterline. They had to keep moving her from one tie-up to another as various berths at the busy moorings were required for other uses instead of for a quickly oxidizing old relic. Visitors never knew where she might be when they stopped by.
As time passed, the staunchest supporter of the sub memorial had to concede that the Cabrilla was too far gone to ever be a decent and representative memorial.
Their lost shipmates deserved better.
Finally, the veterans convinced the navy to allow a trade-in. They swapped the old, rusted-out Cabrilla for another boat that they heard was soon to be scrapped. A boat named the Cavalla just happened to be available by then, so once again she had the opportunity to replace the Cabrilla. Once they heard that a “better” boat was soon to be theirs, the city of Galveston agreed to rush their work at Pelican Island to get the spot ready for her.
In January of 1971, the Cavalla was towed down the Houston Ship Channel from Orange and carefully backed into a slip at the island. Slowly, deliberately, the water was drained from around her and bulldozers built up dirt around her hull.
The leap year boat was now permanently in dry dock, ready to begin the next phase of her storied existence.
The USS Cavalla has had some tough times since she arrived in Galveston. So has another vessel, the destroyer USS Stewart (DE-238), which is also on display at Seawolf Park. When the sponsors asked for designation as a National Historic Landmark, the U.S. government replied, “USS Cavalla does not appear to meet the criteria for designation because of her seriously deteriorated condition. The wooden deck has been replaced with concrete, her interior is dirty and vandalized, and her exterior is severely rusted.”
But the World War II submariners have refused to allow her to waste away and intend to keep her around long after they are gone, all so others will know what they did and how they did it. In 1998, a new group of vets dedicated themselves to her preservation and began raising money toward that end. Volunteers, including former crew members of both the Cavalla and the Stewart, have given hundreds of man-hours of dirty, backbreaking work. Among other big projects, her superstructure and deck were replaced in 2001.
Through their continuing efforts, both vessels are in reasonably good shape and offer visitors a realistic look at what they were like while they were still in service to their country. The Galveston Park Board has also been forthcoming with some financial and labor support, so the boat’s future looks bright.
Visitors to Galveston should not be surprised if they ask a local resident for directions to the USS Cavalla and get a blank stare. Many of them assume the submarine parked out there on Pelican Island is the Seawolf, since that is the name of the park.
USS COBIA (SS-245)
Courtesy of the U.S. Navy
USS COBIA (SS-245)
Class: Gato
Launched: November 28, 1943
Named for: a fish typically found in warm waters around the world
Where: Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut
Sponsor: Mrs. C. W. MacGruder, wife of a naval officer
Commissioned: March 29, 1944
Where is she today?
Wisconsin Maritime Museum
75 Maritime Drive
Manitowoc, Wisconsin 54220-6843
(866) 724-2356
www.wisconsinmaritime.org
Claim to fame: She sank a troop transport carrying a Japanese tank regiment with over two dozen tanks aboard, on the way to Iwo Jima. Though not actually built at the Manitowoc Shipyards, the Cobia is representative of those that were. None of the twenty-eight fleet submarines built at Manitowoc is still around for us to visit. The Cobia is a worthy stand-in.
It is not necessarily easy for a few dozen men on a single submarine to realize the importance of their minor chess move on a much bigger board. A relatively small act in the midst of a major conflict like World War II can sometimes turn the tide of history, yet go unappreciated, even by those in the midst of it all.
But when the crew members of the submarine USS Cobia saw the famous photo of the marines raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, they were able to take special pride in the small part they had played in making the indelibly captured moment possible.
If we go back seven months before, we find the Cobia steaming away on her very first war patrol, working out of Pearl Harbor. When her skipper opened his orders that day, he found that he, his crew, and the newly minted diesel boat were bound for the Bonin Islands, a spiky chain of rocky but strategically important land in the middle of the Pacific, about eight hundred miles south of Tokyo. Along the way, they encountered a series of enemy freighters and, within five days, sank three of them.
One of those was the Nissho Maru, a troop transport with six hundred soldiers and twenty-eight tanks aboard.
The Cobia and her crew had no way of knowing who or what was aboard those vessels. They only knew they flew the flag that indicated they were fair game. The crew did exactly what they had been training for and sent a trio of them to the bottom, and then moved on to look for more.
When U.S. troops seized Saipan, the Japanese realized they were in real danger of losing the spinelike chain of islands that dotted that portion of the Pacific Ocean, drawing a slightly bowed line through the sea that pointed right up to the homeland. It appeared the Allies would be able to leapfrog from one island to another, all the way up to Japan. If they were able to do that, then the long-anticipated D-day-like invasion of the Home Islands would be much easier to accomplish.
With such a thing a real possibility, the Japanese generals decided to put all the forces they could muster onto the little pork chop-shaped island of Iwo Jima, throwing up a formidable roadblock. They would dig into the pockmarked volcanic mountains and resist to the last man. In so doing, they would test once and for all the will of the American soldiers. Did the Allies have the resolve to slog through the jungles, climb the mountains in the face of withering artillery, and dig out the Japanese one warrior at a time, even as they took massive losses?
Japanese troops and equipment that were being assembled for the defense of Saipan before it fell were quickly rerouted to Iwo Jima. Among them was the Twenty-sixth Tank Regiment, a battle-hardened group that had been fighting successfully in Manchuria throughout 1943. In April 1944 they were ordered to load up and proceed to Saipan, but when they arrived in Korea they received the news of the fall of Saipan. They were diverted, by way of the homeland, to the next designated hot spot, Iwo Jima.
Most of the troops and twenty-eight of their best tanks were loaded aboard the Nissho Maru in Yokohama. They sailed on July 14. Four days later, with the convoy in which they rode only a bit over a day from its destination, they crossed paths with the newly arrived diesel fleet submarine, the USS Cobia.
The boat’s skipper, Lieutenant Albert Becker, was proud of what his young crew had accomplished already. Two freighters in three days! That was some good shooting, even for a far more veteran crew. Now, here swam another ship, right into the sights of their periscopes.
Becker and his crew made quick work of sending the Nissho Maru to the bottom, not knowing at the time that a cargo of deadly new tanks and the men who were to man them were aboard the vessel, nor that their simple, efficient attack that day would make sure the weapons never reached Iwo Jima. Nor that the sinking of this single intercepted ship contributed considerably to the eventual American takeover of the strategic plot of land in the Pacific.
Only two members of the tank regiment were killed in the sinking of the Nissho Maru, but it would be a full six months before they and their replacement tanks would make it to their destination. By then, the course of the battle had already turned, the outcome of the war altered.
Later in that same patrol, still her first, the Cobia performed the first in a long string of rescues. During the first week of August
1944, Captain Becker and his boys torpedoed a converted yacht. They then plucked out of the water one of the crewmen who had survived the brief attack. That was the boat’s first prisoner of war, but it would not be the last to be locked away in the officers’ stateroom or the yeoman’s office.
On her second run, the Cobia seemed to constantly be under attack from above. While destroyers and other vessels were worthy opponents for submersibles, it was the airplane that most struck fear into the hearts of submariners. Even with the new radar that made over-the-horizon detection of aircraft easier, and even with the amazing speed with which a sub could get beneath the waves once alerted to approaching danger, airplanes could often still sneak up on a sub and attack before the boat could dive deep enough to get away. And even if the submarine did get down, it was often easily visible in the clear Pacific waters, fair game for an aircraft’s torpedoes, bombs, or guns.
But the Cobia did manage to pop her head above the surface long enough to rescue two more Japanese, floating along after their ship was sunk by one of the 245 boat’s sister submarines. Just like that, she had two more POWs.
She wasn’t finished. Early in 1945, on her third war patrol, the Cobia stalked and sank a minelayer named the Yurishima off the coast of Malaya. Minelayers were especially coveted targets. Each time they took one of these minelayers permanently out of commission, most sailors assumed they were saving the lives of many of their brothers who would come after them.
After the successful attack and as soon as the view out the periscope showed the coast was clear, Becker sent his boat back to the surface to take photos of its latest victim. But once again she was driven deep by a pesky airplane that suddenly appeared over the smoking, sinking minelayer. It was the next day before the American sub could finally come to the surface for a look around.