by Don Keith
The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis had already gone to an accelerated program, graduating officers as quickly as possible, especially if the young men showed an interest in submarines. A special school was set up to train prospective skippers, bringing them into classrooms where the textbooks were actual duplicated copies of patrol reports from real runs that had happened only a few weeks before, half a world away from New London, Connecticut.
In no time, those young officers were in wardrooms of subs all over the Pacific, getting the very best on-the-job training, learning as much as they could from the men who had been out there already. Promising academy students were ushered into submarine officer programs offering intense training. Usually they, too, used charts and patrol reports only a few weeks old to study the tactics being used in a real war of which they would soon be a part.
Naturally, when crew members—officers and enlisted men alike—learned what ship they would be riding, their biggest question was about their new skipper. What kind of a guy would he turn out to be? A sailor’s skipper or one who was simply angling to become an admiral, no matter what it took? Was he experienced? Passive or aggressive? Would he be too intense and drive them all directly to their demise, or would he be one of those guys who hung back, stayed out of trouble, and tried to hide somewhere until the war was over?
To a lesser extent, the same questions were asked about the executive officer, the XO, who was always second in command, and usually working on getting his own boat someday. Or, on the enlisted men’s side, of the chief of the boat, the COB, who was typically the most senior—and the most powerful—of the nonofficers.
This is where the luck of the draw came in. Few of the men who rode the diesel boats had much say in who got the short straw, who ended up with the best CO, XO, and COB.
Those who showed up to commission the USS Croaker in the spring of 1944 were happy to note that their captain was an old hand, John Elwood Lee. There was plenty of information available on him in addition to the usual scuttlebutt. Though only recently promoted to the rank of commander, Lee had considerable war and prewar experience. A 1930 grad of the Naval Academy, Lee’s first command was the S-12 (SS-117), a vessel about one hundred feet shorter than the Gato-class boats and not nearly as sophisticated.
The S-12 was built in 1920 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and recommissioned in 1940 when the threat of war was heavy in the air. Lee took her on four patrols in the Caribbean and Atlantic in 1942, trying to protect shipping from the increasing numbers of German U-boats that were preying on most any target they could shoot at. The S-12 saw no action to speak of, though, and Lee soon learned there was almost as much threat from friendly fire—trigger-happy pilots who mistook American submarines for U-boats—as there was from the Germans.
But his next boat took him right into the heart of the war. He was assigned the USS Grayling (SS-209), a Gar-class Portsmouth boat, launched in September 1940. Lee took her out of Pearl Harbor for her fourth war patrol in October 1942. It was the first of four successful runs on the boat.
Then, in July 1943, when Lee took the Grayling into Fremantle to end her seventh patrol, he learned he was to return to Groton for new construction—the brand-new Gato-class USS Croaker.
That was typical. A sub commander would normally make up to a half dozen runs and, if he seemed to know what he was doing and impressed the right people, he was either promoted to a higher command position ashore, reassigned to another boat, or sent back to the States to commission one of the new subs as it was being built.
After sinking a claimed eight enemy vessels on his four patrols, Lee turned the keys to the Grayling over to a relative newcomer, Robert Marion Brinker. Brinker was a young skipper, a member of the academy class of 1934, and a real up-and-comer. While Lee made his way back to New Hampshire to take over the Croaker, the Grayling’s new captain took his boat to the Philippines. His mission was to deliver supplies to the guerrillas that were fighting a vicious war against the Japanese occupation force there.
After leading a couple of attacks on enemy vessels and sinking at least one, something happened. The Grayling, her new skipper, and the crew seemingly disappeared. She was never heard from again.
It is unclear what tragedy befell the boat, but she was presumed lost with her crew of seventy-six men, on or about September 9, somewhere either in the Lingayen Gulf or along the approaches to Manila. There are some reports in Japanese war records that the passenger-transport vessel Hokuan Maru rammed a submerged submarine about that time. It is presumed that it was the Grayling.
The official and succinct description of her status still reads: “Overdue from patrol, December 24, 1943.” That was the day, Christmas Eve, that she was supposed to return from her eighth patrol. That was the only one of her runs that was not declared “successful.”
Meanwhile, John Lee was back in Connecticut, overseeing the construction and sea trials of his new boat, the Croaker, when he heard the news of his former boat and many of the crew members with whom he had served aboard the Grayling. There was nothing he could do but mourn their loss and prepare to seek some measure of revenge once he successfully got his new submarine and crew through sea trials, training, and on to the war.
As with his previous command, his tenure aboard this vessel would be successful. On her first patrol, out of Pearl Harbor, the Croaker and her crew sank a light cruiser, a minesweeper, and two freighters, earning the Navy Unit Commendation for their efforts. On at least one occasion, Lee made color motion pictures through the periscope as he watched an enemy cruiser take the worst of the Croaker’s torpedo attack, the explosion as the fish hit their target, then the ship burning and smoking as it went down. Those movies survived and are often used in documentary features about the war and the submarines’ role in its successful prosecution.
The boat’s distinguished record would be extended under her second skipper, Lieutenant Commander William Bismarck Thomas, a Kansan who also had previous Atlantic submarine experience. He was skipper of the R-15 (SS-92), keeping watch for U-boats in the Caribbean and near the entrance to the Panama Canal, much as John Elwood Lee had done.
Both the Croaker and her final wartime skipper would go on to have interesting postwar histories.
After the peace treaty with Japan was finalized, William Bismarck Thomas was assigned to help launch a naval school in the old Del Monte Hotel in Monterey, California. There he became interested in amateur theatrics, and he wrote, directed, and starred in a number of stage productions. In the audience one night was the Hollywood comedic star Harold Lloyd. He was impressed enough with the ex-sub skipper’s performance that he went backstage to meet him after the show. Lloyd convinced Thomas to come down to Hollywood to take a screen test. Executives at Paramount Studios were interested in the naval officer as well, and they promptly offered him a movie contract.
Thomas considered the offer but decided to stay with the safety and security of his naval career. After a distinguished tenure, including command of a couple of surface ships, he retired in 1966 and promptly became a high school math teacher. Hollywood’s loss was a definite gain for the U.S. Navy and high school math students in the San Diego, California, area.
Thomas passed away in February 2004, and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean by the U.S. Navy, just as the former sub skipper had requested.
His last sub, the Croaker, steamed back through the Panama Canal after the war was over, headed to her birthplace in Connecticut. There she eventually served as a school ship, based in New London, only a few miles from where she was built. Later she was taken up the coast, around Cape Cod, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for what proved to be an interesting makeover.
Not only did she get a new hull number (SSK-246) and intriguing designation (“hunter-killer submarine”), but a completely different look as well. Gone was the distinctive sail that was so familiar on her Gato and Balao sisters. Some said the new sail looked more like a stack of garbage cans or that she most resembled
some weak copy of Jules Verne’s famous submarine, the Nautilus.
The Croaker got a nose job, too, to conceal powerful, new long-range sonar equipment. And she became a “guppy,” too, after being fitted with a snorkel so she could run her diesel engines, even while submerged. Her six bow torpedo tubes were removed to make room for the sophisticated new gear, and many of her other systems were given special silencing treatment. The navy had secret plans for this old warship, but she needed considerable cosmetic surgery to prepare for the new and mysterious job she was about to undertake.
Over the next dozen years, the Croaker traveled the world in her new role, sailing to England for NATO exercises, through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, and to exotic ports like Karachi, Pakistan. Much of what she was called upon to do was kept top secret for years but involved plenty of Cold War exercises and truly frightening what-if scenarios.
By 1968, the navy had decided that the future of submarining lay in the nuclear boats and that the old, tried-and-true fleet boats had limited viability. They simply lacked the range and stealth of the nukes, which could be gone from port as long as need be, and which could stay submerged until the food aboard the submarine ran out. Otherwise there were few limitations on the new generation of subs.
The Croaker entered semiretirement as a training vessel in New London.
There she served for three more years, until it appeared she would end up in the scrap yard, just as so many of her sisters had done. That’s when a group of sub vets rescued her and fixed her up so we could visit her, learn more about her, and appreciate what she and her crew did for us.
After six successful war patrols in World War II and almost twenty-six years of additional service during the Cold War, the Croaker deserved a better fate than some of the other historic submarines. Many of them were cut up for scrap. Others were donated to foreign navies. More than a few were used as target practice in ASW (antisubmarine warfare) drills. It was the Submarine Memorial Association in Groton, Connecticut, that stepped in and saved the Croaker.
There, in a city so closely associated with submersible vessels, they took custody of the boat, did what they could to restore her, and opened her to the public in memory of those fifty-two subs that did not return from the war, as she had been fortunate enough to do. The veterans did what they could to make her safe to visit and to equip her with enough actual period equipment to properly show off her war trim. It was a tough go keeping the aging vessel shipshape enough to allow people of all ages and physical conditions to come aboard and look around. And it was a constant battle against the elements, vandals, and the inevitable action of oxidation on steel.
The old girl’s future was once again in doubt.
In 1988, the city of Buffalo, New York, stepped in. They offered to move the historic submarine to what is now called the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park. Opened in 1979, the park was intended to pay homage to the navy in particular, but to all branches of service in general. It was also designed to draw the public’s attention to the Erie Canal Harbor, a multimillion-dollar project to develop a section of the city’s waterfront as a tourism destination. The addition of a real World War II submarine fit right into the boosters’ plans, so the Croaker took one more voyage before she could rest for good.
Today, the park is also home to the guided missile cruiser USS Little Rock (CLG-4) and the destroyer USS The Sullivans (DD-537) as well as the Croaker. It is interesting to note that The Sullivans is named after the five Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, who all served together aboard the light cruiser USS Juneau (CL-52) during World War II. The navy had a firm policy against having more than one member of a family fighting in the same place, but the Sullivans insisted they wanted such an arrangement. The brothers were eventually allowed to serve together aboard the Juneau. Their smiling faces appeared in newsreels and in magazines all over the country and became symbols of the dedication and sacrifice families were making to help win this war.
Tragically, the worst happened. All five brothers were killed near Guadalcanal when their ship was first struck by a torpedo from a destroyer, then cut in two by a Japanese submarine’s torpedo. The navy named one of its new destroyers The Sullivans to commemorate their loss.
Today, the Croaker and the other museum vessels are maintained by the City of Buffalo and Erie County with the help of volunteers from the Buffalo Base of the United States Submarine Veterans.
Besides the ships, other exhibits include Marine Corps memorabilia dating from World War I, donated items from prisoners of war, a display on contributions of African-Americans and women to our country’s military history, military aircraft, and memorials to those who fought in both world wars, Korea, or Vietnam.
USS BOWFIN (SS-287)
Courtesy of the U.S. Navy
USS BOWFIN (SS-287)
Class: Balao
Launched: December 7, 1942, on the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor
Named for: the hard-fighting, aggressive, voracious breed of fish found in fresh water from the Great Lakes and southward, a species dating back to the Jurassic period. It can use its swim bladder as a primitive lung and thrives in water with low oxygen content, surviving for days at a time in little or no water.
Where: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, New Hampshire
Sponsor: Mrs. Jane Gawne, wife of U.S. Navy Captain James Orville Gawne
Commissioned: May 1, 1943
Where is she today?
USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park
11 Arizona Memorial Drive
Honolulu, Hawaii 96818
(808) 423-1341
www.bowfin.org
Claim to fame: Christened on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, she was dubbed “the Pearl Harbor Avenger,” but despite her stellar record and insatiable appetite for destroying enemy vessels, she may go down in history as much for her inadvertent part in one of the saddest occurrences of the war. Appropriately enough, “the Pearl Harbor Avenger” returned to and now awaits visitors in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Every fighting vessel is christened with high hopes for her future success. Prayers are said, speeches are made, bands play patriotic songs, and, as the sponsor crashes the champagne bottle across the bow and the chocks are released to allow the boat to slide down into the water, everyone is assured that this may well be the boat that changes the course of history.
As we know, fifty-two boats just like the Bowfin never returned triumphantly to home port, flying their battle flags, a broom strapped to their masts to signify a successful patrol, and bragging of their accomplishments. That is why everyone involved with launching a new vessel—from builders to sponsors to the naval brass—was looking for good omens with each submarine they sent steaming away from their yards.
The Bowfin seemed to carry the ultimate good omen—her birthday.
Only eight days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the order came down from BUSHIPS (the navy’s Bureau of Ships) to immediately begin construction on a new class of submarine, the Balao, whose blueprints were already complete. Though these boats did not look that much different from their Gato predecessors, they offered one major advantage: their hulls were thicker, allowing them to safely descend over a hundred feet deeper to escape enemy bombs, torpedoes, and depth charges.
The first of these boats to be built were at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, on the Piscataqua River, which served as the border between New Hampshire and Maine. The third Balao boat to have her keel laid was the Bowfin. Her launch ceremony was deliberately scheduled on December 7, 1942.
The new warship was immediately dubbed “the Pearl Harbor Avenger.”
Her first skipper, Commander Joe Willingham, Naval Academy class of 1926, was not daunted by the hefty hopes being placed on his brand-new boat. He had already seen his share of action as captain of the USS Tautog (SS-199), aboard which he and his crew claimed credit for sinking eight enemy vessels. That included six on their second patrol. Among tho
se was the German submarine I-28, sent to the bottom with her eighty-eight hands. It was extremely difficult for one submarine to sink another, but Willingham did it twice on the Tautog. He earned two Navy Crosses for his good work before he ever set foot on the new Bowfin.
The skipper had also had his share of close calls. Only a couple of days before sinking the enemy submarine, he and the Tautog launched an attack on one of the Japanese ships that was returning from the Battle of the Coral Sea. In the assault, his torpedomen fired two torpedoes.
One of them hit the target vessel and exploded. The other did a truly dangerous trick.
For some reason, the fish inexplicably circled and headed right back toward the Tautog. Willingham ordered his boat deep to attempt to avoid the errant torpedo. They managed to do so, but only by a whisker.
The Bowfin’s commissioning party was held on April 24, 1943, at the Pannaway Club in New London. As usual, there was much drinking, dancing, and tall tale telling. By the end of the celebration, most of her crew was convinced they would win the war by themselves, if they could only finish fitting out the boat, training new crew members, and running sea trials on their magnificent new submarine. A week later, on May Day, the official commissioning ceremony was finally held on her deck. The crew lined up in formation in their dress uniforms while navy higher-ups had their say behind a podium, and then they formally put the Bowfin into service. On July 1, she departed New England for the Pacific.
The impatient crew had no clue what a colorful tour they and their new boat would have. They would eventually receive credit for sinking sixteen enemy vessels, accounting for close to seventy thousand tons. On one patrol alone, in November 1943, they claimed to have sunk a dozen vessels, but, true to form, they only received formal credit for five. Still, Rear Admiral Ralph Waldo Christie, commander of the U.S. Submarine Force, Southwest Pacific, became the Bowfin’s biggest fan, praising the crew for their efforts on that run.