A momment of silence for the USS Grunion

[Capt. D]

Watching the Today show this morning our local affiliated station Channel 4 (Detroit) indicated in the "ticker tape" across the bottom of the screen that a local man was aboard the WWII USS Grunion which was just found off the coast of Alaska.

Tried to research some more to see if this was a current find and only found articles from October 2006. Does anyone know if this could be a confirmation of the find? She went down July 30, 1942 off Kiska Alaska.

Whatever the case - a momment of silence for the men of the USS Grunion.

[TDK1044]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294356,00.html

[kikn79]

Watching the Today show this morning our local affiliated station Channel 4 (Detroit) indicated in the "ticker tape" across the bottom of the screen that a local man was aboard the WWII USS Grunion which was just found off the coast of Alaska.

Tried to research some more to see if this was a current find and only found articles from October 2006. Does anyone know if this could be a confirmation of the find? She went down July 30, 1942 off Kiska Alaska.

Whatever the case - a momment of silence for the men of the USS Grunion.

Here is the link to the Grunion blog done by the sons of the captain. They are the ones heading up the search.

http://www.ussgrunion.com/blog/

Chuck

[switch.dota]

:huh:

Very nice website... the effort is commednable as well. I'll be sure to track that blog for updates.

[Salty Longshanks]

The Sub Reprt website has numerous links to pics, and articles. Here's the link.

http://www.thesubreport.com/

[ReallyDedPoet]

:huh:

Very nice website... the effort is commednable as well. I'll be sure to track that blog for updates.

Yes nice WS, quite a story.


RDP

[Ducimus]

Imploded.

So she went, deep. I wonder why. Im guessing whatever the reason, the boat was probably out of control. Flooding of some kind. Main induction maybe? Of course i havent read any attack analysis or anything, im just guessing.

[Packerton]

Dang they must feel alot better after finnaly finding the Wreck.

May the Skippers RIP.

[Salty Longshanks]

Imploded.

So she went, deep. I wonder why. Im guessing whatever the reason, the boat was probably out of control. Flooding of some kind. Main induction maybe? Of course i havent read any attack analysis or anything, im just guessing.

I've only glanced at the reports, but the way I understand it, their last report indicated a very heavy concentration of ASW ops off of Kiska which was the last patrol area.

[Ducimus]

ASW action in that case is very possible. Im no great naval expert, but i beleive thermal layers are typically DEEPER in colder water, which made them something uboats didn't enjoy very often. Since the Kiska is much colder, a thermal layer was probably out of the boats reach. If heavy ASW was present, then all we can do is guess. Maybe the skipper just took her too deep? Then again, would a deep charge cause a genuine implosion, or just split the pressure hull open and flood the boat? Did she take on too much water and get too heavy during a depth charge attack and just.. sink? Did the main induction valve bust open for one reason or another? (that would sink a boat VERY quickly) I guess the answer is when the examine the hull more throughly.

[Captain Scribb]

Depending on the time of year, in that part of the world thermal layers would be minimal to the point of not being effective. The cold current coming from the polar region would be as cold as the deep water there. Thus, no nice thermal layer like in the South Pacific where the sun heats up the surface water but the deep water remains cold. That's why thermal layers didn't really factor into the the North Atlantic sub warfare as much.

Even in warmer parts of the year the only significant thermal layer may be a meter or two deep, so detection devices would already be below the thermal layer themselves, thus no distortion from varying densities.

[kikn79]

Here is the story of the attack from three Japanese witnesses:

http://ussgrunion.com/blog/attack-analysis/

From the story, it would seem that the Grunion fired two fish at the Kana Maru. One exploded the other was a dud. It looks like the sub tried to manuver for firing position or possibly lost steerage? the Maru started shooting the 3" gun at the periscope and when "it looked like the sub was surfacing" they hit where they thought the conning tower would come up and "hit" something "a dull water explosion sound" and then a trail of bubbles and a large volume of oil came up.

The blog talks about the bow being missing and a large debris field apparent. Would a loss of depth control after firing the torpedoes and then over compensating for it possibly be the cause?

I'm looking forward to more photographs to try to unravel this mystery.

Chuck

[AVGWarhawk]

Here is a link to this weeks pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mbrewsterabele/Grunion82407735AM

[mookiemookie]

The blog talks about the bow being missing and a large debris field apparent. Would a loss of depth control after firing the torpedoes and then over compensating for it possibly be the cause?

I'm looking forward to more photographs to try to unravel this mystery.

Chuck

Maybe they didn't pump enough water in after firing the fish and the sub broached the surface. Then they were shot, putting a big enough hole in the pressure hull so as to where they couldn't trim the boat, lost control and sunk?

Just a guess by an armchair observer....who knows.

[simonb1612]

This was a really touching story. The three brothers have really done their father proud here. What was particularly moving was that they have tracked down 69 of the 70 known families and personally been in touch to keep them updated. BTW maybe someone in this community knows of the missing family?

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070824/NATION/708240366

[chopped50ford]

I thought one of the drawings was pretty cool:

http://ussgrunion.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/Aiura-Torpedo%282%29.jpg