[Bubblehead1980]

TMO + my traffic updates, later war depth charge mod for ijn and others.


April 30 1945. Kurile Islands, Sea Okhotsk

9th War Patrol of USS Dace(started in Fremantle in January 1944).

Located a 3 ship 8 escort convoy heading south along coast of various islands after departing Matsuwa anchorage. Made a daylight periscope approach. Slipped inside(barely) the starboard screening vessel undetected, Set up on a 14000 ton Nokura Maru tanker and closed just 1500 yards before firing. Fired four Mark 16's at tanker, 2 Mark 14's at the leading freighter. Patrol aircraft flew in and spotted me during torpedo run, dropped depth charges(first sign as to being detected was the explosions) , which missed the boat. The ships were alerted, slowed down and made hard turns, but two Mark 16's hit the tanker, which went up in flames. One Mark 14 found the leading freighter. Went "deep" to 450 ft, flank speed turned west toward deep water, dropped decoys.

Initially lost the escorts but one persistent escort(possibly the otori, external cam off so not sure) stayed on me, decoys did not fool him for long. Eventually two others joined and seemed to have me in the "circle" (of death) . I took the Dace(Gato class) to 550 feet, pushing it for this class of sub. After decoys, seemed to lose them again. Then two suddenly made high speed runs in on me. Multiples charges went off, not close, all above. Then BAM the last one in that pattern, very close right near conning tower. Lights went out, boat shaking heavily. Charge was close enough to cause hull damage to conning tower and control room, flooding in both, bulkhead damage in both. Sonar stack 90 percent damage, TDC damage, pumps damaged, pretty much everything in conning tower and control room was damaged in some way.Worse yet, the flooding was serious, we were now sinking, had to speed up to keep from sinking as we were already near the suspected crush depth.


Naturally, this speed along with securing from silent running so damage control can operate at maximum efficiency broadcast our position. Escorts stayed on us, decoys helped but we took more damage but managed to stay around 370 feet while trying to conduct emergency repairs and pump water. Lost the escorts 4 times but they'd hear us burning along at high speed to keep from sinking. Decoys again helped confuse them, but we took more damage, fortunately nothing too serious.

Finally, the conning tower flooding was stopped and slowly pumped out. The control room took much longer, at one point since had to slow speed to conserve battery power and evade an escort, we sunk to 561 feet before able to regain control. Eventually enough water was pumped could maintain safe depth without excessive speed but just as did, a lone escort came roaring in pinging, had been listening apparently. Dropped 8 close depth charges, damaged forward batteries (total battery was already down to 31 percent after the evasion etc) . Dropped some decoys and made a high speed turn then went silent and to 515 feet. Escort finally lost me but continued searching for hours.

Finally we came to the surface around dusk(2300, short arctic nights) . Attempted to raise periscope, nothing happened. Check damage screen, both periscope heads destroyed. Sound check showed all clear, went to radar depth, SJ radar antenna destroyed as well. SD functional as it detected a distant night patrol plane. We waited it out, then surfaced with just 18 percent battery left and a heavily damaged boat.


With key equipment smashed, we turned for pearl harbor and arrived May 8 1945, VE Day. Next patrol begins May 20 1945, Area 10( Sea of Japan), going to be a rough one.