Interesting read: Last moments of the USS Sculpin

[Ducimus]

The following is an excerpt from this book ive been reading lately.

------------------

Shortly before Tang arrived in Pearl Harbor, a wolf pack suffered a serious setback. Lookwood decided to send a pack to support the invasion of the Gilbert Islands and Tarawa by patrolling off the Japanese bastion of Truk. he choose Captain John Cromwell, commander of Submarine Division 43 who had never made a war patrol, to ride aboard the Sculpin with Searaven and Apogon. On the night of November 19, Sculpin's skipper Fred Connaway on his first patrol as CO sighted a Japanese Convoy. He submerged for a dawn attack. But the sharp-eyed enemy convoy commander spotted Sculpin's periscope and turned the entire convoy toward the submerged submarine, presenting a difficult bow-on target.

Connaway went deep and later surfaced to chase the convoy. However, the canny Japanese commander left behind the destroyer Yamagumo. It attacked sculpin. Connaway dove again suffering depth charge damage, which knocked the sub's depth gauge out of whack, though this wasn't immediately evident. Sculpin remained down for several hours. She suffered a rough depth charging, and then a couple hours of quiet. Possibly, Connaway thought, the destroyer was gone. At noon he ordered a move up to periscope depth for a look around.

Ensign W.M Fiedler, a reservist making his first war patrol, was temporary diving officer. He ordered the ballast tanks blown. The boat rose -- 200 feet, 190 feet, 150 feet. At 125 feet the depth gauge needle stuck. But Fiedler didn't notice and continued expelling water to make the boat rise. With no warning Sculpin inadvertantley surfaced, its bow rising high out of the water before splashing back into the sea. Yamagumo charged, hurling depth charges at the diving submarine. Damage was extensive and the pressure hull breached. The steering mechanism failed and the diving planes were stuck.

"We've done our best , " Connaway told his officers. "We'll have to surface while we still can bring her up. Battle stations! Gun action!"

In bright sunlight, Sculpin labored to surface. No torpedo tubes had been readied. The crew ran topside to the guns, but the destroyer opened up with its entire armament, raking the submarine and killing Skipper Connaway, his exec, the Gunnery officer, and gunners. The senior surviving officer was a reserve, Lieutenant George E Brown who saw that Sculpin could not survive and gave the order to abandon and scuttle the ship.

Captain Cromwell decided he knew too much about current plans involving not only the Gilberts invasion, but also the future Marshall Islands attack. Worse, he feared he might give away Ultra secrets under torture. The Japanese would change their code. Inestimable information would be denied the United States. Some officers, like Slade Cutter promised themselves - and their wives - they would not be taken prisoner. Captain Cromwell decided to go down with Sculpin. He sat on an ammo case gazing at the small photo of his wife he carried with him. Ensign Fiedler, who seemingly blamed himself for the diving error, joined him. Sitting with the Filipino steward Eugenio Apostol in the wardroom, Fiedler told a chief petty officer who urged him to hurry off the boat, "We do not choose to go with you. We prefer death to capture by the Japanese". Ensign Fiedler then began dealing himself a hand of solitaire.

Lieutentant Brown yelled to the remaining crewmen: "Abandon ship and God have mercy on your souls". Then brown and Chief Motor Machinist Philip Gabrunuas opened the vents to the sea and Sculpin, still pressing ahead, began her last ride down.

[Hylander_1314]

Thanks Ducimus. That was the mettle of our forefathers. Their selfless actions to preserve the United States of America at all costs, even those that meant doom for themselves. That took some real guts to make a choice like that.

A nother snippet of history added to the list.

[snakeyez]

Ducimus and everyone else too,

I just finished reading Escape from the Deep: A Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew by Alex Kershaw and it was a GREAT read. It's the story of the last moments of the Tang and the crew. The book has only been out a couple of months.