Sorry! Another ussubvetsofwwii.org story.

[Rockin Robbins]

STILL REMEMBER THIS USS FLYING FISH?

On August 28, 1942, Flying Fish (Donaho) hit a battleship of the Kongo class. While setting up to fire at one of the escorts, a plane dropped a bomb close to Flying fish, forcing her deep, while the escorts delivered a devastating depth charge attack. Two hours later Flying Fish returned to periscope depth. While Donaho was scanning the horizon a nervous torpedoman in the after torpedo room accidentally fired a fish from No.7 tube with the outer door closed. For the following two days the crew worked to release the torpedo, finally being able to pull it back inside the ATR. Donaho then proceeded to the Truk area where he was attacked and seriously damaged by a patrol boat. On Sept. 4 he closed another patrol boat on the surface. It opened fire with a three-inch gun. Donaho cleared the bridge, then closed to 600 yards and fired a torpedo, which missed. As Flying Fish dove, she took a terrific down angle. Two Destroyers joined in the attack, dropping a total of 54 depth charges. Flying Fish, severely damaged, went to 350 feet. In order to maintain depth, Donaho had to hold the boat at an 18-degree up angle. The ordeal was over in four and a half-hours as the Flying Fish survived one of the worst depth charging of the war.

Holy cow! the site is full of incredible stories and less than 1000 people in the world, according to their counters, have seen them. Again we see aggressiveness against Japanese warships. Again we see non-wimpy Japanese reaction giving Flying Fish all she could handle for four and a half hours, delivering severe damage.

We also see that the crew could have stayed in bed those two mornings as nothing good was going to come their way for about 24 hours. Talk about a string of misfortune! He even missed from 600 yards on the surface against a patrol boat armed with a three-inch gun! Sometimes survival is enough to ask for...