Grayback beneath 1,400 feet of water after realizing that a mistranslated Japanese war record had pointed searchers in the wrong direction. What was the most successful US submarine ww2? When the drone returned to the mother ship, technicians downloaded its data, using computer software to stitch all of the sonar imagery into one coherent picture that they could quickly review. The Lost 52 Project is a group of people that are dedicated to finding the 52 submarines from the US Navy that were lost during WWII and never located. Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE, Gone Viral: Bugler Stands & Plays Taps in the Rain, Tribute to WWII Nurse. "It's very vital that we remember them, and that they feel that they haven't been forgotten, that their sacrifice wasn't in vain," Dennison said. The missing Indonesian submarine has been found, according to Indonesian military officials. Now, more than six decades after its demise, the Stickleback has been rediscovered off the coast of Oahu by the Lost 52 Project, a private organization established to find the 52 United States. Grayback's tenth patrol, her most successful in terms of tonnage sunk, was also her last. It received two Navy Unit Commendations and eight battle stars. The USS Grayback, credited with sinking 14 enemy ships, was discovered south of Okinawa with much of its body still intact. Two nights later, 20 to 21 December, she spotted another convoy of six ships, and after an end-around run, she fired a spread of nine torpedoes into the heart of the Japanese formation. It was one of 52 U.S. submarines reported missing during the great conflict. Then, on 25 December, Grayback surfaced to sink four landing barges with her deck guns. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Photo courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command. I was dumbfounded, he said. Its the first U.S. submarine to be found in waters off Japan. R-12, off Key West, Fla., where it sank during a training exercise in 1943. Meet the honorees NFL Draft Hub Vote . How many submarines did Germany have in World War II? That morning, she had sunk tanker Nanho Maru and severely damaged Asama Maru. If so, I would assume normal ocean decomposition. On March 17, 1942, the sub took down its first target, a 3,291-ton cargo ship off Port Lloyd in the Japanese-held Bonin Islands. The USS Grayback sailed out of Pearl Harbor on Jan. 28, 1944 for its 10th combat patrol. Its plaque was still affixed to the front, but there was evidence that the sub likely was bombed. His nephew John Bihn, of Wantagh, N.Y., is named after him. Through the latter half of 1942, the Grayback damaged several freighters and was a general menace to enemy escorts, submarines and shipping vessels. A World War II submarine that was sunk with 80 sailors on board and has been missing for three-quarters of a century was found, according to an organization dedicated to finding dozens of lost war subs. For me, finding U.S. submarines is part of my activity to introduce the tragic story of war, he said. The worst such accidentindeed, the deadliest civilian maritime disaster in historyoccurred on December 20, 1987, when the passenger ferry MV Doa Paz collided with the oil tanker MT Vector in the Tablas Strait, roughly 110 miles (180 km) south of Manila. IE 11 is not supported. The U.S.S. Armed with the information in that book and Mr. Iwasakis discovery, Mr. Taylor and the Lost 52 team decided to make a run at finding the Grayback. Credited with sinking at least 14 ships during the war, the USS Grayback was one of 52 submarines that was lost in action. One blew a gasket on a manhole cover, and the submarine, leaking seriously, was ordered back to Brisbane, Australia, where she arrived 23 January. On 16 May, she torpedoed and seriously damaged a destroyer. Nine days later the Navy announced that the submarine and the ninety-nine crewmen on board were presumed lost. It was hidden from discovery all this time by a single errant digit. Here are the details of its glory and its tragic end. Ten days later, on March 7, the submarine USS Grayback failed to return to Pearl Harbor from her tenth war patrol as scheduled. Remarkable new information has emerged on the fate of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Thresher, also known by its hull number SSN-593, the lead submarine of its class, which was lost during trials east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts . Nor did she reply to a radio inquiry three days later. On Jan. 5, 1943, the sub helped rescue six survivors of a crashed B-26 on the island of Munda Bay, earning Cmdr. It is my hobby, and also my passion.. She was due to return to Midway by the 7th March 1944, but she failed to return. The Grayback was found more than 1,400 feet under water and about 50 miles south of Okinawa, Japan. She was somewhere off the coast of Okinawa when a Japanese war plane located the sub and dropped a 500-pound bomb on her after deck, after of the conning tower, damaging the ship beyond repair or recovery. She was sunk near Okinawa on 27 February 1944. Read about our approach to external linking. Why did Germany not have aircraft carriers? The sub was last heard from in February 1944. The files included daily reports received by radio from the naval air base at Naha, Okinawa and the entry for Feb. 27, 1944, contained a promising lead. Grayback spotted the enemy conning tower a few times, and the Japanese ship broached once; but the Grayback could not get into position to attack. He set up the privately funded Lost 52 Project to track down the rest, relying on technology that had become available only in the last 10 to 15 years. THE GERMAN NAVY commenced World War II with fifty-six submarines, of which only twenty four were suitable for operations in the Atlantic. On 17 January, she attacked a destroyer escorting a large maru, hoping to disable the escort and then sink the freighter with her deck guns. On the 28th January 1944, the USS Grayback with her 80 strong crew, left on their 10th Combat Mission from Pearl Harbour. Your email address will not be published. Wartime exploits The USS Grayback SS-208 was launched on 30th June 1941 and attached to the Atlantic Fleet. A later project involved converting the uncompleted heavy cruiser Seydlitz into the carrier Weser, but that was curtailed in June 1943, and the Soviets scrapped what they found of it after the war. She had gotten the news from Christine Dennison. Only a week out of port, Pharmacist's Mate Harry B. Roby was called upon to perform an emergency appendectomy, the second to be done on a patrolling submarine. By October 1944, the USS Tang had racked up the best record of any US Navy submarine, sinking Japanese ships across the Pacific. Grayback's first war patrol from 15 February to 10 April 1942 took her along the coast of Saipan and Guam. ", 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. Ask a science question, get a science answer. This is how the Naval History and Heritage Command documented its demise: "That same day [Feb. 27], a Japanese carrier-based plane spotted a submarine on the surface in the East China Sea and attacked. About a month later, the submarine reported sinking two Japanese cargo ships on. Cookie Notice It sank four landing barges with its deck guns on Dec. 25, 1942. Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. Four days later, she was again fired on by an enemy submarine, but maneuvered to avoid the torpedoes. Required fields are marked *. Grayback commanding officer (CO) John Anderson Moore was awarded the Navy Cross after this patrol.[7]. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? She sailed from Pearl Harbor on 28 January 1944 for the East China Sea. Please note the wreck of USS Wahoo (SS-238) was found on July 28, 2006, in the La Perouse Strait by a team of Russian divers led by Vladimir Kartashev. A World War II Navy submarine missing for 75 years has finally been found off the coast of Japan. But its also sobering, because we just found 80 men. The next day, Mr. Taylor and his crew held a ceremony to remember the sailors lost aboard the ship and called out their names one by one. The sub exploded and sank immediately, and there were no survivors. USS Grayback SS-208. First, is it necessarily true that all compartments of a submarine flood if it wrecks? Due to reach Midway on 7 March, Grayback did not arrive. "Swede" Momsen in Cero cruised the China Sea and returned to base with claims of 38,000tons sunk and 3,300 damaged. As Commander Moore did 75 years before, Mr. Taylor launched his mission to Okinawa this spring from Hawaii. The recording included the coordinates of the location of the submarine. According to Japanese reports, the submarine exploded and sank immediately, but antisubmarine craft were called in to depth-charge the area, clearly marked by a trail of air bubbles, until at last a heavy oil slick swelled to the surface.". The seventh patrol was more successful. Along with the use of new drone technology, the recovered military documents meant the team could correctly locate the submarine, which was 1,400ft (430m) down. Within five days of her first contact with Japanese ships, she had expended all her torpedoes in a series of attacks that netted four ships for over 10,000tons. The builder's plate remains attached to the intact bridge. The Lost 52 Project is an organization dedicating its time and resources to finding these lost subs. A team of explorers just found it off the coast of Japan. The Lost 52 Project - whose aim is to locate lost US submarines from World War Two - led the mission to find the USS Grayback off the coast of Okinawa. The sub was ordered home in late February with only two torpedoes remaining after an attack on a Japanese convoy. Finding the remains of the submarine has solved another of the mysteries of World War II and has given closure to the 80 families that waited 75 years to know where their loved ones were. Sailing 26 September with Shad(SS-235), she met Cero(SS-225) at Midway Island to form the first of the Submarine Force's highly successful wolfpacks. My mother would cry very often if you spoke to her about it., With no body to bury, Mr. Bihns grandparents, Patrick and Catherine King, memorialized their son on their own headstone. She was launched on 31 January 1940, sponsored by Mrs. Lydia Ballou Brown (ne Chappell), wife of Rear Admiral Wilson Brown, Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, and commissioned on 30 June 1941 with Lieutenant Willard A. Saunders in command. The Grayback was damaged on Jan. 17, 1943, by a depth charge and had to go back to port at Brisbane, Australia, for repairs. Here are the details of its glory and its tragic end. The rest, as they say, is history, except that now a new chapter can be opened one that can bring closure to the families of the long lost sailors who gave their lives for the greater good. Grayback went down, were one of the firsts to find out about the miraculous discovery. On the next to last day of the expedition, the drone reported a malfunction one-third of the way through a planned 24-hour mission. USS Grayback, a U.S. Navy submarine lost in 1944 to enemy air attack, has been found. "I committed from the very beginning, from a little girl, that I was gonna find him or follow him or keep his memory alive, whatever I could do," Taylor told ABC News in an interview. The Grayback was thought to have gone down in the open ocean 100 miles east-southeast of Okinawa. Mr. Bihn, who was born three years after the Grayback went down, remembers him as a constant presence in his maternal grandparents home, where a black-and-white photo of the submarine hung in the living room near a black frame holding Mr. Kings Purple Heart medal and citation. Grayback continued on patrol, torpedoing and damaging several Japanese ships. USS Grayback, a World War II submarine, was lost at sea after sinking Japanese freight and transport ships in the western Pacific. An Underwater Workhorse. She ranked 20th among all U.S. submarines in total tonnage sunk during World War II, with 63,835tons, and 24th in number of ships sunk, with 14. The USS Grayback is about 426 metres below sea level (1,400 ft), so from the chart we can see that its local ambient temperature is around 15 - 20 degrees C. This is pretty good for microbial life. His team had. The vessel is reportedly deep in the ocean and broken into multiple pieces. The US Navy used Japanese Military Records to try and piece together what may have happened to the submarines that went missing, including the USS Grayback. [9], Graybacks commanding officer John Anderson Moore was awarded his third Navy Cross posthumously after this patrol.[10]. "I committed from the very beginning, when I was a little girl, that I was going to find him or follow him or keep his memory alive," she told ABC News. Her fifth war patrol began as Grayback sailed from Australia on 7 December 1942. With almost a quarter of her crew untested in battle Grayback departed Pearl Harbor for the East China Sea on 2 December for her ninth war patrol.