USS Flier (SS-250) Found

Navy confirms sunken sub in Balabac Strait is USS Flier

From Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet Public Affairs

(PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii)  – Commander, Submarine Forces Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC), Rear Adm. Douglas McAneny announced today that a sunken vessel located in the Balabac Strait area of the Philippines is in fact the World War II submarine USS Flier (SS 250).

            “I am honored to announce that, with video evidence and information provided by a team from YAP Films and assistance from the Naval History and Heritage Command, USS Flier has been located,” said McAneny.  “We hope this announcement will provide some closure to the families of the 78 crewmen lost when Flier struck a mine in 1944.”

            USS Flier, a 1525-ton Gato class submarine built at Groton, Connecticut, was commissioned in mid-October 1943. She departed from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for her first war patrol in January 1944.  While entering the harbor at Midway Island during a storm, she went aground and was seriously damaged.

The damaged submarine was towed back to Pearl Harbor and finally reached the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, where she was repaired.  Flier made another start on her first war patrol in May 1944, heading from Pearl Harbor to the waters off Luzon. While en route on 4 June she attacked and sank the transport Hakusan Maru. On June 13, she attacked a Japanese convoy off Subic Bay, receiving a depth charging in return, and on June 22-23, hit another convoy off Mindoro, apparently damaging one or more ships.

In early August 1944 Flier left Fremantle, Australia, for her second war patrol. On 13 August, while transiting shallow water to enter the South China Sea, she struck a mine and quickly sank. Fourteen of 86 crewmen escaped, but only eight survived the subsequent long swim to reach shore. After making their way by raft to Palawan and being protected by local people and a group of guerrillas, at the end of the month they were evacuated by the submarine USS Redfin (SS-272).

The last surviving crew member of Flier, Ens. Al Jacobson, never gave up the search for his lost shipmates.  Sadly, Jacobson passed away in 2008, but his family was determined to continue the search.  The family provided notes and research to the production company YAP Films, which investigates nautical mysteries, and Jacobson’s son Steve and grandson Nelson participated in the search.

“After my father retired in 1990, he became very active in the quest to understand more of what happened,” said Steve Jacobson.  “He put together as much information as he could from naval records of the investigation and put together charts of where he believed Flier was.  We provided YAP Films with everything my father had collected.”  

In the spring of 2009, with the aid of the Jacobson family, the team from YAP Films located wreckage of a submarine in the area that USS Flier was lost.  Father and son divers Mike and Warren Fletcher of the television show “Dive Detectives” captured the first views of the sunken submarine in more than 64 years.  YAP Films provided the Naval History and Heritage Command with footage taken in the Balabac Strait to aid in the identification. 

"The Flier discovery presented the Dive Detectives with one of our most challenging dives,” said Warren Fletcher.  “At a depth of 330 feet there is little margin for error.  As my father and I descended into the dark blue water, the unmistakable shape of a Gato-class submarine came into view.  That moment made all of the hard work and danger pale in comparison with the feeling of pride it gave me to know that the Flier and her crew will not be forgotten."

With the information provided by YAP Films, COMSUBPAC and the Naval History and Heritage Command examined the evidence and historical records and determined that the submarine found at the reported position could only be USS Flier.  No Japanese or U.S. submarine other than Flier was ever reported lost in the area, and the gun mount and radar antenna clearly identifiable in the video matched historical photographs of USS Flier.  Additional identifiable characteristics of the hull indicated that the wreck is indeed a Gato-class submarine.  These factors taken together led COMSUBPAC and the Naval History and Heritage Center to conclude that the wreck found by YAP Films could only be that of USS Flier. 

"The Flier was found because all the right people came together for all the right reasons,” said Mike Fletcher.  “But mostly the Flier was found because of the love a family has for their dad."

“It was a pretty emotional experience,” said Jacobson.  “Although I was really confident of the position, you still don’t know.  Literally, it was exactly at the coordinates he said it would be.  It is tremendous closure and I wish that my dad could have experienced this.”

Former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz once said, “When I assumed command of the Pacific Fleet on 31 December 1941 our submarines were already operating against the enemy, the only units of the Fleet that could come to grips with the Japanese for months to come.  It was to the Submarine Force that I looked to carry the load until our great industrial activity could produce the weapons we so sorely needed to carry the war to the enemy.  It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of great peril.” 

By the end of World War II, submarines had made more than 1,600 war patrols. Pacific Fleet submarines like Flier accounted for more than half of all enemy shipping sunk during the war.  The cost of this success was heavy: 52 U.S. Pacific Fleet submarines were lost, and more than 3,500 submariners remain on “eternal patrol.”

Continue Reading

3-D Wahoo

Recently received an email from Bob Johnson, USN Retired, who served as an Instructor at the Naval Submarine School Advanced Operations Department. During that time he worked in his off hours at the Submarine Museum and Library that at the time was located in Morton Hall. He delved into the loss of USS Wahoo (SS-238) and decided when I had the time I'd research her loss. Now that the time has come, he's started working on a CAD/CAE profile rendering of USS Wahoo (SS-238) for donation to the Submarine Museum and Library in Groton, CT and the Bowfin Memorial in Hawaii.

During the process, Bob came upon a research problem. "I've been researching all of the available on-line photos of the Wahoo to make the drawing as accurate as possible. I've developed a preliminary rendering of her in her Patrol 7 configuration. Some of the drawings I've come across in my research shows an illustration of a 20MM deck gun mounted aft of the sail (probably above the after battery compartment) but I'm not convinced that she was ever fitted like this. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated."

Fortunately, I had the information he needed and pointed him to the third page of wreck images in the Wahoo scrap book on Legends (http://www.warfish.com/scrap-EP-3.html). There it shows the 20mm mount on the after deck behind the fairwater during Wahoo's return from her fourth war patrol and as she is now at the bottom of La Perouse Strait.

The image below is an in-progress image of Bob's work. He's making great progress.

Continue Reading

Jim Allen Remembers Captain Kennedy, Pappy Rau

A while back I had the opportunity to talk at length with former Wahoo crewman James Allen. Jim joined the boat in Pearl Harbor for her second war patrol. We began by discussing his commanding officer at the time, Captain Marvin Kennedy. Given some of the negative things written about him, I asked Jim about his impression of Kennedy.

“Kennedy was an elitist. Every morning he took a freshwater shower in the forward torpedo room while forbidding showers for the rest of the boat. It was very disconcerting for morale. He was very aloof. I only had two interactions with him the entire time I was aboard.”

Jim went on to describe the first encounter which occurred when he was heading forward to check the battery levels. This was done using a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of each cell. The task required him to crawl across the top of the cells. As a result, he frequently came in contact with battery acid which ate holes in his dungarees. Jim trimmed the legs and arms of his dungarees to eliminate the holes. It was standard procedure at the time but decidedly non-regulation.

As he passed through the control room, Kennedy entered from forward. “At this point,” Jim said, “I made my first mistake. I said, ‘Good morning, Captain.’ Kennedy looked at me like I was a piece of meat on a hook. He turned to the Chief of the Boat, Pappy Rau, and said, ‘Rau, have this man change into proper clothes.’ After Kennedy continued on, Rau looked at me disgusted and said, ‘You heard the man.’”

Jim stood watch with CTM Russell “Pappy” Rau and Ken Whipp in the control room at the electrical panel – the dry side of control. Jim recalled, “Pappy Rau was easy to talk to and knew his stuff which gave confidence to the rest of enlisted men.”

Jim was standing nearby in control when an incident occurred between Rau and the boat’s Yeoman, Forest Sterling. Dick O’Kane had removed Sterling from the regular watch list so he could concentrate on typing the patrol report mimeograph stencils. While typing, Joe Vidick called him to go on his usual sonar watch. Sterling refused impolitely.

Thinking better of it, Sterling went to control to advise Rau he had been reassigned. Before he could get his second word out Rau slugged him hard, driving him into the air manifold. Sterling regrouped and glared at Rau who was ready to go another round. “I’m gonna report you,” Sterling said. Rau replied, “I’m counting on it.” Sterling retreated and the misunderstanding was soon sorted out.

Jim recalled, "When Rau gave an order he expected stuff done -- right then."

Continue Reading

Mare Island Memorial Conducted

Bell tolls for 579 men, 7 subs lost

By Lanz Christian Banes/Times-Herald staff writer

A wreath is cast into the Mare Island Strait from berth 6 on Mare Island, part of SundayÕs memorial ceremony for submarines constructed at the shipyard that were lost in World War II. With his ancient, tremulous voice, John Berger blessed the seven wreaths that represented Mare Island's lost ships.

"The symbols will speak for us, for we cannot," intoned Berger, the chaplain for the USS Hornet in Alameda, on Sunday.

The wreaths were made by volunteers from plants and flowers found on Mare Island the day before, said Myrna Hayes, who organized the memorial.

This is the third year Mare Island's lost World War II-era submarines - the USS Pompano, Swordfish, Gudgeon, Trigger, Tullibee and Tang - were honored in a day-long series of ceremonies.

"What I found from the last two years is a tremendous longing by the people who come here today to honor the 579 (lost) men," Hayes said.

The Mare Island Naval Shipyard produced 22 submarines that fought in World War II. Seven did not come home.

In total, 52 U.S. submarines were lost during World War II, with a combined crew of about 3,500 men now on "eternal patrol."

Larry Maggini, who wrote a book about the USS Wahoo, gave a presentation at St. Peter's Chapel about each of the lost seven, weaving their stories with the early history of the American submarine.

Though submariners accounted for only 1.6 percent of Navy personnel during World War II, the submarine fleet had a 22 percent loss rate, Maggini said. Still, the Pacific submarine fleet was responsible for 55 percent of Japanese ship losses, he added.

The 30 or so people who attended the ceremonies, which began by raising a flag to half-staff at Morton Field, were offered a chance to tell their own stories at St. Peter's Chapel.

"The wives of the men of the submarine service went through hell, too. We ought to think of that also," said Don Dickson, 93, who served on the USS Skate.

After a reception at Quarters C on Walnut Avenue, the group went to Berth 6, where submarines were repaired during the war.

"This is a place they last moored and from whence they cast off from our log of memories onto their eternal patrol," Berger said. And with a bell tolling for each of the lost ships, the wreaths were cast into the Mare Island Strait.

Continue Reading