The main offensive strength of the Asiatic Fleet lay in its submarines. Under the command of Captain John Wilkes, this force of twenty-nine boats, manned by veteran crews, was trained to perfection. It had been operating under combat conditions for several weeks before the war began and, when it did, the submarine fleet was not caught unprepared. But its officers and men were destined to suffer cruel frustrations because, unknown to anyone, they sallied forth to war with torpedoes that ran deeper than programmed, and whose exploders, more often than not, failed to function.
Most formidable of the submarines were the twenty-three modern, fleet-type boats. As long as a football field, they could make 20 knots on the surface and more than 10 knots when submerged. They had a cruising radius of 12,000 miles, and could dive well below 250 feet. Their main armament consisted of eight 21-inch torpedo tubes and one 3-inch deck gun.
The six S-boats that comprised the rest of the force were smaller and older; they were built during the decade following World War I. Designed primarily for defensive purposes, not for the long-range patrols suddenly thrust upon them by the exigencies of this war, they had cramped living areas and stowage space was at a premium. They were good for 14 knots on the surface and about 10 submerged. Unlike the fleet-type submarines, S-boats had no air-conditioning and, during prolonged dives in tropical waters, their crews were unmercifully punished by foul air and sweltering heat. Although nicknamed “pig-boats,” these old submarines, which had only four 21-inch torpedo tubes and a 4-inch deck gun, proved to be tough, respected weapons of underseas warfare. One of them even achieved the distinction of becoming the first American submarine to sink an enemy destroyer. This occurred off the port city of Makasar, in the southern Celebes, on the night of 8 February 1942, when the S-37, commanded by Lieutenant James C. Dempsey, torpedoed the 1,900-ton Japanese destroyer Natsushio.
To support the Asiatic Fleet’s submarines were the tenders Holland, Otus, and Canopus, and the submarine rescue vessel Pigeon (ASR-6). The tenders, equipped with forges and machine shops and manned by master craftsmen, could repair or make practically anything relating to a submarine. They carried spare parts, torpedoes, fuel, food, clothing, and other supplies. Their “can do” crews worked long, hard hours to keep their fellow submariners in the fight and, had their ingenious efforts been anything less than heroic, the submarine operations of the Asiatic Fleet during the early months of the war would have slowed to a crawl.
Admiral Hart did not have enough surface ships to challenge the vast naval power of Japan. Therefore, it was planned that, in the event of war, what surface vessels he did have would immediately withdraw to the Malay barrier and await reinforcements from the Pacific Fleet. His twenty-nine submarines, on the other hand, had the potential to make any seaborne assault on the Philippines a costly venture. They, therefore, were to remain based in Manila to help defend the Philippines.
The day Japanese planes struck Pearl Harbor, five fleet-type submarines and four S-boats were en route to designated stations with war shots loaded. Two fleet submarines were undergoing repair in the Cavite Navy Yard, and the remaining eighteen boats, nested alongside their tenders in Manila Bay, were being readied for action. News of the Japanese attack spurred an already hot-paced effort to get submarines on station and, within hours, Asiatic Fleet submarines began putting to sea.
General MacArthur’s Far East Air Force having been almost totally destroyed during the first two days of the war, the Philippines lay helpless before the warplanes of Japan. On the third day, 10 December 1941, the Cavite Navy Yard, across the bay from Manila, was devastated by unopposed enemy bombers. The two fleet submarines then in the yard were the Sealion (SS-195) and Seadragon (SS-194). The Sealion was sunk by bombs, but the Seadragon, lying alongside her, miraculously escaped serious damage. The loss of the U.S. Navy’s only major overhaul and repair facility west of Honolulu forced the Asiatic Fleet’s submarines to depend wholly on their tenders.
It was now obvious that without fighter protection in being or in prospect, no ship in Philippine waters was safe from air attack. Accordingly, Hart ordered the tenders Holland and Otus to steam for the Netherlands East Indies on the evening of the tenth, so as to place these indispensable vessels beyond the reach of enemy bombers. Only the Canopus and the Pigeon were kept in Manila to provide minimal service to submarines returning from war patrols.
In spite of the adverse operating conditions so suddenly thrust upon him, Hart was determined to fight his submarines and long-range reconnaissance seaplanes from Manila for as long as possible. Spread as thin as they were, however, the submarines were unable to intercept any of the massive Japanese invasion forces that had begun to converge on the Philippines before the war began. As time went on, they were further disadvantaged by the lack of reconnaissance aircraft to help search for enemy convoys: Patrol Wing 10, having lost eleven of its twenty-four PBY seaplanes during the first four days of war, withdrew to the Netherlands East Indies on 13 December. Compounding their plight was the continual presence of Japanese warplanes, which further inhibited their search by forcing them to remain submerged during daylight hours.
In the first two weeks of the war, when Hart’s submarines did catch up with enemy shipping, their commanders attacked with great skill and daring. Time after time, they fired point-blank at choice targets only to have their torpedoes explode prematurely or not at all. There were times, too, when submariners watched aghast as their torpedoes bounced harmlessly off the sides of intended victims. Invariably, their efforts were rewarded by punishing depth-charging at the hands of enemy destroyers. Little wonder that by 24 December, Japanese troops had landed in five areas on Luzon and one in Mindanao with no more difficulty than if they had been holding dress rehearsals in friendly territory.
On the morning of 24 December 1941, with the Japanese marching on Manila from three directions and air raids becoming more frequent, MacArthur decided to save Manila from complete destruction by declaring it an “open city,” effective at midnight. Hart, not having been notified that such a move was impending, was flabbergasted to learn that he had less than fourteen hours in which to close down his headquarters and get all naval personnel out of Manila.
This turn of events was indicative of the less-than-cordial relations between the army and navy commanders in the Far East. MacArthur, openly disdainful of Hart and his little Asiatic Fleet, operated mostly on his own and apparently had no interest in cooperating with his naval counterpart. As Hart later wrote:
On 23 December, the CinCAF [Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet] saw a copy of a USAFFE [U.S. Army Forces, Far East] dispatch which predicted an early retirement of all Army forces to the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor. On the following morning he received definite information that such movement was in progress, that the Government and the GHQ of USAFFE would move to Corregidor that day and that Manila was to be proclaimed an open city, containing no combat elements. This eventuality had been foreseen but its coming so soon was a surprise—as was the fact that no mention of such a step had previously been made, formally or otherwise, since the war began. We immediately proceeded to uproot Canopus and the other Submarine installations from the Manila Harbor front and to shift all such activities to Mariveles and Corregidor.*
This precipitate move was a severe blow to the submarine command. It disorganized the operational plan, and forced the abandonment of practically all spare parts for S-boats and of many hard-to-come-by Mark-14 torpedoes for the fleet-type boats that were cached in and around Manila. Loss of those torpedoes resulted in a shortage that hampered submarine operations for the next year and a half. Also lost in the mad scramble to evacuate the city was the headquarters communication equipment.
“It was decided in full conference,” Admiral Hart wrote, “that the Submarines would continue to operate from Manila Bay and keep it up as long as possible. It was hard to decide whether CinCAF should also shift his Command Post to Corregidor or accept the probability that even the Submarines would have to shift base to the southward in the near future, and make one jump of it to the N.E.I. [Netherlands East Indies]. The latter alternative was chosen.”**
On Christmas Day 1941, the commander in chief, Asiatic Fleet, turned over command of all naval activities remaining in the Philippines to Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, whose headquarters had been moved from the wreckage of the Cavite Navy Yard to a tunnel on Corregidor. To minimize the time he would be “out of action,” Hart planned to take off for Surabaja after sundown in one of Patrol Wing 10’s PBYs. That morning, however, Japanese pilots discovered the hidden seaplane and destroyed it. Fortunately, the P-type submarine Shark (SS-174) was available and, at about 2100, Hart and his party boarded her for a voyage that lasted seven days instead of his desired twenty-four hours.
Before he left Manila, Hart made several important changes in the staff structure of Submarines, Asiatic Command. These centered around Commander John Wilkes who, as commander of Submarine Division 14, had arrived on station in the fall of 1939 with six Perch-type submarines to take command of Submarine Squadron 5. Already attached to the Asiatic Fleet were six S-boats, the Canopus, and the Pigeon. These were incorporated into Wilkes’s command. Squadron 5 gained strength one year later when the Shark and four other fleet-type boats of the Seadragon class arrived.
This buildup to eleven fleet-type submarines created problems in maintenance, supply, berthing, and advanced-base support that the Canopus, primarily an S-boat tender, could not solve. In a belated attempt to rectify the situation, the Navy Department finally responded to Hart’s urgent request by purchasing the merchant vessel Fred Morris for conversion to a tender. Although the merchantman was commissioned the USS Otus on 19 March 1941, her conversion in the Cavite Navy Yard was far from complete when the war began. The Asiatic Fleet’s submarine force was further bolstered by the arrival in November 1941 of Submarine Squadron 2. Commanded by Captain Walter E. Doyle, it boasted twelve fleet-type boats and the tender Holland.
In the interest of a more efficient chain of command, Squadrons 2 and 5 were deactivated on 1 December 1941 and combined to form Submarine Squadron 20 under the command of Captain Doyle. At this juncture, Wilkes, having completed his tour of duty with the Asiatic Fleet, was ordered back to the United States. Admiral Hart, however, held him in Manila, his justification being the simple statement that he did it “for eventualities.”*
Apparently the “eventualities” Hart anticipated materialized, for on 9 December 1941—two days after the disaster at Pearl Harbor—he reinstated Wilkes, newly promoted to captain, as commander, Submarines, Asiatic Fleet, and transferred Doyle to Surabaja with orders to prepare an alternative command post for submarines. Hart’s report explains that he made this abrupt change of command “on account of his [Wilkes’s] experience and familiarity with the conditions obtaining—and his excellent ability, including health.”** As the situation developed, it would have made little difference who was designated commander, Submarines, Asiatic Fleet, because the degree of operational control to be exercised by the holder of that billet was never clearly defined. Hart, first as commander in chief of the Asiatic Fleet and later as commander of ABDA’s naval forces, issued such specific operational directives that the submarine commander was permitted little, if any, interpretation or flexibility in their execution.
To prevent the higher echelon of the submarine command from being knocked out by enemy action, it was divided into an operational staff under Captain Wilkes and an administrative staff under Captain James Fife. Both were organized to function, if necessary, as independent operational-administrative units.
About the twentieth of December, it was determined that Surabaja, whose harbor was jammed with Allied ships, could not be effectively used to service submarines, and the tender Holland was sent to Darwin, where it was planned to set up a service base.
At midnight, the day after Christmas, Fife and his staff boarded the submarine Seawolf (SS-197) and departed Corregidor for Darwin, to set up headquarters on board the Holland.
Corregidor experienced its first air raid on 29 December 1941, when an estimated 340 aircraft bombed the “rock” for more than three hours and did considerable damage. Although the 3-inch antiaircraft guns of the defenders brought down a few enemy planes, it suddenly became obvious that, because of their small caliber and limited range, they could not effectively defend the island fortress and its environs against air raids.
Also attacked that day was the Canopus, which was lying, camouflaged, near the shore in Mariveles Bay, a few miles north of Corregidor. Even though there were 3-inch antiaircraft guns in the nearby hills, they proved no more effective than their counterparts on Corregidor. As a result, the tender was grievously damaged from a bomb hit and several near-misses.
The raid, portending grimmer days to come, underscored the futility and danger of attempting to conduct submarine operations from Manila Bay, and the swift decision to terminate them came as no surprise. Orders were transmitted that night to Asiatic Fleet submarines to head for the Malay barrier upon completion of their war patrols. The last submarine to leave the Manila area was the Swordfish (SS-193). She departed for Surabaja on 31 December with Wilkes and his operational staff on board. Time having run out for surface ships to escape, the Canopus, affectionately known to submariners as “the Old Lady,” and the Pigeon were left behind, and were scuttled when Bataan and Corregidor fell. Their courageous crews were either killed or captured.
Toward the end of December, the U.S. War Department and Navy Department decided that Darwin had the potential to be a base of considerable magnitude and, being about 1,200 nautical miles east of Surabaja, it provided greater security from enemy attack. Accordingly, the commander of Task Force 5, Rear Admiral Glassford, ordered all the Asiatic Fleet’s auxiliaries not otherwise deployed, such as the seaplane tenders William B. Preston (AVD-7) and Childs (AVD-1), to move to Darwin.
In truth, Darwin was dismally situated for a naval base. It had a small naval station, HMAS Melville,* but the nearest marine overhaul and repair facility of any consequence was in southern Australia, about 1,800 miles away. Although Darwin’s harbor is deep, it is cursed with a 24-foot tide, and its entrance is vulnerable to mining. No railroads came within several hundred miles of the place, and the roads were primitive, at best. Supplies in quantity could be brought in only by ship. Fighter protection was nonexistent because most of Australia’s air force was fighting in Africa, Great Britain, and Singapore, and what few American combatant aircraft could be scraped together were attempting to reach beleaguered Java by staging through Darwin—not basing there.
Most of Darwin’s population of 600 had fled to safer parts of the continent, leaving behind deserted streets and boarded-up stores. The sun, which bore down on the place with 110-degree intensity, could be blotted out by a sudden drenching rain. Worst of all, insofar as American sailors were concerned, lack of shipping space caused an acute shortage of beer and spirits, and entertainment, other than an occasional softball game, was out of the question.
Wilkes arrived in Surabaja on 7 January 1942 and immediately installed his staff in Hart’s fleet headquarters—a large house on the city’s outskirts. At about the same time, Fife and his administrative staff arrived in Darwin. In normal times, Surabaja, with its sheltered harbor, ample docking space, floating dry dock, and well-equipped machine shops, would have made an excellent submarine base. But these were far from normal times. Surabaja Harbor was overburdened with Allied naval vessels and merchant ships of many flags. Dock space was at a premium. Overhaul and repair facilities were taxed far beyond their capacity. With the tenders Holland and Otus stationed at Darwin, spare parts for American submarines were unattainable. Dutch technicians and Indonesian mechanics, unfamiliar with American machinery and hampered by a language barrier, were of little help, and submarine crews returning from grueling war patrols had to forgo much-needed rest in order to ready their boats for the next assignment. And, incredible as it may seem, the Dutch did not work in the navy yard on weekends.
It was planned to base one-third of the submarines in Darwin and rotate them with the boats operating from Surabaja, but the stark inadequacies of the Australian port doomed this hastily conceived idea from its inception. Hart’s report covering the latter part of January 1942 states: “It developed to be a mistake to have sent practically all large auxiliaries all the way to Darwin, because that removed them so far from the center of gravity of operations of our ships which they existed to serve.”* Accordingly, on 29 January, he directed all fleet auxiliaries to move from Darwin to Tjilatjap, upon completion of whatever work was currently under way.
When the Holland and Otus arrived on 10 February, both Tjilatjap Harbor and the long, narrow channel winding up to it from the Indian Ocean were packed with ships of all descriptions. Among the Asiatic Fleet ships present were the Black Hawk and Marblehead; the latter had been seriously damaged by bombs in the Battle of the Flores Sea six days earlier. Tjilatjap did have a small floating dry dock, but otherwise, as a fleet overhaul and repair facility, it was a farce, and the belated arrival of tenders did little to help solve the maintenance problems that were plaguing the Asiatic Fleet’s war-battered ships—particularly the submarines. Besides, with ABDA’s small air force all but destroyed and Japanese warplanes marauding at will over Java, it was disquieting to realize that one stick of bombs, well-placed on a ship in the narrow channel, could result in the rest of them being trapped in the harbor.
Soon after arriving in Tjilatjap, because no other ship was available, the Otus was given a most unorthodox assignment—to escort the crippled Marblehead nearly 4,000 miles to Trincomalee, Ceylon. Sparsely armed and unable to play a defensive role, the Otus was to rescue survivors in the event the cruiser’s temporary patches gave way and she foundered. With daily bombing raids eroding port facilities at Surabaja and the area deemed unsafe for submarines, only the Holland remained to service Asiatic Fleet submarines.
On 18 February, Japanese forces landed unopposed on the island of Bali, giving them access to airfields within easy reach of Surabaja and Tjilatjap. The next day, 188 Japanese carrier-based dive-bombers and fighters accompanied by 54 land-based bombers demolished most of Darwin and its meager military installations. Practically every ship in the harbor was either sunk or damaged. Fearful of similar treatment for Tjilatjap, Glassford ordered the indispensable tenders Holland, with Fife and his administrative staff embarked, and Black Hawk to steam for ports in southern Australia. Accompanying them were the destroyers Barker and Bulmer, both damaged by near-hits off the coast of Sumatra on 15 February. Escorting these ships were the submarines Stingray (SS-186) and Sturgeon (SS-187).
By 26 February, it was known that at least two enemy invasion fleets were descending on Java. Bombing raids had intensified, and the Allies, with only twenty-eight assorted combatant-type aircraft left, were powerless to stave them off. As the capital island teetered on disaster’s brink, the ABDA command was dissolved and the Dutch, with the few Allied forces available to them, assumed full responsibility for the defense of Java. Now, the commander of the submarine force, John Wilkes, his boats no longer operating from bases in the Netherlands East Indies, had become supererogatory. Glassford, who had been named commander, Southwest Pacific, and given temporary promotion to vice admiral, ordered him to get out of Java while he could. The next day, Wilkes and his staff departed Tjilatjap on board the submarines Spearfish, Sargo, and Seadragon bound for their new headquarters in Australia.
Admiral Hart maintained strict control over the use of his fleet’s submarines from the day war began until 14 February 1942, when he relinquished his ABDA command and returned to the United States. His decision to deploy his submarines primarily in the defense of points where enemy landings were anticipated did not jibe with the thinking of many submariners. They regarded waiting in low-density target areas to intercept landings that might or might not occur as a waste of time and effort, and thought it would be more productive to fight their underseas war in high-density target areas, such as off major bases and ports, and to interdict the enemy’s lines of communication. To some extent this was done, but only, as Hart’s report states, “insofar as numbers [of submarines] available would permit.”*
Hart’s plan could have been effective. It depended, however, on accurate advance information, and at no time during those early months of the war did he have adequate aerial reconnaissance. From what little information he did receive, and some of that was faulty, he was obliged to divine where and when the enemy might strike next. As a result, no Japanese landing was prevented or even seriously hampered by U.S. submarines, because, sad to say, they generally arrived on the scene after the landing had taken place.
From the beginning of the war until the fall of Java, Asiatic Fleet submarines were forced to keep to the sea for unduly long periods. It was not unusual for fleet-type submarines to be out upwards of fifty days, while the non-air-conditioned S-boats had to endure the heat of tropic seas for thirty or forty days at a time. According to Hart: “Many of the patrols were much longer than was intended because in so many cases on the way back to base Submarines had to be rerouted to increase opposition to the enemy’s advance.” He went on to observe: “It was being found, however, that, in spite of the very great hardships and strain over long periods, the personnel was standing it surprisingly well. Many were in rather bad shape upon return, but appeared to recover in a very short period of rest.”*
Beginning in January 1942, a few of the fleet-type submarines were diverted from war patrols to transport urgently needed supplies, mainly 3-inch antiaircraft shells and machine-gun ammunition, to Corregidor. This was necessary because surface vessels could not penetrate the Japanese blockade. On the return trip, these submarines evacuated important people who were not essential to the defense of the “rock,” such as military pilots, skilled technicians, and civilian officials. They also brought out spare parts for submarines, radio equipment, and torpedoes. For example, on 20 February Lieutenant Commander Chester C. Smith in the Swordfish loaded thirteen torpedoes and evacuated Philippine President Manuel Quezon and his family, Vice President Sergio Osmeña, and five high-ranking staff members to San Jose, Panay Island, Philippines. The Swordfish immediately returned to Corregidor and evacuated the American high commissioner to the Philippines, Francis B. Sayre, his party of eleven, and five navy enlisted men. The passengers were taken to Fremantle, Australia.
The first three months of World War II will haunt the Asiatic Fleet’s submariners as long as they live. From the attack on Pearl Harbor until the fall of Java, which brought about the dissolution of the Asiatic Fleet, they fired at least 223 torpedoes at some 97 enemy vessels and got only 11 confirmed kills.** It is small wonder that humiliated submarine commanders began to doubt their own or their crews’ competence. The crews, in turn, knowing the fault did not lie with them, questioned the ability of their skippers. Thus, the strain generated by long, hazardous patrols, capped by repeated inexplicable failures, caused a few disillusioned and thoroughly heartsick submarine commanders to ask to be relieved.
It didn’t take long for the highly competent submariners to suspect they were fighting a war with defective torpedoes, and they reported their concern. Those in higher command, however, were not easily convinced, and it took nearly two years for the navy to recognize the problems and correct them. By then it was too late to salvage the careers of some promising naval officers, and many a Japanese ship that should have been rotting on the ocean floor was still plying the seas.
The USS Stingray (SS-186), USS Sturgeon (SS-187), and USS Salmon (SS-182), pictured here with the USS Seal (SS-183), were part of the long-range, fleet-type submarines attached to Submarine Squadron 20. Naval History, NH 77086
On the other side of the ledger, the following losses were sustained by the Asiatic Fleet’s submarine force.
On 10 December 1941, the Sealion, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Richard G. Voge, was sunk during the bombing of the Cavite Navy Yard. Four men in her engine room were killed.
On 20 January 1942, the S-36, commanded by Lieutenant John R. McKnight, Jr., while traversing Makasar Strait at night in the face of strong, unpredictable currents, ran hard aground on hidden Taka Bakang Reef. Unable to work free, she was scuttled, but her crew was saved.
On 11 February 1942, the Shark, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Louis Shane, Jr., was depth-charged and sunk off Menado, northern Celebes, with the loss of all hands. She was the first American submarine to be sunk by surface forces in the Pacific.
On 3 March 1942, the Perch (SS-176), commanded by Lieutenant Commander David A. Hurt, after several days of being viciously depth-charged, was unable to submerge and, in the face of enemy gunfire, was scuttled. All hands were captured. During three and a half years as prisoners of war, nine men died, but fifty-three, including Hurt, lived through the ordeal.
On 6 April 1942, the tender Canopus, commanded by Commander Earl L. Sackett, left in the Manila area to service submarines, was scuttled when Bataan fell. Sackett and several others were evacuated by submarine to Australia, but the rest of the ship’s company fought in the defense of Corregidor, and were either killed or captured by the Japanese.
On 4 May 1942, the Pigeon was sunk off Corregidor with no loss of life. During the bombing of the Cavite Navy Yard on 10 December 1941, when commanded by Lieutenant Richard E. Hawes, she rescued the minesweeper Bittern (AM-36) and the submarine Seadragon by towing both crippled ships clear of the blazing dock area. For this heroic performance, Hawes was awarded the Navy Cross, and the Pigeon became the first U.S. Navy ship to be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. Lieutenant Hawes turned over command of the Pigeon to Lieutenant Commander Frank A. Davis on 5 January 1942 and was evacuated to Australia. Under Davis, the Pigeon received a second Presidential Unit Citation for outstanding performance of duty in the face of unrelenting enemy bombing attacks and artillery fire. Her crew, like many other navy men, manned Corregidor’s beach defenses and fought to the bitter end. As prisoners of the Japanese, some of them managed to survive, but Davis was not one of them.
*Hart, “Narrative of Events,” p. 45.
**Ibid.
*Ibid., p. 31.
**Ibid., p. 38.
*The Australians, like the British, name shore stations as they do ships.
*Hart, “Narrative of Events,” p. 65.
*Ibid., p. 65.
*Ibid., p. 68.
**The figures for the number of torpedoes fired and the number of targets are extrapolated from a list of submarine war patrols contained in Silent Victory by Clay Blair, Jr. They are perhaps on the conservative side, but are close enough to illustrate the shocking dimensions of this tragedy.
