USS Wahoo (SS-238) was a , the first United States Navy ship to be named for the wahoo. Construction started before the U.S. entered World War II, and she was commissioned after entry. Wahoo was assigned to the Pacific theatre. She gained fame as an aggressive and highly successful submarine after Lieutenant Commander Dudley Walker "Mush" Morton became her skipper. She was sunk by Japanese aircraft in October 1943 while returning home from a patrol in the Sea of Japan.
Construction
Wahoos keel was laid down 28 June 1941 at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California. She was launched on 14 February 1942 (sponsored by Mrs. William C. Barker Jr.), and commissioned on 15 May 1942 with Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Marvin G. "Pinky" Kennedy (class of 1929) in command. Lieutenant Richard O'Kane joined the precommissioning crew and served as her executive officer on five war patrols under Kennedy and Morton (O'Kane later received a Medal of Honor for his service in ).
Following fitting out and initial training along the California coast (which took her as far south as San Diego), Wahoo departed Mare Island on 12 August for Hawaii. She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 18 August and underwent exercise training until 21 August.
First patrol, August – October 1942 On 23 August 1942, Wahoo got underway for her first war patrol, seeking Japanese shipping in waters west of Truk, particularly in the area between the Hall Islands and the Namonuito Atoll. On 6 September, her third day in the area, Wahoo fired three Mark 14 torpedoes at her first target, a lone freighter; all missed, and the ship turned toward Wahoo, apparently with the intent to ram. The submarine dodged, fearful of counterattack from the air.
She continued to patrol the Truk area until 20 September, when she left the southwest part of the patrol area to explore south of the Namonuito Atoll. Under a bright moon and clear sky, the submarine sighted a freighter and her escort. Wahoo fired three torpedoes; all missed. A fourth hit the target, which was thought to take a port list and settled by the stern. Four minutes later, a series of three underwater explosions wracked the freighter. Wahoo was chased by the escort, but escaped by radically changing course in a rain squall. Though credited at the time with a freighter of , postwar analysis of Japanese shipping records by JANAC showed no sinking at this time or place.
Wahoo continued her patrol and sighted several airplanes, a patrol boat, and a tender, but was unable to close on any possible targets. On 1 October 1942, the submarine extended her patrol to Ulul Island, where she sighted several fishing boats. Within the next few days, Wahoo missed two of her best targets of the war. The first was (listed as a seaplane tender, she was in fact a mother ship to midget submarines), sailing without escort; Wahoo proved unable to reach a firing position. On 5 October, she sighted an aircraft carrier, believed to be , escorted by two destroyers. (In fact, Ryūjō had been sunk six weeks earlier in the Solomon Islands). Due to an approach lacking aggressiveness and skill, the target sailed away untouched. Two days later, Wahoo departed the patrol area. On 16 October, she made rendezvous with her escort and proceeded to Pearl Harbor, where she ended her first patrol on 17 October 1942.
She commenced refit the following day alongside submarine tender . Wahoo then shifted to Submarine Base Pearl Harbor for overhaul. There, a gun and two 20 mm guns were installed. Overhaul was completed on 2 November, and after three days' training, Wahoo was again ready for sea.
Second patrol, November – December 1942 On 8 November 1942, Wahoo got underway for her second war patrol, with LCDR Dudley Walker "Mush" Morton also aboard for his prospective commanding officer patrol. She arrived at her assigned area in the Solomon Islands, keeping Bougainville and Buka Island in sight. On 30 November, the submarine spotted smoke at a distance of ; it was a lightly loaded freighter or transport with an escorting destroyer on the port bow. Wahoos approach was unsuccessful, and she proceeded east of Cape Hanpan.
Having patrolled the Buka-Kilinailau Channel for 17 days, on 7 December, Kennedy decided to patrol the direct route between Truk and the Shortland Islands for a few days. This proved fruitless, and Wahoo returned to her former hunting grounds, the Buka-Kilinailau Channel. On 10 December, while making her return trip, Wahoo ran across a convoy of three heavily loaded cargo ships escorted by a destroyer. She chose the destroyer as the first target, but proved unable to attain a firing position. Instead, she fired a spread of four torpedoes at the largest tanker, from a range of . Although three hit, Kamoi Maru () needed two hours to sink. The destroyer got too close and Wahoo started down before another attack could be launched. The destroyer dropped around 40 depth charges; none was close. Rather than use the new SJ radar to mount a second attack, which might well sink the freighter (then stopped to pick up survivors), and possibly even the destroyer, Wahoo let them go on a northeasterly course and moved into a new area.
Four days later, a hospital ship was sighted headed for the Shortland Islands. Shortly after, Wahoo claimed to have sunk a submarine that Kennedy (mistakenly) identified as . On 15 December, Wahoo left the area and looked into Kieta Harbor, Buka Island, and passed Moreton Light on 26 December for entrance into Brisbane, Australia, where she commenced refit the following day. On 31 December 1942, LCDR Kennedy was relieved as commanding officer; Morton replaced him.
Third patrol, January – February 1943
Prior to his first patrol as Wahoo's commanding officer, Morton gave a brief but legendary address to the crew. He declared the Wahoo to be expendable, and that any crew member who wanted to remain in Brisbane had half an hour to notify the yeoman for a transfer. No negative word would be said about anyone who stayed behind. None of the crew accepted the offer to stay behind.
Wahoo was ready for sea again on 16 January 1943. She performed sonar tests in Moreton Bay with the destroyer before beginning her third war patrol. Three days later, the submarine passed into Vitiaz Strait en route to her patrol area. Wahoos orders were to reconnoiter Wewak, a Japanese supply base on the north coast of New Guinea between Kairiru Island and Mushu Island. One large problem existed, though; Wahoo had no charts of the harbor. Motor Machinist's Mate Dalton "Bird Dog" Keeter turned out to have bought a cheap school atlas while in Australia. It had a map of New Guinea with a small indentation labeled "Wewak". With that as a reference, a blowup of the Navy chart was made.
On 24 January 1943, Wahoo dove north of Kairiru Island and proceeded around the western end to penetrate Victoria Bay. She sighted the Japanese destroyer with RO-class submarines nested alongside. The destroyer was getting underway, so Wahoo fired a spread of three torpedoes at the moving target from ; all missed aft. Another torpedo was fired, which the destroyer avoided by turning away, continuing through 270° of a circle and headed straight for Wahoo, whose position was marked by the wakes of the steam torpedoes. At a range of she fired her last bow torpedo. This hit amidships, breaking the destroyer's back. "Apparently, her skipper had lost his nerve when he saw our last torpedo heading toward him and put the rudder over to try to miss it, and by swinging himself broadside to it he signed the destroyer's death warrant." Wahoo had no difficulty escaping from the area. Despite heavy damage, Harusame was beached and repaired.
The next day, Wahoo changed course for Palau. On 26 January, the submarine sighted the smoke of two ships. Wahoo obtained a position, launched two torpedoes at the leading ship, and 17 seconds later, two at the second ship. The first two torpedoes hit the Fukuei Maru. The third passed ahead of the second freighter, the fourth hit. Upon observing the damage, Wahoo discovered two more ships, a huge transport, , and a tanker. Fukuei Maru was listing badly to starboard and sinking by the stern; the second ship was headed directly for Wahoo at a slow speed. Ignoring this, Wahoo fired a three-torpedo spread at the transport; the second and third hit and stopped her.
Turning her attention to the second target, which was still headed for her, Wahoo fired two bow tubes "down the throat" to stop her. The second torpedo hit, but the target kept coming and forced the submarine to turn hard to port at full speed to avoid being rammed. So many explosions followed that determining what was happening became difficult. Returning to periscope depth, Wahoo observed Fukuei Maru had sunk; the second target was still moving, evidently with steering trouble; and Buyo Maru was stopped but still afloat.
Wahoo headed for the transport and fired a bow tube; the torpedo passed directly under the middle of the ship, but failed to explode. The sub then fired another torpedo, which headed right for the stack and blew the target apart midships. The submarine then headed for the crippled freighter, which had formed up with a tanker, and both ships were moving away. Wahoo decided to let these two ships get over the horizon, while she surfaced to charge her batteries and attack the shipwrecked Japanese now sitting in about 20 lifeboats. Controversy still attaches to this action in that troops in the water may have been deliberately targeted by Wahoo. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, then COMSUBPAC, asserts that the survivors were army troops and turned machinegun and rifle fire on Wahoo while she maneuvered on the surface, and that such resistance was common in submarine warfare. Richard O'Kane stated that the fire from Wahoo was intended to force the troops to abandon their boats, and no troops were deliberately targeted. Clay Blair states that Morton opened fire first and the shipwrecked returned fire with handguns.
The report for Patrol Three described the events as follows:At 1115 ...Decided to let these two ship[s] get over the horizon while we surfaced to charge batteries and destroy the estimate[d] twenty troop boats now in the water. These boats were of many types, scows, motor launches, cabin cruisers and other nondescript varieties.
At 1315 made battle surface and manned all guns. Fired gun at largest scow loaded with troops. Although all troops in this boat apparently jumped in the water our fire was returned by small caliber machine guns. We then opened fire with everything we had...Whatever the case, Wahoo had misidentified the survivors as Japanese. In fact, they were mainly Indian POWs of 2nd Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment, plus escorting forces from the Japanese 26th Field Ordnance Depot. Of 1,126 men aboard Buyo Maru, 195 Indians and 87 Japanese died in all, including those killed in the initial sinking. The low number suggests O'Kane's defense, that Morton fired only on the boats, may be correct.; . If so, it differed dramatically from the strafing of Japanese troops in the water at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. It proved a rare occurrence in any event.
After some time, Wahoo moved away to intercept the two fleeing ships. She decided to attack the tanker first, since she was as yet undamaged. With only four torpedoes left, the submarine fired two at the tanker, the second hitting her just abaft of midships, breaking her back; she went down almost instantly. Wahoo then turned her attention to the freighter and fired her last two torpedoes without a spread. They both hit. Fifteen minutes later, the freighter sank, having absorbed four hits from three separate attacks. Wahoo then set a course for Fais Island. Postwar, JANAC credited Wahoo with only three sinkings: the transport, Buyo Maru (5,300 tons), Fukuei Maru (), and an unknown maru ().