USS Bowfin (SS/AGSS-287), is a of the United States Navy named for the bowfin fish. Since 1981, she has been open to public tours at the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum (formerly USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, next to the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center.
Bowfin was laid down by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine, on 23 July 1942 and launched on 7 December 1942 by Mrs. Jane Gawne, wife of Captain James Gawne; she was commissioned on 1 May 1943, with Commander Joseph H. Willingham in command.
First patrol Following fitting out, the submarine proceeded via Newport, Rhode Island, to New London, Connecticut, her base for shakedown training. Early in July 1943, she got underway for the Pacific war zone, and after transiting the Panama Canal and crossing the Pacific, reached Australia. After-voyage repair at Brisbane preceded her getting underway on 19 August to move north and west along the Australian coast to Darwin. She topped off her fuel tanks at that port and sailed on the morning of 25 August for her first war patrol.
Bowfin reached the Mindanao Sea on 2 September, but patrolled for more than three weeks without finding any worthwhile targets. On 24 September, she met to conduct coordinated operations. The next day, the two submarines began tracking a six-ship convoy and continued the chase for some five hours before Bowfin finally attained a suitable attack position. She then launched her six bow torpedoes, four at a cargo ship and two at a trailing transport. Three exploded against the side of the first ship, and both of those fired at the second struck home. The submarine immediately turned her fantail toward the convoy and emptied her stern tubes, sending four torpedoes in the direction of a tanker. Gunfire at her periscope forced Bowfin to go deep, so prevented her crew from observing the progress of her last salvo, but they heard its torpedoes explode. When the submarine rose to periscope depth about an hour later, the passenger-cargo ship Kirishima Maru was slowly sinking, the tanker was on fire, and the transport seemed to be settling by the stern. However, the two latter ships apparently were able to limp back to port, for the sinking of neither was confirmed by postwar study of Japanese records. Later in the day, members of Bowfin'''s crew heard distant explosions and inferred that Billfish was going after the remnants of the convoy, a conclusion that proved to be correct, for their sister ship managed to damage two Japanese ships totaling about 12,000 tons. Although the submarines continued to pursue the remaining enemy vessels as they fled during the night, the battered group of Japanese ships finally managed to slip away in the darkness.
The following morning, after Bowfins radar had picked up an enemy plane also equipped with radar, the submarine was forced to submerge to avoid detection. Two days later, she came across a interisland steamer and shadowed her until reaching a firing position about three hours later. She then launched three torpedoes. One stopped before reaching the target and the other two missed.
On 30 September, as she left the Mindanao Sea, Bowfin chanced upon a diesel-propelled barge carrying over 100 Japanese soldiers; she opened fire on it with her 4-inch gun. When the target responded with machine-gun fire, the submarine's 20 mm guns entered the fray. The battle came to an abrupt end when a 4-inch round struck the enemy's magazine and blew apart the already sinking barge.
On 2 October, as the submarine continued through the Makassar Strait toward Australia, her crew sighted a schooner off Balikpapan. Willingham fired two shots across the stranger's bow, but failed to bring her to and sank her with gunfire.Bowfin arrived at Fremantle on 10 October, ending a successful patrol. Rear Admiral Ralph Waldo Christie, who commanded American submarines in the area, was lavish in his praise of the submarine's performance; he rewarded her commanding officer with the opportunity of heading a submarine division. To free him for the new role, Lieutenant Commander Walter T. Griffith relieved Willingham as commanding officer of Bowfin on 26 October.
Second patrol
Upon completion of refitting, Bowfin got underway on 1 November and headed for the South China Sea. From time to time during this patrol, she again cooperated with Billfish. On 8 November, Bowfin picked up the trail of a group of five schooners. When she pulled within range, she opened fire with her 4-inch gun and sank three before bombs from a Japanese plane forced the submarine to dive, allowing the two surviving vessels to slip away. After staying down until dark, Bowfin surfaced and resumed patrolling. Before long, she discovered and opened fire upon a large sailing ship, which went down after suffering hits by two 4-inch shells. Two days later, she found her next victims, two small steamers heading for Tawi-Tawi Bay and set both ablaze with gunfire.
Her luck was even better on the morning of 26 November, while she was approaching the coast of Indochina during a blinding rainstorm. Without prior knowledge that any other vessels were near, she unexpectedly found herself surrounded by Japanese shipping. After barely avoiding a collision with a tanker by backing all engines, she torpedoed and sank the tanker Ogurasan Maru and then sank the cargo ship Tainan Maru. A few hours later, her torpedoes sank Van Vollenhoven, a coaster that the Japanese had taken from her French owners when they overran Indochina almost two years before. On 28 November, after having sunk a small passenger-cargo ship with one torpedo, Bowfin joined Billfish in attacking a convoy and quickly sank the cargo ship Sydney Maru and tanker Tonon Maru.
Meanwhile, one of the Japanese ships fired on Bowfin and scored hits, which opened leaks in her starboard induction line; while serious, they did not prevent the submarine from getting off her last two torpedoes. Repair efforts at daylight slowed, but did not completely stop the flooding, and Bowfin began her voyage back to Australia. En route to her base on 2 December, she came across a "two-masted yacht...which...," in Griffith's words, "...looked like it might have been some planter’s yacht taken over by the Japs." The submarine's deck gun promptly destroyed this stranger; thereafter, Bowfin enjoyed an uneventful passage that brought her to Fremantle a week later. There, Rear Admiral Christie praised her performance as the "classic of all submarine patrols".
Third patrol
The submarine got underway on 8 January 1944 for her third war patrol. She proceeded through the Java, Banda, and Flores Seas to Makassar Strait, where, on 16 January, she encountered a small schooner, surfaced, and sank the sailing vessel with her deck gun. The following day, she came across a cargo ship and two escorts, but her attacks on these targets were frustrated by malfunctioning torpedoes. One from her first spread of four bow torpedoes hit and stopped the cargo ship, but the other three missed, and two shots from her bow tubes detonated before reaching the target. After reloading her tubes, she returned to the convoy the following day and finished off the crippled cargo ship with four torpedoes, which sank the Shoyu Maru. She also hit one of the escorts with two torpedoes, but did not sink her.
Out of torpedoes, Bowfin returned to Darwin for more, and while in port, picked up Rear Admiral Christie, who remained on board the submarine for the rest of the patrol to check on torpedo performance, firsthand, and to learn the secret of Bowfins remarkable success. The day after she returned to sea, the submarine put three torpedoes into a small cargo ship. Lt. Comdr. Griffith claimed the target sank and his distinguished passenger confirmed the kill, but the sinking was not borne out by postwar examination of Japanese records, possibly because Bowfins alleged victim was too small to be listed. Around daybreak on 28 January, Bowfin began trailing a large tanker, and she continued the chase until reaching striking range that evening. She then fired all six bow torpedoes, but since the target simultaneously changed course, none struck home. After a rapid reload, she sent six more toward the tanker, and this time, two exploded against the side of the Japanese ship, sending towers of fire and smoke skyward. Nevertheless, the tanker remained afloat. As Bowfin closed to administer the coup de grace, the enemy ship began fighting back with her main battery and machine-gun fire. Undaunted, the submarine kept up the attack, and during the ensuing 20 minutes, she fired six more torpedoes - two misses, followed by a pair of hits, then a miss, and finally another hit. At this point, the tanker's fire was becoming more accurate and forced the submarine to dive. When she came up, the Japanese vessel was retiring from the scene, and by dawn had disappeared over the horizon.
The next day, Bowfin laid a minefield in Makassar Strait before beginning the voyage back to Australia. On 30 January, she came across two small schooners, which she destroyed with her 4-inch gun. The submarine moored at Fremantle on 5 February and began preparations for her next mission.
Fourth patrol Underway on 28 February 1944, the submarine headed for the Celebes Sea. On 10 March, her crew sighted a convoy of four ships screened by two escorts. Bowfin fired six bow tubes, but four of the torpedoes exploded prematurely. Japanese planes forced Griffith to dive, thus preventing anyone on board from observing the fate of the two other torpedoes. During the ensuing action, in which the escorts searched for the submarine, and she, in turn, strove to hide at some 350 ft below the surface, a chain dragged by one of the Japanese hunters scraped across Bowfins hull. Meanwhile, depth-charge explosions – more than 20 – shook the submarine severely, but did no debilitating damage. When Griffith dared to rise to the surface, he saw a cargo ship down by the stern, being taken under tow. Despite the efforts of the enemy escorts and of five circling Japanese aircraft, Bowfin attacked the convoy, but could not follow the progress of her torpedoes because one of them had boomeranged and threatened her by running in a circular pattern. She dived to escape the danger and did not come up again until the next day. She attacked the cargo ship again, but the Japanese escorts drove her down once more. Later that day, she rose to periscope depth, found the damaged ship alone, and finished off the Tsukikawa Maru with four torpedoes.
The submarine then began looking for the rest of the convoy, caught up with it well after dark, and fired her remaining torpedoes, but none scored. She then headed back to Darwin for more and stood out to sea again on 15 March with a fresh supply. Three days later, she emptied her bow tubes while attacking a small convoy, but all six either ran under their targets or missed wide of their marks. The inevitable depth-charge barrage followed, but proved to be equally ineffective. When Bowfin attacked again later that day, she launched four torpedoes, all of which were wasted.
She did better on the night of 24 March, when at the end of a long chase, she attacked a five-ship convoy in the Celebes Sea, sinking two cargo ships: Sinkyo Maru and Bengal Maru. She also damaged a third ship, but could not finish her off for want of torpedoes. As a result, she returned to Darwin, where she arrived on 1 April.
Fifth and sixth patrols
There, Commander John H. Corbus relieved Lt. Cdr. Griffith in command of the submarine, which got underway again on 24 April and headed for the Palaus. Although this sixth patrol proved to be her longest in both time and distance, she only managed to put two torpedoes into a cargo ship on 14 May, and it refused to sink. She performed lifeguard duty before heading, via Midway, for Pearl Harbor, where she arrived on 21 June.