The first USS Batfish (SS/AGSS-310) is a Balao-class submarine, known primarily for sinking three Imperial Japanese Navy submarines, Ro-55, Ro-112, and Ro-113, in a 76-hour period, in February 1945.Don Keith, In the Course of Duty, p262, New American Library, USS Batfish is the first vessel of the United States Navy to be named for the batfish, a type of anglerfish that crawls about on the sea floor.
Batfish served during World War II. Her war operations spanned a period from 11 December 1943 to 26 August 1945, during which she completed seven war patrols. She is credited with having sunk nine Japanese ships totaling 10,658 tons while operating east of Japan and in the Philippine Sea, Luzon Strait, and South China Sea. Batfish received the Presidential Unit Citation for her sixth war patrol during which she sank three Japanese submarines in the South China Sea in four days.
Following the end of World War II, she was decommissioned on April 6, 1946 and laid up as a training vessel in the Pacific Reserve Fleet. She received a reactivation overhaul in January 1952 before she was recommissioned on March 7, 1952 and assigned to Submarine Division 122 in the United States Atlantic Fleet taking part in training operations in the Caribbean and along the East Coast of the United States. She was decommissioned for the final time on August 4, 1958 and assigned to the Charleston Group of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. In the Summer of 1959, she was assigned as a United States Naval Reserve training vessel at New Orleans, Louisiana where she was redesignated as an "auxiliary research submarine" (AGSS-310). She continued to serve at New Orleans until she was laid up in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Registry on November, 1 1969. Following a brief time in the reserve fleet she was donated to the Oklahoma Maritime Advisory Board and moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma and opened in 1973 as a museum ship.
Construction and commissioning Originally to be named Acoupa, hull SS-310 was renamed Batfish on 24 September 1942 prior to its keel laying on 27 December 1942 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. She was launched on 5 May 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Nellie W. Fortier, and commissioned on 21 August 1943 with Lieutenant Commander Wayne R. Merrill in command.
Service history World War II
Following her commissioning, Batfish underwent an extensive shakedown and training period to instruct the crew in combat procedures for diving, attacking, evading, and damage control. She left the Portsmouth Navy Yard in mid-September 1943, paused briefly at Newport, Rhode Island, to practice on the torpedo range, and then continued on to New London, Connecticut. She arrived there on 26 September 1943 and, after voyage repairs, underwent additional training in submarine combat routine.
Batfish left New London on 15 October to join the war in the Pacific. While still northeast of the Panama Canal, Batfish sighted another submarine and, believing it to be a German U-boat, fired a torpedo at it. The torpedo missed, and the other submarine disappeared.
Just as Batfish approached the Panama Canal, a U.S. Navy patrol bomber mistook her for a U-boat and almost dropped its bombload on her. On 1 November 1943, Batfish tied up at Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone for an overnight stop, then transited the canal and spent a week in Balboa on the Pacific end of the canal for minor repairs and rest.
On 8 November 1943, Batfish resumed her journey, making an independent voyage during which her crew conducted daily drills. She arrived in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 19 November 1943. After reporting for duty to the Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Batfish spent five days alongside the submarine tender at Pearl Harbor for repairs. She then carried out intensive training in United States Pacific Fleet procedures.
First war patrol
Batfish left Pearl Harbor on 11 December 1943 and began her first war patrol, an open-sea patrol south of Honshu, Japan. She fought typhoons most of the way but finally reached her patrol area on 28 December 1943. However, bad weather continued to dog her operations and made it impossible for her to attack the few Japanese convoys she sighted. On 14 January 1944, her radar picked up a large contact. Signals intelligence identified it as the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship , one of the two largest warships in the world. Merrill chose to dive rather than use the cover of the heavy seas to close the battleship on the surface, and Batfish′s slower submerged speed caused her to fall rapidly out of range of Yamato and her escorts.
Shortly after 12:00 on 19 January 1944, a convoy of four Japanese ships appeared on the horizon and, with nightfall, Batfish made a high-speed surface run to close for an attack. She fired three torpedoes at each of two cargo ships, sinking one and crippling the other. The other two ships escaped, but Batfish remained on the scene to sink the crippled cargo ship, the 5,486-gross register ton Hidaka Maru, early the following morning. Postwar assessment of Japanese shipping losses only credited Batfish with this last sinking.
Batfish departed her patrol area on 24 January 1944 and headed back through typhoons to Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where she arrived on 30 January 1944. At Midway, she underwent a two-week refit, followed by a week of training.
Second war patrol
Batfish departed Midway Atoll on 22 February 1944 bound for another patrol area south of Honshu. This patrol was unsuccessful because of continual high winds and heavy seas that seemed to have kept the Japanese in port. Batfish departed her patrol area on 3 April 1944 without making contact with any ship larger than a sampan. She proceeded to Pearl Harbor for refit, which began upon her arrival there on 15 April 1944. A relief crew from the submarine tender took over to allow Batfish′s crew two weeks of rest. The refit was extended, but finally, on 10 May 1944, Batfish departed Pearl Harbor for Midway Atoll and additional training. While she was at Midway, Lieutenant Commander John K. "Jake" Fyfe relieved Merrill of command.
Third war patrol
On 26 May 1944, Batfish departed Midway Atoll to patrol an area covering the southern coasts of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu. The weather was excellent. On 10 June 1944, she attacked and thought she had sunk a Japanese cargo ship in use as a training ship, but the kill was not confirmed. Retaliatory depth-charge attacks by Japanese planes and patrol boats failed to damage Batfish, and she continued her patrol. On 18 June 1944 she sighted two Japanese ships, a coastal cargo ship and a small, but heavily laden, tanker. Although within sight of the coast of Honshu, Batfish closed in for the kill and claimed to have sunk the cargo ship.
On 22 June 1944, Batfish sighted a large Japanese cargo ship steaming independently down the Japanese coast. She fired three of her bow torpedo tubes at the ship, but all three passed astern of her. As the first target rounded Andakino Point and headed away, a larger Japanese cargo ship, Nagaragawa Maru, passed her on an opposite course. Batfish fired four torpedoes from her stern tubes at Nagaragawa Maru, allowing her to make a quick escape out to sea. Nagaragawa Maru sank by the stern. However, a Japanese patrol boat immediately gave chase to Batfish, forcing her to dive to avoid depth charges. Unfortunately, Batfish′s nautical charts were not accurate: They showed depths of in the area, but Batfish grounded on an underwater volcanic peak at a depth of . Batfish rapidly eased backwards and upwards, but endured a tense eight hours punctuated by more than 50 depth charges before she could surface and survey her damage. The depth charges had caused none, but the grounding had jammed the starboard sound head, reducing her underwater listening capabilities, and had bent the starboard propeller shaft and propeller.
Nevertheless, Batfish continued her patrol. She sighted a Japanese convoy on 28 June 1944, but before she could reach a suitable attack position, the Japanese attacked her with torpedoes and aerial bombs, forcing her to let the convoy escape. However, she picked up another contact on 29 June 1944, a Japanese convoy with a cargo ship as a prime target. Batfish fired three torpedoes from her bow tubes that missed their mark when the Japanese maneuvered to avoid them. This convoy also made good its escape.
On 2 July 1944, as Batfish departed her patrol area bound for Midway Atoll, a lookout sighted two Japanese ships, a small trawler traveling with a converted yacht serving as an escort. Batfish closed in for a surface attack, and her guns filled the trawler with holes but failed to trigger an explosion. The escort moved at high speed to ram Batfish, which backed at emergency speed and narrowly avoided a collision. Full of holes from Batfish′s raking gunfire, the converted yacht was engulfed in flames and quickly sank. Batfish suffered one casualty, the pharmacist's mate, who was hit by a bullet in the knee while at his post on deck in the surface gun action that ended in the destruction of what proved to be the guard boats Kamoi Maru and No. 5 Isuzugawa Maru.
Batfish returned to Midway Atoll, where she underwent a 16-day refit alongside Proteus. Her crew then trained in firing the new electric Mark 18 torpedo.
Fourth war patrol
Batfish departed Midway Atoll on 1 August 1944 for her fourth war patrol, which took her to waters surrounding the Palau Islands. Her assigned area offered up no worthy targets, but a report of a Japanese destroyer grounded to the north of the Palaus sent her to Velasco Reef to investigate. There, she found two Japanese ships – minelayer and a transport – aground on the reef and the Japanese destroyer on the beach across the atoll where it had run aground on 18 August 1944. A Japanese floatplane, two tugs, two patrol boats, and a minesweeper that Batfish identified as a second destroyer were in attendance. Batfish selected the transport as her first target, but poor visibility, rain, and rough seas intervened. On 23 August 1944, while making an approach to locate the transport again in a rain squall, Batfish found the minesweeper, which her crew still believed to be a destroyer, in her sights instead. She fired three torpedoes from her bow tubes that hit the warship and blew her apart at . Japanese records later identified the ship as . On 26 August 1944, Batfish damaged Samidare beyond repair with two torpedo hits at and later witnessed the Japanese completing the destruction of Samidare with demolition charges.
Called away from Velasco Reef by orders to stand lifeguard duty off Peleliu between 27 and 29 August 1944 during air strikes on Peleliu and nearby Koror, Batfish did not return to Velasco Reef until two days before her departure from the patrol area. One Japanese ship still lay high and dry on the reef, but closer inspection revealed her to be already beyond salvage. Batfish chased a Japanese minelayer for 90 minutes, but it outmaneuvered her and escaped.
On 3 September 1944, Batfish headed for refit at Fremantle, Australia. She arrived at Fremantle on 12 September 1944, and the submarine tender provided a relief crew to begin the refit, while Batfish′s own crew relaxed in Perth in Western Australia.
Fifth war patrol
Escorted by the Royal Australian Navy corvette , Batfish departed Fremantle on 8 October 1944 and proceeded with the submarine to Exmouth Gulf on the coast of Western Australia for refueling. On 11 October 1944, two hours after leaving Exmouth Gulf, a periscope jammed in the fully raised position and defied the crew's efforts to correct the problem. Batfish proceeded to Darwin, Australia, for emergency repairs alongside the submarine rescue ship . Finally, on 17 October 1944, Batfish headed out on her fifth war patrol, although chronic engineering problems plagued her throughout the patrol.