by Don Keith
Other military items are also on display on the grounds, including several types of armament. Those include actual 20-millimeter, 40-millimeter, three-inch and five-inch guns and a real (though disarmed, obviously) torpedo like the ones the World War II submarines carried and fired. And 20-millimeter and 40-millimeter deck guns have now been mounted on the Batfish to make her appear more as she did during the war.
Volunteers are always being sought to help in the upkeep of the submarine. Even though she is surrounded by dirt and not water, there is still plenty of work to do to keep the sub in good shape. Regular annual workdays are scheduled.
There is now an effort to get new wood to replace the Batfish’s decking. It was hoped that project would be completed in 2006 as well. Word at the time of this writing is that the first bundle of new decking has arrived at the boat.
The Batfish Memorial Foundation was created in May 2003 to help support the restoration of the submarine and to raise money for projects such as those mentioned above. Donations to the foundation are tax-deductible.
The foundation has also adopted as a project getting the submarine listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
USS BECUNA (SS-319)
Courtesy of the U.S. Navy
USS BECUNA (SS-319)
Class: Balao
Launched: January 30, 1944
Named for: the becuna, or great barracuda, a fish that is common in waters around Florida. The becuna has earned a reputation as a ferocious hunter, is willing to attack and able to subdue much larger fish.
Where: Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut
Sponsor: Mrs. G. C. Crawford, wife of Navy Commander George C. “Turkey Neck” Crawford, a former sub skipper, head of the submarine school at Groton, Connecticut, and squadron commander at Pearl Harbor
Commissioned: May 27, 1944
Where is she today?
Independence Seaport Museum
211 South Columbus Blvd. and Walnut Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106-3199
(215) 925-5439
www.phillyseaport.org
Claim to fame: Known affectionately as “Becky,” the Becuna had twenty-five years of service, including five World War II patrols and stints in the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as service during the Cold War.
Lieutenant Commander Henry Dixon Sturr and his new submarine, the USS Becuna, were perfect examples of how submersible warships were often penalized in their scorekeeping simply because they operated so stealthily. Often patrolling alone in remote waters, attacking enemy vessels that were, themselves, on top secret missions, they usually only had their own reports to back up claims of ships sunk. Admittedly, some skippers, in an effort to impress their bosses or to earn decorations or promotions, did embellish their reports. That’s why the official score-keepers relied on other evidence to confirm tonnage sunk. But some of that evidence was questionable as well. After the war, Japanese records were spotty, often not placing key vessels where they actually were when they met their end.
Even when Henry Sturr, Annapolis class of ’33, was dead-to-rights certain that he had sunk a ship, he would later learn he had only inflicted damage, that the vessel had survived. That happened on her very first war patrol.
Operating in the Celebes Sea south of the Philippines, the Becuna spotted a Japanese tanker carrying precious oil to an enemy outpost somewhere in the South Pacific. That was exactly the kind of target American submarines were having spectacular success in intercepting and sinking, denying the Japanese the valuable petroleum they needed to maintain the war effort.
“Battle stations, submerge!” Sturr ordered, and the dive klaxon sounded throughout the boat.
The crew quickly lined up for an attack and sent four torpedoes hissing off toward the big target. Two of them hit, the explosions close enough to rattle the newly minted submarine hard. They would not be able to stick around to watch the vessel sink, though. One of the tanker’s escorts was heading their way in one big hurry. After outlasting a thunderous hailstorm of forty depth charges, Sturr recorded in his deck log and subsequent patrol report that they had definitely sunk one Japanese tanker.
After the war, the “kill” was erased from the Becuna’s tally. The seven-thousand-ton Kimikawa Maru was heavily damaged by Sturr’s torpedoes but she survived.
Two weeks later, in October 1944, Sturr and his submarine had another frustrating experience. Patrolling with her sister boats the USS Baya (SS-318) and the USS Hawkbill (SS-366) south of Formosa, the wolf pack happened upon a twelve-ship enemy convoy full of highly desirable targets. After being chased for several hours, the enemy ships suddenly changed course and headed straight for the Becuna. Even though they had been submerged for quite a while already and were running low on both battery power and fresh air, Captain Sturr knew this would be his best opportunity to strike a blow.
He kept them submerged and quickly angled for an attack. He watched through the periscope as the ships moved into prime shooting range, then selected one large and one smaller tanker as his first targets. From the forward tubes, he fired two torpedoes each at the two vessels.
Still peering through the scope, he saw both torpedoes strike the larger tanker, the vicious blasts clearly visible at two points along the ship’s side. Then he whooped loudly when two detonations wracked the smaller vessel as well.
“All four fish hit their targets!” he shouted, and the men around him in the cramped conning tower cheered. “The smaller one is going down. Can’t tell on the other one. There’s too much smoke for me to see.”
But there was no time to wait for the smoke to clear so they could count their kills. There were more fish in this barrel.
Sturr quickly angled to shoot at a small freighter and what appeared to be a troop transport. He was so close to the second ship that he could see Japanese soldiers in their khaki uniforms, leaning over the stern railing, watching the destruction that had been set off behind them when the Becuna’s torpedoes struck the other ships in the convoy.
The skipper was surprised that none of the escorts had made a move to pursue their attackers, and no one on the deck of the transport seemed to be looking their way. They were certainly close enough that their periscope would be visible, and the trail of their four torpedoes led right back to where it poked out of the sea. He could only assume the water was so full of debris and oil from the damaged vessels that they were lost in the mess.
No matter, he had a good, clear shot and promptly sent three torpedoes toward the troop ship. Then he dispatched one more toward the freighter. He stuck around long enough to see two fish hit the transport and, as they went deeper and scurried away, heard the lone torpedo explode as it blasted the freighter.
Seven torpedoes, four Japanese ships sent to the bottom! The news preceded them into port. They were bona fide heroes when they pulled into Fremantle, Australia, to end the spectacularly successful patrol eight days later.
But again, as good as the attack had been, it was not quite as successful as Sturr and his Becuna crew thought. The first ship they hit, the larger tanker San Luis Maru, was moderately damaged but was still able to steam on to port for repairs. Unbeknownst to Sturr at the time, the Hawkbill later encountered the smaller wounded tanker, which had not sunk and was trying to make it back to port, and finished it off with four torpedoes. Since it was impossible to tell whose attack had been the fatal one, the two submarines each received half credit for the kill.
Postwar sources were never able to confirm the damage to the troop transport, nor even its presence in that part of the world at the time of the attack. Thus, no credit was given for that sinking at all.
The final vessel hit, the freighter, was considered damaged but not destroyed.
So, when the dust settled, instead of five ships sunk in two brilliant attacks while out on her very first war patrol, the Becuna was instead credited with one-half kill and five ships damaged.
There was a disheartening sighting, a frustrat
ing near miss, on her second patrol, too. Like several of her sisters before her, she encountered the legendary super-battleship Yamato in the South China Sea. The massive warship and her sister, the Musashi, were the largest battleships ever built, coming in at over seventy thousand tons fully loaded. A year before, the Yamato had been torpedoed and heavily damaged by the USS Skate (SS-305).
(It is interesting to note that there was supposed to have been a third super-battleship sister, the Shinano. The Japanese learned valuable lessons from major defeats, however, and realized the need for a super-aircraft carrier instead. During the Shinano’s construction, she morphed into a carrier as a replacement for a battleship. But on the gigantic vessel’s maiden voyage, shortly after emerging from Tokyo Bay, the supposedly unsinkable warship was torpedoed and sent to the bottom by the submarine USS Archerfish (SS-311) and her skipper, Joe Enright. The Archerfish was on her fifth war run at the time and, with that one sinking, tallied the most successful submarine patrol by tonnage of World War II. The Japanese navy kept the sinking of the Shinano a secret until after the war was over, due to the blow it would have dealt to morale.)
Now, after repairs to the damage from the Skate’s attack, the Yamato was once again on the move. During the stint in the Yokosuka navy yard, she also received new antiaircraft guns. Since her encounter with the Skate, she had most recently taken part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October of that year.
Her legend continued to grow. She seemed unstoppable. Every submariner wanted a piece of her.
Several U.S. submarines had run upon the monster since the Skate’s near kill, but the mammoth vessel’s speed and maneuverability had been too much for them to overcome. Also, the very best escort vessels crewed with the IJN’s best sailors always accompanied her, so taking her down would not be easy, and even trying would possibly prove to be suicidal.
Now, here was a relative newcomer, the Becuna, out on her second war patrol. With uncommon good luck, it appeared the behemoth was going to sail right over the top of them!
Captain Sturr quickly went to battle stations and made ready to fire at the Yamato every torpedo he had aboard. But just as he began singing out the range and coordinates of the beast, getting the data entered into the torpedo tubes, she made a sudden, unexpected U-turn.
The Yamato and her escorts showed the Becuna their sterns and were out of sight over the horizon in only a few minutes.
No need to give chase. Unless the flotilla decided to cooperate and stop or turn back their way, there was not a chance of ever catching them. It was a lost cause. The Becuna had joined the long list of boats that had gotten tantalizingly close to one of the war’s major kills. Several other submarines had similar close encounters with the legendary vessel, but few were even able to fire a torpedo.
Commander Hank Sturr could not help but notice how quiet his crew was for the next several hours. There was none of the usual banter or horseplay. Their disappointment at not even getting off a shot at the massive target was all over their faces. It dominated their demeanor as they went quietly about their jobs.
They were not the first, nor would they be the last, but that was small consolation.
It ultimately took a barrage of naval carrier-based aircraft to send the Yamato to the bottom of the ocean. That came the next spring, in April 1945, two hundred miles north of Okinawa. A similar air attack had claimed her sister, the Musashi, the previous fall. But glad as they were that the big sisters were dispatched to the deep, it still galled most submariners that the flyboys had done them in, not their torpedoes.
The Becuna got her only confirmed torpedo kill on her third patrol. It was a tanker in very shallow waters off Cape Pandaran in the South China Sea. For her trouble, she also got a seventy-depth-charge attack that rattled everyone’s dental fillings and stunned their hearing for hours afterward. Despite the thunder, she eventually managed to slip back out into deeper water before any serious damage was done.
Despite the lack of credit, the Becuna crew knew what they had accomplished out there. Official kills or not, they had done their part to hasten the end of the costliest war in history. They did receive recognition—two combat insignias for the first and third patrols and a Presidential Unit Citation. Also, the crew members were awarded a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and several letters of commendation with ribbons.
She was another plunging boat who did what she was supposed to do.
After the war, the Becuna became a “guppy.” She went back to her birthplace at Electric Boat Company in Connecticut to get the unique GUPPY (Greater Underwater Propulsion Project) modification. Diesel-powered submarines could not operate their big engines while submerged. They required air to run and vent out smoke. They were also noisy, which made it easy for an enemy vessel on the surface to locate them. While beneath the surface of the ocean, they had to rely solely on battery power, which was limited, to send juice to the electric motors that turned the screws and made them go.
The GUPPY system was simply a snorkel that allowed the boat to go just beneath the surface. From there, a pipe was extended above the water far enough to vent smoke and take in air for the engines. It was a rudimentary solution to a complicated problem, but it did work. There were drawbacks, though. Sometimes, if the boat slipped just deep enough for the top of the snorkel to go underwater and close, the engines could suck so hard seeking air on which to run that sailors throughout the boat would suffer from painful popped ears. It took only moments for the sub to fill with thick, choking diesel smoke.
The Becuna got other modifications while she was at Electric Boat that greatly altered her appearance when compared with the other fleet boats. She became clearly more streamlined and the area around her periscope and shears was enclosed, giving her more speed as she cut through the water while submerged. With the makeover complete and using two of her diesel engines while underwater, thanks to the GUPPY system, the Becuna could now achieve much more swiftness than was ever possible on battery power alone.
For the rest of her long, active life, she served mostly as an antisubmarine warfare vessel, working with the British, Canadian, and U.S. navies out of Mediterranean, northern European, and Canadian ports. She also served a rather chilly term working in Arctic ice pack exercises in the Cabot Strait. There she was assisting many of the same people who had pioneered under-ice submarine operations aboard the first nuclear-powered vessel, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), only a few years before. The Cold War had gotten even colder by that time, and the ability of American vessels to operate in the Soviet Union’s backyard, moving beneath and through the polar ice pack, was crucial in maintaining superiority in the stare-down.
“Becky” finally retired after twenty-five years of almost continuous duty, going to the reserve fleet in November 1969. She was officially struck from the naval register in August 1973.
Shortly after being discharged from the service, the Becuna was turned over to the Olympia Association. She was slated to join as a museum boat the historic cruiser USS Olympia (C-6) in Philadelphia, which was already floating in the Delaware River there. The Olympia is the oldest steel-hulled warship still afloat and a true hero of the Spanish-American War and World War I. She served as Admiral George Dewey’s flagship during the Battle of Manila Bay in May 1898, an engagement that secured the Philippines for the United States and helped not only to assure the outcome of the Spanish-American War but also to establish the United States as a major Pacific naval power. Her last mission was the return of the body of the unknown soldier of World War I for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
Both the Olympia and the Becuna are now part of the Independence Seaport Museum at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Other exhibits include an interactive display of shipbuilding and “Diver of the Deep,” which explores man’s fascination with diving beneath the surface of the sea.
The National Parks Service acknowledges that the submarine is in decent shape for something o
f her age. “USS Becuna is in good condition and aside from the addition of the snorkel and exterior changes, retains much of her World War II integrity,” the Parks Service’s Web site states.
The USS Becuna is a National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
USS CLAMAGORE (SS-343)
Courtesy of the U.S. Navy
USS CLAMAGORE (SS-343)
Class: Balao
Launched: February 25, 1945
Named for: a blue parrot fish found in the West Indies and Chesapeake Bay
Where: Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut
Sponsor: Miss Mary Jane Jacobs
Commissioned: June 28, 1945
Where is she today?
Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum
40 Patriots Point Road
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 29464
(843) 884-2727
www.state.sc.us/patpt/
Claim to fame: Born too late to actively participate in World War II, she was later modified radically to serve the expanded needs of the modern submarine force and had a long and valuable tenure during the Cold War. At one point, she was sawed in half to prepare for special—and highly secret—duty.
The Balao-class U.S. Navy submarine was considered to be an engineering marvel for its time. With its deep-diving capability and dual means of propulsion, it was a truly powerful warship, perfectly matched to its stealthy role in the war as it was being fought in the Pacific.
The USS Clamagore became an even more amazing vessel after VJ Day, one of a limited number of World War II survivors to undergo a profound makeover to make her even more useful in her second life than she had an opportunity to be in her first.
