Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) Nov. 16, 2023: The Darkest Twist
Official USN photo probably by Tai Sing Loo, courtesy of George & Linda Salava. This photo was from the collection of FC3 Frank Salava who was lost when the Sculpin (SS-191) was sunk & 62 other crewmen were K.I.A. on 19 November 1943. Via Navsource
Above we see the S-type (Sargo-class) fleet boat USS Sculpin (SS-191) entering Pearl Harbor sometime between April 1940 and October 1941, in tense but happy times. Note the bright white pre-war pennant numbers on her fairwater. Sculpin would soon be at war, one that she would not emerge.
The Sargo class
The 10 early fleet boats of the Sargo class came in the wake of the half-dozen very similar Salmon class vessels (indeed, they are typically referred to as the “S-Class 2nd Group”) and 10 early 1930s Porpoise class boats, which paved the way for the Navy to get the long-range Pacific submarine design nailed down in the follow-on Tambor, Gato (85 boats), Balao (134 boats), and Tench (29 boat) classes. Importantly, their new and improved battery design would become the standard for American diesel boats through the 1950s when they were replaced by the Sargo II batteries under the GUPPY program.
View of some of the Sargo-type battery cells as seen through a floor hatch aboard the museum ship, the Balao-class submarine USS Ling (SS-297), located in Hackensack, New Jersey. Photo date 31 Aug 2013 “Instead of a single hard rubber case, it had two concentric hard rubber cases with a layer of soft rubber between them. This was to prevent sulfuric acid leakage in the event one case cracked during depth-charging. Leaking sulfuric acid is capable of corroding steel, burning the skin of crew members it came into contact with, and if mixed with any seawater in the bilges would generate poisonous chlorine gas.”
Some 2,300 tons (submerged) the Sargos ran 310 feet overall, a foot shorter than the much more prolific Gatos.
Capable of making 21 knots on the surface and with a range of 11,000 nm, they had an operational depth of over 250 feet and carried an impressive main battery of eight (four forward, four aft) 21-inch torpedo tubes and the ability to carry 24 torpedoes. Meanwhile, the deck gun was a puny 3″/50 DP wet mount (which was later replaced by a bigger 4″50 later in the war).
The 10 Sargos were all given aquatic names beginning with “S” and were built by EB in Groton (Sargo, Saury, Spearfish, Seadragon and Sealion), Mare Island Navy Yard (Swordfish) and Portsmouth Navy Yard in Maine (Sculpin, Squalus, Searaven, and Seawolf) on an extremely compressed timeline with the first being laid down in May 1937 and the last commissioning in December 1939– just 31 months. Not bad for peacetime production.
Launch of Sargo-class submarine USS Swordfish (SS-193) at Mare Island Navy Yard, California on April 1st, 1939. This is the earliest known color Official Navy Photograph that can be precisely dated.
Still, the class was cramped, with just 36 bunks for 62 enlisted men.
Meet Scuplin
Our subject is the first Navy ship to be named in honor of the “spiny, large-headed, broad-mouthed, usually scale-less fish of the family Cottidae” and was laid down on 7 September 1937 at Portsmouth, launched on 27 July 1938, and commissioned on 16 January 1939.
Sculpin launched
No sooner had she begun her career than, while on shakedown, Sculpin was tasked with finding lost classmate (and yard mate) USS Squalus (SS-192), which had suffered a catastrophic valve failure during a test dive off the Isle of Shoals at 0740 on 23 May, drowning 26 men immediately. Partially flooded, Squalus sank to the bottom and came to rest, keel down, in 40 fathoms of water with 32 surviving crewmembers and one civilian trapped in the forward section.
USS Squalus Sweating It Out. Painting, Watercolor, and Ink on Paper; by John Groth; 1966; Unframed Dimensions 26H X 36W NHHC Accession #: 88-161-QX
At 1040, when Squalus was an hour overdue for regular check-in, the red flag went up.
Luckily, Sculpin was due to leave Portsmouth for Newport at 1130 and was directed to the last known position of Squalus.
Fixing the sub’s position via sonar, Sculpin stood by while the Navy’s Experimental Dive Unit own Allan Rockwell McCann and Charles Bowers Momsen arrived on the old Great War Lapwing-class minesweeper-turned-submarine rescue ship USS Falcon (AM-28/ASR-2) and a swarm of Coast Guard assets to begin the rescue.
Aerial photograph showing, from left to right, fleet tug USS Wandank, submarine USS Sculpin, submarine rescue ship USS Falcon, naval shipyard tug Penacook, and Lighthouse Service tender Hibiscus, in addition to Coast Guard boats and spectator boats. USCG Photo 230717-G-ZW188-2000
Four enlisted divers using then-new heliox diving schedules and the McCann Submarine Rescue Chamber (SRC) ran constantly for 14 hours making four trips down to Squalus’s forward trunk, rescuing all 33 survivors.
A fifth trip was made to the Squalus’s after torpedo room hatch to verify that no men survived in the flooded portion of the boat — one of the most stirring successes in submarine rescue operations.
The four enlisted divers– Chief Boatswain’s Mate Orson L. Crandall, Chief Metalsmith James Harper McDonald, Chief Machinist’s Mate William Badders, and Chief Torpedoman John Mihalowski — received rare peacetime Medals of Honor in January 1940.
Squalus was eventually raised in July 1939 with the help of Sculpin and repaired, and was put back into service as USS Sailfish, with the same hull number (SS-192). More on her later.
Submarine Sculpin Lying off the Port Beam of the Salvage Ship Falcon, Assisting with Pumping Operations through a Hose Line. NARA
View from the USS Sculpin of the Raising of the Pontoons Attached to the Bow of the USS Squalus. NARA
USN 1149026
Salvage of USS Squalus (SS-192). USS Falcon (ASR-2) moored over the sunken Squalus, during salvage operations off the New Hampshire coast in the Summer of 1939. USS Sculpin (SS-191) is in the right background. USN 1149028
War!
Sculpin and her class were built for the looming war in the Pacific and, as soon as she wrapped up her duty in the Squalus rescue and raising, she was off to Pearl Harbor, arriving there in April 1940 via “The Ditch” and San Diego. Operating from Hawaii with the Pacific Fleet, with tensions bubbling up with the Empire of Japan, she was forward deployed 5,100 miles West to Admiral Thomas Hart’s Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines in late October, arriving at Cavite Navy Yard on 8 November to join Submarine Division 22.
A month later the war got real.
Just after the inaugural Japanese air raids from Formosa, Sculpin and her sister USS Seawolf (SS-197) got underway from Cavite on 8 December 1941 to escort the old aircraft carrier Langley (then used as an aircraft transport, pennant AV-3), and the precious oilers USS Pecos (AO–6) and USS Trinity (AO-13) from the yard off Sangley Point that evening, clearing the American minefield and zig-zagging through the Verde Island Passage with her skipper noting “Langley used general signals freely, probably unaware that we have landed the greater part of our classified publications.”
Handing Langley and the two irreplaceable tankers to the four-piper destroyers USS Pope (DD-225) and USS John D. Ford (DD-228) the next morning to shepherd further to Dutch Borneo, the Sculpin and Seawolf separated and embarked on their first war patrols. They made it out of Cavite just in time as it was attacked on the morning of 10 December by 80 Japanese bombers and 52 fighter planes, destroying it as a base for the Asiatic Fleet and leaving 500 dead. Among the shattered vessels left at Cavite was Sargo-class sister USS Sealion (SS-195).
Sculpin conducted her patrol like clockwork, submerging just before dawn in her assigned zone north of Luzon, patrolling slowly on her electric motors at 100 feet down, surfacing at dusk, and remaining on the surface all night with lookouts. She was plagued with mechanical issues, suffering a freon leak in her refrigerator, shipping water from her No. 7 torpedo tube, and her fathometer called it quits on the fourth day of the war. Worse, she was beset with a lack of targets, only encountering the occasional passing local sampans and coasters.
On 10 January, she came across a juicy target, a 10-ship Japanese convoy off the Surigao Strait. She worked close enough to get a bead on a big freighter thought to have been of the Shoei Maru type and fired four torpedoes with two believed to have been hits.
While DANFS lists this as “possibly Sculpin should be given credit for eliminating 3,817-ton merchantman, Akita Maru” it is generally thought that that vessel, an Army transport, was sunk the same day some distance away at the mouth of the Gulf of Siam along with the cargo ship Tairyu Maru by the hard-charging Dutch sub Hr.Ms. O-19.
Sculpin ended her 1st patrol on 22 January 1942 at Surabaya, Java, having sailed some 6,921 miles.
Her 2nd war patrol started a week later, leaving Java to patrol the Celebes in the south Philippines on 30 January. There, on 4 February, she torpedoed and damaged the Japanese destroyer Suzukaze off Staring Bay, south of Kendari, Celebes. Suzukaze was heavily damaged, with nine of her crew killed, and was knocked out of the war for five months. Two days later she attacked and sank what was reported to be a “heavily screened Tenry-class enemy cruiser.”
Sculpin had a third run on a convoy spoiled by a grueling depth charge attack on 17 February– with the explosions jamming the steering and stern planes of the boat forcing her to a near-crush depth of 340 feet, and ending her patrol to seek repairs at Exmouth Bay, Australia.
Her third patrol, begun from Australia in March after she had been roughly patched up, included three attacks made while in patrol off the Moluccas while struggling with a new radar installation and faulty torpedoes. She steamed 7,895 miles in 21 days, about 80 percent of that on the surface.
With the war just over four months old, and most of that spent running and fighting in Japanese-controlled waters, constantly shifting homeports further and further south, her crew was at the breaking point.
As noted by her skipper, LT Lucius Henry Chappell (USNA 1927):
Her 4th war patrol, in the South China Sea from 29 May to 17 July, would be even longer, stretching 9,349 miles.
Her 5th patrol would be her most successful, leaving Brisbane on 8 September to patrol in the target-rich Bismarck Sea with the Solomons Campaign underway. She torpedoed and damaged the Japanese seaplane carrier Nisshin east of Kokoda Island off New Britain on 28 September and was damaged by depth charges but was able to continue her patrol, going on to sink the troop transports Naminoue Maru (4731 GRT) and Sumiyoshi Maru (1921 GRT) in early October before arriving back at Brisbane on 26 October then made a run on the light cruiser Yura without success.
The tactics had changed, with 42 of 48 days of her 5th war patrol spent with at least some time submerged, cruising some 8,594 miles.
Her 6th patrol, off Truk in the Caroline Islands from 18 November through the end of the year, netted no trophies– although she did stalk a Japanese flattop on the surface at night and earn some bracketing shell fire as a participation award– after ending it on 8 January 1943 at Pearl Harbor, she sailed back to the West Coast for a much-needed overhaul.
At this point in her career, she carried 13 enemy ships on her Jolly Roger.
“Undersea Hunters Mark Up 13 Victories. They found good hunting. Back at a Pacific base after a cruise in enemy waters, officers and crew of the Sculpin (SS-191) display a flag symbolic of three Japanese warships and ten merchantmen sent to the bottom.” Crew photo taken 7 March 1943. The men are from left to right, (Front Row) Carlos Tulea, 29, OS2c (officers steward) of Cavite, P.I.; Lt Corwin G. Mendenhall, USN, 26, of Anehuac, Texas; Weldon E. Moore, Chief Signalman, 34, of Colorado Springs. Colorado;(KIA), Lt. John H. Turner, USN, 29. (Back Row) John J. Pepersack, Chief Electrician, 42 of Baltimore, MD; A. W. Coulter, QM3/c, 20, of St. Louis, MO; K. E. Waidelich, SM3c, 21, of Jackson, Michigan; Charlie Coleman, MoMM2c, 24, Philadelphia, PA (KIA); John Swift, EM1c, 25, of Newfane, NY; John J. Hollenbach, MM1c, 27 of Brookville, ID; Ralph S. Austin, MM2c, 21, of Springtown, TX; F. J. Dyboske, CEM, 33, of Rockford, IL; C. A. De Armond, MM1c, 30, of Denver CO. Text i.d. courtesy of Ric Hednan. (Official U. S. Navy photo from NEA). Image and text provided by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Chapel Hill, NC. Photo & text by The Wilmington Morning Star. (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 10 March 1943, FINAL EDITION, Image 1, courtesy of chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.
A better version of the above image.
Her refit left her with a series of great images of her late-war appearance, including moving her 3-inch popgun forward of the tower.
USS Sculpin (SS-191) At the Bethlehem Steel Company shipyard, San Francisco, California, on 1 May 1943, following an overhaul. This view of the forward end of her sail identifies changes recently made to the ship. Note 20mm and 3/50 guns: SD and SJ radar antennas. NH 97305
USS Sculpin (SS-191) At the Bethlehem Steel Company shipyard, San Francisco, California, on 1 May 1943, following an overhaul. This view of the after end of her sail identifies changes recently made to the ship. Note 20mm gun, SD and SJ radar antennas. The Coast Guard lighthouse tender Balsam (WAGL-62) is in the floating drydock in the right background. NH 97306
USS Sculpin (SS-191) In San Francisco Bay, California, on 1 May 1943, following an overhaul. The San Francisco Bay Bridge is in the background. NH 97303
Same as above, NH 97302
Back in the war, she started her 7th war patrol from Pearl Harbor on 24 May, bound for Japanese home waters where she stalked the light carrier Hiyo and sank two small vessels via naval gunfire off Inubozak, ending her patrol on Independence Day in Midway.
Her 8th war patrol, leaving Midway on 25 July, would span some 9,074 miles of ocean and she claimed a 4,000-ton AK sunk– postwar confirmed as the cargo ship Sekko Maru (3183 GRT) — off Formosa. Returning to Midway on 17 September, LT Chappell, who had earned two Navy Crosses on Sculpin, would leave the boat he had commanded since April 1941 to command Submarine Division 281.
Chappell survived the war and later had command of Submarine Squadron 7, USS Mt. McKinley (AGC-7), and the cruiser USS Quincy (CA-71) — ironic considering he claimed at least two attacks on Japanese cruisers during the war. While a rear admiral, he served as the technical advisor to films The Wackiest Ship in the Army and Operation Petticoat, the latter in which the USS Balao (SS 285) was painted pink. He passed away in 1980.
Sculpin’s new skipper, LCDR Fred “Fee” Connaway (USNA 1932), formerly XO and skipper of the training boats USS S-13 (SS-118) and USS S-48 (SS 159), took over on 20 October.
Two weeks later, with a third of her 84 men aboard sailing to war for the first time, on 5 November, Sculpin left Pearl Harbor for her 9th war patrol in a wolf pack (err, “Submarine Coordinated Attack Group”) with two other submarines (Searaven and Apagon), ordered to patrol north of Truk, to intercept and attack Japanese forces leaving that stronghold to oppose the planned Allied invasion of the Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands.
The wolf pack commodore’s flag, carried aboard Sculpin, was Captain John P. Cromwell (USNA 1924), formerly commander of Submarine Divisions 203, 44, and 43 and one of the stars of COMSUBPAC VADM Charles Lockwood’s staff. He had been an officer in the Bureau of Engineering/BuShips in Washington for two years concerning submarine development and was the Engineering officer for the Pacific Fleet’s Sub force. In short, if it was submarine-related, he knew it including details of performance, construction, machinery, communications, and exploitable flaws. Plus, he was privy to Ultra intercept secrets.
Sculpin, Connaway, and Cromwell would never come back, with the submarine reported missing in November, presumed lost on 30 December, and struck from the Navy list on 25 March 1944.
The Tragic End
Post-VJ Day, Allied rescuers recovered 21 members of Sculpin’s final crew from Japanese prison camps working the copper mines of Ashio, mostly junior enlisted but including one officer (Diving officer LT George E Brown., Jr.– who was kept in solitary confinement when not being interrogated, put on reduced rations, given frequent beatings, and threatened with death if he refused to answer questions).
Pieced together from their interviews, the sub attacked a Japanese convoy on the night of 18 November, but it all went pear-shaped and by the next morning, she was battered and headed to the mat, racing down to 700 feet at one point. This led ultimately to a last-ditch surface gunfight with the Japanese destroyer Yamagumo at point-blank range.
As detailed by Combined Fleets:
19 November:
Encountered enemy submarine.
Action:
- 0640 Sighted enemy submarine (USS SCULPIN) surfacing on the port beam, and seeing it submerge begins a series of alternate depth-charge and pinging runs.
- 1109 the damaged submarine accidentally broaches the surface, and the destroyer intensifies the attack.
- 1256 The SCULPIN surfaces, being crippled and unable to stay submerged. The submarine opts for a desperate gunfire duel with its starboard side facing YAMAGUMO’s starboard side as they exchange fire at 2,000 yards.
- 1307 The submarine is listing and the destroyer ceases fire and ten minutes later dispatches rescue boats as the scuttled submarine submerges for the last time in what looked to her survivors almost like a normal dive. Forty-one survivors are rescued, and YAMAGUMO returns to Truk with them.
As detailed by the NHHC:
About noon on 19 November, a close string of 18 depth charges threw Sculpin, already at deep depth, badly out of control. The pressure hull was distorted, she was leaking, the steering and diving plane gear were damaged and she was badly out of trim. Commander Connaway decided to surface and to fight clear.
The ship was surfaced and went to gun action.
During the battle Commander Connaway and the Gunnery Officer were on the bridge, and the Executive Officer was in the conning tower. When the destroyer placed a shell through the main induction and one or more through the conning tower, these officers and several men were killed. Lt. Brown succeeded to command. He decided to scuttle the ship, and gave the order “all hands abandon ship.” After giving the order the last time the ship was dived at emergency speed by opening all vents.
About 12 men rode the ship down, including Captain Cromwell and one other officer, both of whom refused to leave it. Captain Cromwell, being familiar with plans for our operations in the Gilberts and other areas, stayed with the ship to ensure that the enemy could not gain any of the information he possessed.
The Japanese pulled 42 men from the ocean, tossed one back overboard that was seriously wounded, and landed 3 officers and 38 men at Truk for rough questioning.
Separating these into two groups for transport to Japan, the first, consisting of 21 men, was in the brig of the escort carrier Chuyo when she was sunk by the Sailfish (SS-192) — ironically the old Squalus that Sculpin had been so key in rescuing and raising in 1939.
Only one wounded American made it off Chuyo, George Rocek, MoMMIc, USN, who was rescued by a Japanese destroyer (again) only to be sent to join the rest of his crewmates in the Ashio copper mines, who had made it safely to Japan in the brig of the carrier Un’yō. The mines also held survivors from the lost American subs USS Grenadier, Perch, Sculpin, Tang, S-44, and Tullibee.
Sculpin was awarded eight battle stars for her service in World War II, in addition to the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation. Her wartime tally, not entirely confirmed by post-war records, was sinking 9 ships for 42,200 tons and damaging 10, totaling 63,000 tons.
Epilogue
Sculpin is one of 52 U.S. submarines lost in WWII-– almost one out of five subs that logged combat patrols– taking with them 374 officers and 3,131 enlisted men. These personnel losses represented 16 percent of the officers and 13 percent of the enlisted operational personnel in the submarine branch.
Her final desperate stand is remembered in maritime art.
DUE 117: USN Submarine vs IJN Antisubmarine Escort,’ illustrated by Ian Palmer, shows the death of USS Sculpin, via Osprey Publications.
The 1950s TV show “Silent Service” had an episode devoted to Sculpin, including a guest appearance by LT Brown.
The reports for the first eight of her patrols are in the National Archives.
Considered to be on Eternal Patrol, Sculpin and her lost crew are thus remembered in several memorials nationwide. Her sisters Seawolf, Sealion, and Swordfish are also among the 52.
Their names are inscribed on a memorial at the USS Albacore Museum in New Hampshire. (Photo: Chris Eger)
When it came to the rest of the 10-boat Sargo class, they were disposed of shortly after the war as obsolete, all sold for scrap or sunk as targets before their 10th birthdays. They claimed no less than 73 enemy ships during the war and chalked up 84 battle stars between them. Class member Seawolf (SS-197) is tied for seventh place in confirmed ships sunk by U.S. subs, according to the postwar accounting of the Joint Army–Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC).
LT Brown earned a November 1945 Silver Star for his performance during Sculpin’s doomed final patrol. He had made five runs with USS S-40, and four on Sculpin, filling his dance card long before he spent the last 23 months of the war in a hellish series of POW camps.
First-Class Motor Machinist’s Mate George Rocek passed in 2007, aged a ripe old 86, having seen some serious shit including being in the unenviable position of being rescued twice by the Japanese from the sea.
Cromwell, the wolf pack commander who had served on ADM Lockwood’s staff and whose head was filled with Ultra intercept secrets that he took to the bottom with him, would be recommended for and receive the Medal of Honor, posthumously, and the destroyer escort USS Cromwell (DE-1014), commissioned in 1954, was named in his honor.
He was the most senior submariner to earn the MOH and LT Brown, the last man to see him alive, recalled him “sitting on an empty 20mm shell container, holding a picture of his wife and children” as Sculpin was going down.
Cromwell’s wife, Margaret, received his Medal of Honor with it being placed on his son John P. “Duke” Cromwell, Jr. (USNA ’51, ret Capt.) by VADM Richard S. Edwards (USNA 1907), commander of Western Sea Frontier.
Cromwell’s sacrifice has been well recorded in naval lore, from comic books to novels and tomes of military history. He and Connaway is remembered in Memorial Hall at the United States Naval Academy where his name is engraved under the “DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP” flag honoring those alumni killed in action.
Vignette gives details on why Captain Cromwell received the Medal of Honor for actions taken during the loss of USS Sculpin on 19 November 1943, by Mario DeMarco, published in the Navy Times circa 1956. NH 86993
“There is a port of no return-” Captain John P. Cromwell goes down with the stricken Sculpin (SS-191) to prevent seizure and possible enemy extortion of special information confided to his care. The sea will keep his secret well, and his name will become a naval synonym for valor. “Sailor, rest your oar-” Drawing by Lt. Cmdr. Fred Freemen, courtesy of Theodore Roscoe, from his book “U.S. Submarine Operations of WW II”, published by USNI, via Navsource.
OAAW #239 1971 by Norman Maurer
OAAW #239 1971 by Norman Maurer
As for Sculpin, while plans for a Tench class submarine to carry her name onward failed when the war ended, about the only tangible part of her is the eight-patrol Jolly Roger battle flag presented by the crew to LT (later RADM) Chappell when he left the boat in 1943.
It is cherished and maintained by his family. Photo courtesy of Randy Chappell, son of Lt. Commander Lucius H Chappell, via PIGBOATs.
Fred Connaway, the skipper of Sculpin killed in her last surface engagement, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. Fred’s widow, Loretta, was there with three former POWs of Sculpin’s last crew– including LT Brown– when the new Skipjack-class hunter-killer USS Sculpin (SSN-590) was launched in Pascagoula on 31 March 1960.
USS Sculpin (SS (N) -590) Sponsor and three survivors of the first SCULPIN. L to R: Mr. George Brown, Mrs. Fred Connaway, Mr. Paul L. Murphy, Mr. Billy M. Cooper NH 108726
USS Sculpin (SSN-590) launching, 31 March 1960 Ingalls east bank Pascagoula NH 108730
The second Sculpin served until 1990 then was decommissioned and recycled.
Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.
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