One of the 52 WWII American submarines considered on Eternal Patrol, the resting place of the Gato-class fleet boat USS Harder (SS 257), which received six battle stars for her wartime service, has been confirmed.
Laid down at EB in Groton a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Harder was commissioned on 2 December 1942 and earned the Presidential Unit Citation through five wildly successful wartime patrols.
The recently commissioned Harder (SS-257) steaming on the surface of Narragansett Bay, 20 January 1943.
Harder, accompanied by sisters Hake (SS-256) and Haddo (SS-255) departed Fremantle on 5 August 1944 for her sixth war patrol, assigned to haunt the South China Sea off Luzon. Two weeks later the American wolf pack splashed four Japanese cargo ships while Harder and Haddo attacked and destroyed the escort ships Matsuwa and Hiburi on 22 August.
By 24 August, with the out-of-torpedo Haddo returned to base, Harder and Hake had one final joint engagement, one that Harder would not survive.
As noted by DANFS:
Before dawn on 24 August 1944, Hake sighted the escort ship CD-22 and Patrol Boat No. 102 (ex-Stewart, DD-224.) As Hake closed to attack, the patrol boat turned away toward Dasol Bay. Hake broke off her approach, turned northward, sighting Harder’s periscope 600 to 700 yards dead ahead. Swinging southward, Hake sighted CD-22 about 2,000 yards off her port quarter. To escape, Hake went deep and rigged for silent running. At 0728 Hake’s crew reported hearing 15 rapid depth charges explode in the distance astern. Hake continued evasive action, returning to the attack area shortly after noon to sweep the area at periscope depth – only finding a ring of marker buoys covering a radius of one-half mile. Japanese records later revealed that Harder fired three torpedoes at CD-22 in a “down-the-throat” shot, which the enemy vessel successfully evaded. At 0728, she launched the first of several depth charges, which sunk the American submarine.
The Navy declared Harder presumed lost on 2 January 1945. Her name was stricken from the Navy Register on 20 January.
She is in remarkable condition after sitting on the floor for almost 80 years, sitting upright under the crush of more than 3,000 meters of sea.
4D photogrammetry model of USS Harder (SS 257) wreck site by The Lost 52. The Lost 52 Project scanned the entire boat and stitched all the images together in a multi-dimensional model used to study and explore the site. Tim Taylor and The Lost 52 Project grants the US Navy permission to use their image for press release of the discovery of the USS Harder with photo credit given to Tim Taylor and the Lost 52 Project.
(Photo: Chris Eger)