USS Tullibee SS-284 and USS Trigger SS-237

In the waning years of World War II, two American submarines—USS Tullibee (SS-284) and USS Trigger (SS-237)—found themselves at the heart of the Pacific conflict, stalking enemy convoys with nerves of steel and engines of quiet fury. Their service represented the grit and daring of the Silent Service at a time when the stakes could not have been higher, and the dangers were all too real.

USS Tullibee was a Gato-class submarine built at Mare Island Naval Shipyard and commissioned on February 15, 1943, under Commander Charles F. Brindupke. She saw action in the Western Caroline Islands, East China Sea, and the waters off the Marianas. During her first three patrols, she sank three ships totaling approximately 15,500 tons and damaged three more for 22,000 tons. Tullibee had just departed Pearl Harbor on March 5, 1944, for her fourth war patrol. Her mission was to support the first U.S. carrier strike on the Palau Islands and to patrol enemy shipping lanes in the region.

USS Trigger, another Gato-class submarine, was commissioned a year earlier in January 1942. She quickly built a fearsome reputation, credited with sinking 27 enemy ships totaling over 180,000 tons and damaging 13 more. She was awarded three Presidential Unit Citations and eleven battle stars. A crew favorite poem, “I’m the Galloping Ghost of the Japanese Coast,” captured the boat’s swagger and spirit. By the spring of 1945, Trigger was a veteran of eleven war patrols. She departed Guam on March 11, 1945, under Commander David R. Connole, heading for the Nansei Shoto area on her twelfth and final mission.

In the early morning hours of March 26, 1944, Tullibee detected a Japanese convoy in the waters north of Palau. It included a large transport, two medium freighters, a destroyer, and two escort vessels. Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Clifford Kuykendall, a 19-year-old lookout, remembered hearing his shipmate say, “Well, there they go. We’ll see what happens now,” just after they fired two torpedoes. Seconds later, a massive explosion rocked the sub. Kuykendall was blown overboard. The torpedoes they had launched had made a tragic circular run—striking their own boat.

As he regained consciousness, Kuykendall floated alone in the Pacific, watching the stern of his submarine slip under the waves. He heard voices in the dark for a few minutes. Then, nothing. All 79 of his shipmates were lost. He survived the night thanks to a lifebelt insisted upon by EM1 Louis Hieronimus. At 10 a.m. the following morning, a Japanese destroyer picked him up—after first strafing the water with machine-gun fire. A Japanese officer nearly executed him on deck, accusing him of cowardice for allowing himself to be captured. Kuykendall dodged a killing blow by collapsing each time the sword swung. Eventually, another sailor gave him sweet tea and whispered in English, “Don’t worry, everything will be all right.”

He endured captivity in the Palau Islands, was tied to a tree during American air raids, and later transferred to Ofuna and then a forced labor camp in Ashio, Japan. When the war ended, Kuykendall returned home and wrote letters to the families of every fallen crew member, offering them something far too rare among submarine losses—answers.

Exactly one year later, on March 26, 1945, Trigger went silent. Just eight days earlier, she had sunk a Japanese freighter and damaged another after a daring seven-hour pursuit. Her orders on March 26 were to join a coordinated wolfpack operation called “Earl’s Eliminators,” alongside submarines Seadog and Threadfin. That day, she sent a routine weather report but failed to acknowledge her new orders—an ominous silence. She was never heard from again.

Two days later, Japanese ships and aircraft launched a two-hour anti-submarine attack in the area Trigger had last been assigned. Several U.S. submarines in the region—including Threadfin, Hackleback, and Silversides—heard the sustained explosions from a distance. Japanese records later confirmed they detected and repeatedly depth-charged a submarine on March 28. The next day, they found a massive oil slick—one mile wide and five miles long—marking Trigger’s grave. All 89 men aboard were lost.

Trigger’s final patrol added one more freighter to her already legendary tally. Her operational record was one of the most distinguished in the Pacific submarine fleet. She had engaged destroyers, laid minefields, crippled shipping routes, and helped damage the carrier Hiyō. She earned her place in submarine lore—but her final chapter was silence, depth, and the fading of sonar pings.

The twin losses of Tullibee and Trigger, separated by a single year and a shared date, remind us that beneath the strategy and steel of naval warfare lies an all-too-human cost. Tullibee was lost to a cruel twist of fate—a technological flaw with lethal consequences. Trigger was likely lost to the relentless and increasingly effective Japanese anti-submarine tactics near the war’s end. But in both cases, the sacrifice was total. Their crews never came home.

Still, these boats were more than war machines. They were floating homes, filled with men who told jokes in the mess, shared letters from back home, and manned their stations with a calm defiance. They faced the abyss together.

To those who served in the Silent Service—and to those who remember—Tullibee and Trigger do not simply rest on the ocean floor. Their stories rise. They are spoken of with pride. They are remembered with reverence. They are honored.