Aboard the USS Sunfish SS-281, July 3-4, 1944…
Not every Fourth of July comes with flags and fireworks. Sometimes, it comes with fog, fishing boats, and a barometer that just can’t make up its mind.
On July 3, 1944, the submarine USS Sunfish slipped into her patrol zone. She was sixty miles southeast of Kurabu Zaki, off the northern edge of Paramushiru, one of the outermost of Japan’s Kurile Islands. This was not a place for parades or patriotic speeches. It was a place for shadows, silence, and submarine warfare. On this particular patrol, action was measured less in torpedoes and more in fathoms and fogbanks.
At 1500 hours, the radar came alive with land echoes. First, Paramushiru appeared at eighty thousand yards, bearing 352 degrees true. Then, Onekotan Island came into range to the south-southwest. The Sunfish edged over a submerged ridge known as the “hundred fathom finger,” confirming her position with the sonar’s steady ping against the sloping sea floor. Navigation in these waters meant knowing the depth by feel, not just sight. Every movement was cautious. Every decision was deliberate.
As night fell, she eased into Onekotan Kaikyo, the narrow strait between those bleak islands. Visibility was an optimistic 4,000 yards. Reality suggested less.
The Fourth of July dawned behind a veil of fog and snow, a miserable, soaking squall that swept across the sea in heavy silence. There were no rockets’ red glare or bombs bursting in air. There was only the low hum of diesel engines, the wet slap of sea spray, and a crew staring out into nothing.
At five minutes past midnight, the radar caught a trace. Ship contact number two. A faint pip, perhaps a small patrol boat sweeping the middle of the strait. The Sunfish gave it a wide berth, slipping around in the dark. No shots fired. No alarms sounded. Just a silent chess move in a very cold, very wet game.
Later, at 0756, the boat emerged from the fog four miles east of Shirinki To and made her first landfall of the patrol. Two fishing trawlers were sighted off Huretsu Zaki, contact number three, but no threat materialized. The boat reversed course and melted back into the mist like a ghost. They peered toward Kujira Wan through binoculars and periscope. Nothing. Empty sea. Empty harbor.
Then came something stranger. A derelict fishing boat. At 1132, it appeared three miles off. Small, barely afloat. The crew manned the 20mm deck gun just in case, but as they drew near, within 200 feet, it became clear. It was just flotsam. A wooden craft, barely 35 feet long, awash and unmanned. Dead on the water, yet impossible to sink. A fitting metaphor for the war in this forgotten corner of the Pacific.
It was here, in these eerie, wind-scrambled waters, that Sunfish’s crew made an observation not found in textbooks. The barometer lies. It rose and fell as if possessed. Two inches up, two inches down, an hour apart, and it meant absolutely nothing. The wind changed direction not once or twice, but radially, like the spin of a roulette wheel. The seas were nearly calm. The sky, utterly confused.
The Kuriles were not like the Coral Sea or the Solomons. There was no glamour here. Just the creeping cold, the persistent gray, and the endless uncertainty. The enemy was often invisible. The weather, rarely helpful. And yet, here was the Sunfish, patrolling nonetheless. The next few days would be much more exciting for Sunfish and her crew.
but not every Independence Day is marked by a dramatic clash or a glorious victory. Some are spent watching fog roll in, watching it roll back out, and wondering if the weather and the world will ever make sense again.
U.S. Navy. Deck Logs, USS Sunfish (SS-281), July 3–4, 1944. Record Group 24: Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel. National Archives and Records Administration. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74852643?objectPage=6
Patrol Reports 
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