Author: FTB1(SS)

USS Rasher’s Fifth War Patrol: How an American Submarine Crippled Japan’s Convoys in 1944

When USS Rasher (SS-269) limped back into Fremantle on June 23, 1944, she looked like a boat that had given the war everything she had to offer. Her paint was worn, her machinery tired, and her crew bone-weary after the fourth war patrol. Fremantle was one of those places where submariners knew they would find a few weeks of peace. There were cold beers, hot meals, and the company of people who appreciated that these young men were daily gambling their lives under the sea. But more importantly, Fremantle was where submarines were put back together again.

Podcast: Rashers Legendary Night: August 18, 1944

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A Submarine’s View of Carlson’s Raiders, August 1942

 

In August of 1942 the USS Argonaut left Pearl Harbor on a mission unlike any she had ever undertaken. Built as a mine-laying submarine, she was slow, heavy, and awkward in comparison to the fleet boats that now carried the war westward. But her broad hull and ample internal space made her a fit for something no one had tried before. Along with USS Nautilus, Argonaut carried Carlson’s Raiders, two hundred twenty-one Marines with orders to strike Makin Atoll, inflict damage, confuse the enemy, and get back out alive. It was the first time the Navy would send a submarine into battle not just as a hunter of ships, but as a troop transport. For Argonaut’s crew, used to torpedoes and patrols, this felt like stepping into a different kind of war.

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The Last War Shot: USS Spikefish SS-404

In the summer of 1945, USS Spikefish (SS-404) was a young boat in a veteran’s war. A Balao-class submarine commissioned only months earlier, she was part of the U.S. Navy’s relentless undersea campaign that had, by then, strangled Japan’s maritime lifelines. Built for endurance and stealth, the Balao class represented the peak of American submarine design in World War II, long-ranged, heavily armed, and capable of diving deeper than their predecessors. Spikefish was on her second war patrol in August 1945, operating in the waters south of Japan, where danger still lingered in every sonar ping and radar contact.

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