A Friendly Fire Near Miss

The morning began with overcast skies and a gray sea that rolled beneath USS Gabilan as she resumed her lifeguard station near the mouth of Tokyo Bay. It was 0542. Her role was to watch the skies and be ready to pull Allied airmen from the ocean if their luck ran out over Japan. These assignments could be long, sometimes dull, and always dangerous.

By 1135, weather conditions had started to clear. Enemy coastlines were still visible in the haze, but the skies were opening. Strike aircraft would soon follow. Word filtered through at 1430 that the carriers were sending in another wave. Gabilan surfaced at 1600 and established contact with her fighter cover. From the bridge, the sky seemed alive. Planes moved in every direction. Tokyo’s defenses were under heavy pressure, and the horizon felt full of noise.

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In the Dark, We Hunt

The clock had barely ticked past midnight when USS Hammerhead (SS-364) slipped beneath the waves, 10,000 yards ahead of a Japanese convoy steaming through the Gulf of Thailand. The crew knew what was coming. Their orders were clear: close in, identify the targets, and attack. Every man aboard had drilled for this moment. Now it was time to put steel and nerves to the test.

By 2:29 AM, they surfaced again, cautiously threading their way back into position. The ocean was eerily quiet, too quiet for comfort. Contacts in this sector were scarce, and the decision was made to try something risky. Hammerhead would launch a surface attack. Bold? Absolutely. Dangerous? Without question. But the captain wasn’t about to let the enemy slip away under cover of darkness.

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Sixteen Year Old Sub Vet

At just sixteen years old, Timothy A. Boone of Muskegon, Wisconsin, returned home a wounded veteran of the Pacific submarine war. With three broken ribs, burns, and a cast on his arm, Boone limped off the front lines of World War II not with fanfare, but with the quiet resolve of someone who had seen too much, too soon. The Navy had tried to say he was too young. He insisted otherwise. After slipping past the red tape, training hard, and deploying into the teeth of the Pacific theater, Boone found himself on the wrong end of a Japanese depth charge attack during a tense submarine patrol between Saipan and the Philippines. His actions—gunning topside and surviving the brutal concussion of an underwater barrage—earned him an honorable discharge and a quiet seat at the table of submarine legends, though he wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.

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