 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Builder | Portsmouth Naval Shipyard,Kittery, Maine[1] |
| Laid down | 15 December 1939[1] |
| Launched | 29 November 1940[1] |
| Commissioned | 1 March 1941[1] |
| Honors & awards |   6 ×battle stars |
| Fate | Lost offManila around 9 September 1943[2] |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | Tambor-classdiesel-electricsubmarine[2] |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 307 ft 2 in (93.62 m)[3] |
| Beam | 27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)[3] |
| Draft | 14 ft7+1⁄2 in (4.458 m)[3] |
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | |
| Range | 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)[3] |
| Endurance | 48 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged[3] |
| Test depth | 250 ft (76 m)[3] |
| Complement | 6 officers, 54 enlisted[3] |
| Armament |
|
USSGrayling (SS-209) was the tenthTambor-classsubmarine to be commissioned in the United States Navy in the years leading up to the country's December 1941 entry intoWorld War II. She was the fourth ship of theUnited States Navy to be named for thegrayling. Her wartime service was in thePacific Ocean. She completed seven war patrols in the following 20 months, and is credited with the sinking of over 20,000 tons of Japanesemerchant shipping andwarships.Grayling received sixbattle stars for herWorld War II service. She was declared lost with all hands in September 1943. Her fate remains an unsolved mystery. Of the twelveTambor-class submarines, only five survived the war.
Grayling′skeel waslaid down at thePortsmouth Navy Yard inKittery, Maine, on 15 December 1939. She waslaunched on 4 September 1940,sponsored by Mrs. Marion Barnes Bryant Leary, wife ofRear AdmiralHerbert F. Leary, andcommissioned on 1 March 1941.
After conducting tests and sea trials, she was called upon 20 June 1941 to assist in the search for submarineO-9 (SS-70), which had failed to surface after a practice dive offIsles of Shoals.O-9 was subsequently discovered on the bottom, but rescue efforts failed;Grayling participated 22 June in the memorial services for those lost.
Joining theAtlantic Fleet,Grayling sailed on shakedown cruise on 4 August toMorehead City, North Carolina, andSt. Thomas,U.S. Virgin Islands, returning toPortsmouth on 29 August. After final acceptance, she departed 17 November, armed atNewport, Rhode Island, and sailed for duty with the Pacific Fleet.Grayling transited thePanama Canal on 3 December and moored atSan Diego, California, on 10 December.
Grayling sailed forPearl Harbor on 17 December, arrived 24 December, and had the honor of being chosen for the Pacific Fleet change of command ceremony on 31 December 1941. The ceremony would normally have taken place on a battleship, but all the fleet's battleships had been either sunk or damaged during the Japanese Navy's attack three weeks earlier. On that day, AdmiralChester Nimitz hoisted his flag aboardGrayling as Commander,Pacific Fleet and began theUnited States Navy's long fighting road back to victory in the Pacific.
_Memorial_plaque.jpg)
After the ceremonies,Grayling stood out ofPearl Harbor on her first war patrol 5 January 1942. Cruising the NorthernGilbert Islands,Grayling failed to register a kill, but gained much in training and readiness, returning toPearl Harbor on 7 March.
Her second patrol, beginning 27 March, was more successful. Cruising off the coast ofJapan itself,Grayling sank her first ship 13 April, sending the cargo freighterRyujin Maru to the bottom. She returned toHawaii on 16 May.
Grayling returned to action in June as all available ships were pressed into service to oppose the Japanese advance onMidway Island. As part of Task Group 7.1,Grayling and her sister submarines were arranged in a fan-like reconnaissance deployment west ofMidway Atoll in theNorthwestern Hawaiian Islands, helping to provide knowledge of Japanese movements. During this deployment, 12 U.S. Army Air ForcesB-17 Flying Fortressbombers sightedGrayling on 7 June 1942 while she was on the surface, and three of them mistakenly attacked her with a string of twenty 1,000-pound (454 kg)bombs dropped from an altitude of more than 10,000 feet (3,000 m), all of which missed.[7]Grayling quicklycrash-dived and avoided damage, but theB-17 crews claimed to have sunk a Japaneseheavy cruiser in 15 seconds.[7]
As U.S. Navy planners established a submarineblockade ofTruk in connection with theU.S. offensive in theSolomon Islands,Grayling began her third war patrol on 14 July 1942 around the Japanese stronghold. She damaged a Japanesesubmarine tender on 13 August, but was forced to return to Pearl Harbor on 26 August by fuel leaks.
At Pearl Harbor,Grayling was repaired and was fitted with surfaceradar, after which she began her fourth patrol on 19 October 1942. Although attacked by gunfire and six separatedepth charge runs by Japanese destroyers,Grayling succeeded on 10 November 1942 in sinking a 4,000-ton cargo ship southwest ofTruk. She also destroyed a Japaneseschooner on 4 December before putting intoFremantle submarine base,Western Australia, 13 December 1942.
Changing her base of operations toAustralia,Grayling stood out ofFremantle on 7 January 1943 on her fifth patrol, this time in Philippine waters. She sank cargo shipUshio Maru west ofLuzon on 26 January and damaged another Japanese ship the next day. After sinking aschooner on 24 February,Grayling returned to Fremantle.
Grayling left Australian waters on 26 March on her sixth war patrol and cruised in theTarakan area and theVerde Island Passage. There, she attacked and sank cargo shipShanghai Maru on 9 April and damaged four other ships before returning to Fremantle on 25 April.
Her seventh war patrol, commencing 18 May, tookGrayling into the waters off northwestBorneo. While she en route to her patrol area, aPBY Catalinaflying boat of U.S. NavyPatrol Squadron 101 (VP-101) mistakenly dropped a depth charge on her as she submerged in theIndian Ocean at17°S115°E / 17°S 115°E /-17; 115. The depth charge did not explode.[8] After reaching her patrol area,Grayling damaged a freighter and two smaller ships before returning to her base on 6 July 1943.
Grayling began her eighth and last war patrol in July, 1943, from Fremantle. She made two visits to the coast of thePhilippines, delivering supplies and equipment to guerrillas at Pucio Point, Pandan Bay,Panay, 31 July and 23 August 1943. Cruising in the Philippines area,Grayling recorded her last kill, the passenger-cargoMeizan Maru on 27 August in theTablas Strait, but was not heard from again after 9 September. She was scheduled to make a radio report on 12 September, which she did not, and all attempts to contact her failed.Grayling was officially reported "lost with all hands" 30 September 1943.
On 27 August 1943, Japanese ships witnessed a torpedo attack, and the next day a surfaced submarine was seen, both in the Tablas Strait area, and then on 9 September a surfaced American submarine was seen insideLingayen Gulf. All of these sightings correspond withGrayling's orders to patrol the approaches toManila. On 9 September 1943, Japanese passenger-cargo vesselHokuan Maru reported a submarine in shallow water west ofLuzon. The ship made a run over the area and "noted an impact with a submerged object". No additional data are available.
Assuming she survived this incident, no other recorded Japanese attacks could have sunkGrayling. Her loss may have been operational or by an unrecorded attack. The only certainty, therefore, is thatGrayling was lost between 9 September and 12 September 1943 either in Lingayen Gulf or along the approaches to Manila. ComTaskFor71 requested a transmission fromGrayling on 12 September, but did not receive one.
Grayling was credited with five major kills, totaling 20,575 tons. All but the first ofGrayling's eight war patrols were declared "successful".
Grayling received six battle stars for her World War II service.
_Memorial.jpg)
This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in May 1943 | |
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| Other incidents |
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