SUBSIM Radio Room Forums



SUBSIM: The Web's #1 resource for all submarine & naval simulations since 1997

Go Back   SUBSIM Radio Room Forums > Silent Hunter 3 - 4 - 5 > Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific
Forget password? Reset here

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 08-14-22, 01:46 PM   #1
Bubblehead1980
Navy Seal
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Florida USA
Posts: 6,922
Downloads: 550
Uploads: 42


Default August 13, 1944 USS Flier Ss-250

Meant to post this yesterday as it was the 78th anniversary, but never got around to doing so.

August 13, 1944, USS Flier SS-250 struck a mine while transiting Balabac Strait Philippine Islands while en route to assigned patrol area off Indochina.
The submarine sunk in less than one minutes, with just 15 officers and men making it into the water. Eight of the fifteen reached Mantangule Island Island after 17 hours in the water. After contacting friendly guerilla forces, word was sent to appropriate channels and submarine USS Redfin rescued near Brooke's Point, Palawan on 30/31 August 1944. Quite the remarkable story.


Flier was the second sub sunk in Balabac Strait during this time period, with Robalo SS-273 being sunk by a mine on 26 July 1944. Of course, at the time Robalo's fate was not known. Wrecks of Flier and Robalo have since been located, located not far from one another.

Fate of Robalo's survivors is quite sad. From Wikipedia, sourced from Clay Blair's Silent Victory and others.

"On 2 August, a note was handed from the cell window of the Kempei Tai military prison on Palawan Island in the Philippines, to Ed Petry, an American POW from the Puerto Princesa Prison Camp who was passing by. The note was, in turn, given to Hubert D. Hough, Yeoman Second Class, who was also a prisoner at the camp. He contacted Trinidad Mendoza (Red Hankie), wife of guerrilla leader Dr. Mendoza, who had the Coastwatchers radio General MacArthur and Admiral Ralph Christie in Australia.[30]

From these sources, it was concluded Robalo was sunk on 26 July 1944, 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi) off the western coast of Palawan Island from an explosion in the vicinity of her after battery, probably caused by an enemy mine. Four men swam ashore, and made their way through the jungles to a small barrier northwest of the Puerto Princesa Prison Camp, where Japanese Military Police captured them and jailed them for guerrilla activities. On 15 August, they were evacuated by a Japanese destroyer and never heard from again. The exact fate of the survivors is unknown.

Though Admiral Christie knew better, for morale reasons, all hands were reported as having gone down with the boat, but other prisoners on Palawan reported that the boat's skipper, Lieutenant Commander Manning Kimmel, son of Admiral Husband Kimmel, was one of the survivors. After an air strike on Palawan, the Japanese were so angered that they pushed Kimmel and the other prisoners into a ditch, poured in gasoline, and burned them alive. This incident was reported by Clay Blair Jr., a submarine veteran of the war and author of the definitive work Silent Victory: The US Submarine War Against Japan (see Volume 2, pp660–662 for details)."
Bubblehead1980 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:08 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 1995- 2024 Subsim®
"Subsim" is a registered trademark, all rights reserved.