USS Sculpin (SS-191)

Sculpin was a Sargo class submarine completed by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine in January of 1939.

Sculpin began her ninth patrol on 5 November 1943 at Pearl Harbor, TH. On board was CAPT John P. Cromwell who would be the wolfpack commander should one be formed. Later, wolfpacks would be commanded by the senior CO in the pack, rather than an additional, senior officer.

Orders to form a wolfpack had not been issued by CAPT Cromwell as of 29 November. After hearing nothing from Cromwell, COMSUBPAC issued orders for a wolfpack on 1 December, in part to determine if Sculpin was all right. In fact, Sculpin had already been lost.

On the night of 18 November, Sculpin had a radar contact on a fast convoy. She began an end-around, to be ahead of the convoy for a dawn attack. As she began her approach, she was detected and forced deep. When Sculpin surfaced about an hour later, to make another end-around, she was spotted by a trailing destroyer. The destroyer attacked with depth charges and inflicted only minor damage.

LT George E. Brown, the diving officer, was relieved so he could check for damage. When he returned to the control room, he found that the boat had broached the surface. The depth gauge was stuck at 125 feet. As a result, the ensign who had replaced Brown as diving officer did not know the actual depth when bringing the boat up to periscope depth and came up too far. The depth charge attack began again. A close string of 18 depth charges seriously damaged Sculpin. The captain decided to surface and try to fight his way to safety.

However, the destroyer soon put rounds through the main induction and the conning tower. The captain, executive officer and gunnery officer were killed along with several other men. LT Brown succeeded to command and decided to abandon ship and scuttle. Twelve men chose to remain aboard the sinking boat. This included CAPT Cromwell who feared that he might give up too much information about pending operations and about our success in breaking Japanese codes, our Ultra messages. It also included the young diving officer who had inadvertently broached the boat.

42 men were rescued by the Japanese. However, one who was badly injured was thrown over the side. Those who were prisoners were first taken to Truk for 10 days of questioning. Then they were divided into equal groups and loaded onto two Japanese escort aircraft carriers. En route to Japan, the carrier IJN Chuyo, was sunk by the submarine USS Sailfish (SS-192). Only one of the Sculpin’s sailors on the Chuyo was able to survive this sinking.

The sad irony of this story is that USS Sailfish (SS-192), then called Squalus, had been found by Sculpin. Squalus sank in May of 1939 off New Hampshire when her main induction valve failed, flooding the after (rear) compartments of the boat. Sculpin quickly located Squalus and established communications, enabling the rescue vessel Falcon (ASR-2) to save 33 of the 59 men in the crew. Now Sailfish, formerly the Squalus, inadvertently added to the tragedy of the loss of Sculpin.

As noted above, Sculpin was on her initial shakedown cruise in May of 1939 when she was directed to search for the missing Squalus. Sculpin located the Squalus and stood by to assist. She then engaged in training operations for the remainder of the year. Transferred to the Pacific Fleet, she departed Portsmouth on 28 January 1940. She arrived at San Diego on 6 March and at Pearl Harbor on 9 April. She departed Pearl Harbor on 23 October 1941 and arrived at Cavite on 8 November.

Prior to her ninth patrol, Sculpin was beset by torpedo problems. She began her first war patrol from Cavite in the Philippines on escort duty shortly after the war began. She claimed hits on a 5,000-ton cargo vessel but this was not confirmed. On her second patrol, she fired torpedoes at an enemy cruiser and claimed two hits. These are thought to be premature explosions since the cruiser was not damaged. Later in this patrol she received a heavy depth charging, damaging her starboard main controller and propellor shaft. She was directed to Exmouth, Australia for repairs.

Her third patrol was a frustrating mix of misses, duds and prematures. On her fourth patrol, she reported torpedoing a cargo ship, two large tankers and a large freighter. However, none of these were confirmed by JANAC.

On her fifth patrol, she scored two hits on a new seaplane tender. However, Sculpin could not confirm the damage due to a depth charge attack. There was significant damage to Sculpin from the attack, but the crew was able to patch it up well enough to remain on patrol. This paid off since she sank two ships in October of 1942 for which she finally received credit. One other claim was not confirmed. On her sixth patrol, she received credit for damaging a large tanker. After this patrol she had a three-month overhaul at Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

On her seventh patrol, Sculpin sank two very small vessels for which JANAC did not normally give credit and may have damaged a cargo ship. On her eighth patrol, she sank another medium cargo ship. Two other attacks were thwarted by malfunctioning torpedoes. Then there was a short overhaul period before embarking on her final patrol.

Sculpin was lost on her ninth war patrol. JANAC credited her with three sinkings for 9,835 tons total for her WW2 service.

CAPT Cromwell, the wolfpack commander on the last patrol, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his sacrifice.