USS Grayback (SS-208)

Grayback was a Tambor class submarine completed by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, CT in June of 1941.

For her tenth patrol, Grayback left Pearl Harbor on 28 January 1944 and stopped at Midway for fuel. Her patrol area was the East China Sea. Her first report on 24 February claimed 44,000 tons of shipping sunk or damaged. She had just six torpedoes left, five aft and one forward. The next day she reported that she had fired four torpedoes from aft and scored three hits on two cargo ships. She was then ordered to return to Midway. On 27 February, Grayback’s last two torpedoes sank a freighter.

Japanese records indicate that, on 26 February, a land-based attack plane dropped two bombs on a surfaced submarine, hit it and sank it. In spite of the date discrepancies, Grayback had to be the boat that sank the ships and the one sunk by the aircraft’s bomb.

On Grayback’s first patrol, beginning on 15 February 1942, she had orders to patrol the area near Saipan and Guam in the Marianas. There she played tag with a Japanese I class submarine before losing contact. She then sank a former collier before ending the patrol on 10 April.

Her second patrol was uneventful and ended in her new home port in Fremantle, Australia. Her third patrol was also uneventful. Her fourth patrol began with a new captain. He claimed many hits on targets, firing all his torpedoes, but only damage to one large transport was confirmed.

Grayback’s fifth patrol began on 7 December 1942 under the same captain. One week into the patrol, the pharmacist mate performed the second appendectomy on board an American submarine. (There would be a third before the Navy forbade any others.) On 25 December, Grayback destroyed four landing barges with her deck gun. On 3 January she claimed a Japanese submarine, but the target could not be confirmed. Then she was directed to rescue aviators from a downed USAAF B-26 bomber who were stranded on an island. The rescue was an adventure but successful. The patrol ended after Grayback suffered significant damage from depth charges.

Her sixth patrol was unsuccessful. However, during her seventh, things improved. An attack on a convoy resulted in one cargo ship sunk and two damaged. Next, an attack left a destroyer badly damaged from two torpedoes. Grayback added a cargo ship sunk and another damaged before returning to Pearl Harbor and then on to Mare Island Naval Shipyard for an overhaul and an upgrade to a 5-inch gun.

CDR Moore assumed command of the Grayback for her eighth patrol, departing on 26 September 1943. She was part of a three submarine wolfpack. The wolfpack was a great success, claiming 38,00 tons sunk and 63,300 tons damaged. Grayback contributed by sinking two ships of over 7,000 tons and combined with USS Shad (SS-235) to sink another of over 9,000 tons.

Grayback’s ninth patrol began on 2 December 1943. CDR Moore soon spotted a convoy of four ships with three escorts. He sank one maru and damaged two others. The IJN Numakaze, a destroyer stayed behind the convoy. When Grayback surfaced to chase the rest of the convoy, the destroyer attacked the submarine from behind. Grayback dived, fired four torpedoes from the after tubes and sank the destroyer. Grayback later sank another cargo ship and a net layer and damaged two more freighters. The final victim for this patrol was a small fishing boat sunk with the new 5-inch gun.

Grayback was lost on her tenth war patrol. JANAC credited her with 14 sinkings for 63,835 tons total for her WW2 service.

Grayback was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for the combined patrols 7, 8, 9 and 10. This was the highest award for bravery in combat for a unit, such as a ship, rather than an individual.