Lost Boats - April
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died...rather we should thank God that such men lived...
~ George S. Patton
Lost on 03 APR 1943 with the loss of 74 officers and men while on her seventh war patrol.
USS PICKEREL departed Pearl Harbor, HI, and after topping off with fuel at Midway Island on 22 MAR 1943, she headed for the Eastern Coast of Northern Honshu.
She was presumed lost somewhere off Honshu.
The exact cause of her loss has never been determined, but her operational area contained numerous minefields.
Lost on 22 APR 1943 near Penang, with no immediate loss of life.
USS GRENADIER was on her sixth war patrol off Malay Peninsula. While stalking a convoy, she was spotted by a Japanese aircraft and immediately dove. While passing 130 feet, USS GRENADIER was bombed, causing severe damage.
She was lodged on the bottom at 270 feet and the crew spent hours fighting fires and flooding. When she surfaced, she had no propulsion and was attacked by another Japanase aircraft. USS GRENADIER succeeded in shooting down the secord aircraft, however, she remained heavily damaged. When enemy ships arrived, the CO ordered abandoned ship and scuttled the boat.
Of the sixty-one officers and crew members taken prisoner, fifty-seven survived the war.
USS GUDGEON (SS 211) was probably lost on 18 APR 1944 with the loss of seventy-nine officers and men, southeast of Iwo Jima, but may have been sunk as late as 12 MAY 1944 in different attack on an unidentified submarine and heard by several other submarines in the area.
Winner of five Presidential Unit Citations, USS GUDGEON was on her twelfth war patrol and most likely the victim of a combined air and surface anti-submarine attack.
USS GUDGEON was the first US submarine to go on patrol from Pearl Harbor, HI, after the Japanese attack.
On her first patrol, she became the first US submarine to sink an enemy warship, picking off the Japanese submarine I-173.
Gudgeon was officially overdue and presumed lost on 07 JUN 1944.
Captured Japanese records shed no light on the manner of her loss, and it must remain one of the mysteries of the silent sea.
Lost on or after 08 APR 1945 with the loss of eighty-four officers and men on her ninth war patrol. USS SNOOK ranks tenth in total Japanese tonnage sunk and is tied for ninth in the number of ships sunk during WWII.
She was lost near Hainan Island, possibly sunk by a Japanese submarine.
Lost on 10 APR 1963 with the loss of 112 officers and crew and 17 civilian technicians during sea trials deep-diving exercises following a prolonged shipyard period for refitting.
Fifteen minutes after reaching test depth, USS THRESHER communicated with USS SKYLARK (ASR 20) that she was having problems and attempting to surface. USS SKYLARK heard noises like air rushing into an ballast tank - then, silence.
Rescue ship USS RECOVERY (ASR 43) subsequently recovered bits of debris, including gloves and bits of internal insulation. Photographs taken by the bathyscape TRIESTE proved that the submarine had broken up, taking all hands on board to their deaths in 1,400 fathoms of water, some 220 miles east of Boston.