Grayback (SS-208) was
launched by the Electric Boat
Co., Groton, Conn., 31 January 1941; sponsored by Mrs. Wilson Brown, wife of
Rear Admiral Wilson Brown, Superintendent of the Naval Academy; and
commissioned 30 June 1941 at New London, Lt. Willard A. Saunders in
command.
Attached to the Atlantic Fleet Grayback
conducted her shakedown cruise in
Long Island Sound out of Newport, New London, and New York. In company with
Grampus she departed New
London 8 September for patrol duty in the Caribbean and Chesapeake
Bay; then arrived Portsmouth, N.H., 30
November for overhaul. With America's entry into the war Grayback
sailed for the Pacific 12 January
1942 and arrived Pearl Harbor ,8 February. There
she joined the submarine fleet which
was to wreak such havoc on the
vital shipping lanes of the Japanese Empire.
Grayback's
first war patrol from 15 February to 10
April took her along the coast
of Saipan and Guam. There she
participated in a deadly 4-day game of hide-and-seek
with an enemy submarine; the enemy I-boat
fired two torpedoes at Grayback
on the morning of 22 February,
then continued to trail her across the Pacific.
Grayback
spotted the enemy conning tower a couple
of times, and the Japanese ship
broached once; but Gray-back could not get into
position to attack. After 4 nerve-wracking days, Grayback shook the
other sub and continued on patrol.
First blood for her came on 17 March
as she sank a 3,291-ton cargo ship off
Port Lloyd.Gr
Grayback's
second war patrol met a dearth of
targets although she even took the unusual and risky measure of
patrolling surfaced during the day. On
22 June she arrived Fremantle,
Australia, which was to remain her
home base for most of the war. Her third
and fourth war patrols, in the
South China Sea and St. George's
Passage, were equally frustrating as Grayback was hampered
by bright moonlight, shallow and treacherous water, and enemy patrol craft.
Despite these hazards, she
damaged several freighters and also got in a shot at
another Japanese submarine. However,
the very presence of Grayback
and her sister ships in these waters—
the threat they presented to shipping
and the number of enemy escorts
they tied up—was an important factor in the successful conclusion of
the Guadalcanal campaign, America's
first offensive campaign in the Pacific war.
The fifth war patrol began as Grayback
sailed from Australia 7
December 1942. Only a week out of port,
Pharmacist's Mate Harry B. Roby was
called upon to perform an
emergency appendectomy, the second to be
done on a patrolling submarine. With
Grayback running silent and
steady a hundred feet beneath the surface, the
untutored Roby successfully removed
the infected appendix, and his
patient was back standing watch by the end of the patrol. Then 25 December,
Grayback enjoyed "a Jap
appetizer for Christmas dinner," as she battle surfaced
to sink four landing barges with her deck guns. Four days later she
was again fired on by an enemy submarine
but maneuvered to avoid the torpedoes. On 3
January 1943 she gained her revenge by
sending to the bottom I-18
one of 25 Japanese submarines chalked up by the Pacific
submarines.
On 5 January Grayback served as beacon
ship for the bombardment of Munda Bay
and also indulged in some
hair-raising rescue work. Lying off Munda early in the
morning of 5 January, she received word
that six survivors of a crashed
B-26 were holed up on the island.
Grayback
sent ashore two men, then submerged at
dawn to avoid enemy aircraft. The
submariners located the downed
aviators, three of whom were injured, and hid out with them in the jungle.
As night fell, Grayback surfaced offshore and by coded light
signals directed the small boat "home
safe" with the rescued aviators. For
this episode skipper Edward C. Stephan
received the Navy Cross.
Grayback
continued on patrol, torpedoing and
damaging several Japanese ships.
On 17 January she attacked a
destroyer escorting a large maru, hoping to disable
the escort and then sink the freighter
with her deck guns. However, the destroyer evaded the torpedoes and
dropped 19 depth charges on
Grayback. One blew a gasket
on a manhole cover; and the submarine, leaking seriously, was ordered
back to Brisbane where she arrived 23
February.
On her sixth war patrol from 16 February to 4
April, Grayback
again had a run of bad luck and returned
empty-handed from the Bismarck-Solomons area. Her newly installed SJ radar
had failed to function; and although she had taken several shots at marus,
none were sunk.
The seventh patrol was more successful. Departing
Brisbane 25 April, Grayback
intercepted a convoy whose
position had been radioed to her by Albacore 11 May. In
a night surface attack Grayback
fired a spread of six torpedoes
at the seven freighters and their three escorts. The three escorts
charged and she had to go deep to elude
the attacking enemy. She was credited with the sinking
of caro ship Yodogawa Maru. On
16 May she torpedoed and seriously damaged a destroyer. The following
day Grayback
intercepted four marus with one escort
and sank freighter England
Maru and damaged two others
before she was forced to dive. She arrived Pearl Harbor
30 May, then proceeded to San Francisco
for a much needed overhaul.
Arriving Pearl Harbor 12 September, Grayback
prepared for her eighth war
patrol. Sailing 26 September with Shad, she rendezvoused with Cero
at Midway to form the first
of the Submarine Force's highly successful
wolfpacks. The three submarines under
Captain C. B. Momsen in Cero, cruised the China Sea and returned to
base with claims of 38,000 tons
sunk and 63,300 damaged.
Grayback accounted for two
ships, a passenger-cargo vessel
torpedoed 14 October and a former light cruiser,
Awata Maru,
torpedoed after an end-around run on a
fast convoy 22 October. Wolfpack
tactics came into play 27 October as Grayback closed a convoy
already attacked by Shad and
administered the coup de grace to a 9,000 ton
transport listing from two of Shad's
torpedoes. The submarines
had now expended all torpedoes, and on 10 November they returned to
Midway.
With almost a quarter of her crew untested in
battle, Grayback
departed Pearl Harbor for the East China
Sea 2 December for her ninth war
patrol. Within 5 days of her
first contact with Japanese ships, she had expended all her torpedoes in a
brilliant series of attacks which
netted four ships for a total of over
10,000 tons. On the night of 18
to 19 December Grayback wreaked havoc on a convoy of four freighters
and three escorts. She sent
freighter Gyokurei Maru and escort Numakaze to the
bottom and damaged several others in
surface attack. Two nights
later, 20 to 21 December, she spotted another
convoy of six ships; and, after an
end-around run she fired a spread
of nine torpedoes into the heart of the
Japanese formation. This first attack
sunk one freighter and damaged
another before Grayback dived to elude
depth charges. Three hours later she
surfaced and sank a second
freighter. After an unsuccessful attack the following
night had exhausted her torpedo supply, Grayback headed home.
Undaunted by lack of torpedoes, the submarine
battled surfaced 27 December and sank a good-sized fishing boat with
deck guns before reaching Pearl Harbor 4 January 1944.
Grayback's
tenth patrol, her most successful in
terms of tonnage sunk, was also
to be her last. She sailed from
Pearl Harbor 28 January 1944, for the East China Sea. On 24 February
Grayback radioed that she had sunk two
cargo ships 19 February and had damaged
two others. On 25 February she transmitted her second and final
report. That morning she had sunk
tanker Toshin Maru and severely damaged another. With only two
torpedoes remaining, she was ordered
home from patrol. Due to reach
Midway on 7 March, Grayback did not arrive.
On 30 March ComSubPac reluctantly
listed her as missing and presumed lost with all hands.
From captured Japanese records the gallant submarine's
last few days can be pieced together. Heading home
through the East China Sea, on 27
February Grayback used
her last two torpedoes to sink the freighter Ceylon
Maru.
That same day, a Japanese carrier-based
plane spotted a submarine on the
surface in the East China Sea and
attacked. According to Japanese reports the submarine "exploded and
sank immediately," but antisubmarine
craft were called in to depth-charge the area, clearly
marked by a trail of air bubbles, until
at last a heavy oil slick swelled to the surface. Grayback had
ended her last patrol, one which cost
the enemy some 21,594 tons of
shipping.
The fighting submarine's career, so tragically
ended, had been an illustrious
one. Grayback ranked 20th
among all submarines in total tonnage
sunk with 63,835 tons and 24th in
number of ships sunk with 14. Submarine and crew had received two Navy Unit
Commendations for their 7th, 8th,
9th, and 10th war patrols.
Grayback
received eight battle stars for World
War II service.