Why This ‘Crude’ American Destroyer Sank 6 Japanese Submarines In 12 Days

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Today’s story is about a deadly threat that American ships faced in the Pacific during 1944.

Japanese submarines operating in coordinated reconnaissance lines that existing anti-ubmarine weapons simply couldn’t counter effectively.

This is how one ship’s crew found their answer.

May 19th, 1944.

The sonar operator aboard the destroyer escort watches his scope, headphones tight.

The ping echoes back.

Solid contact.

1,200 yd, bearing 035.

His hand shoots up.

The captain orders flank speed.

Turbines scream as the escort surges forward.

Its bow cutting foam across dark blue water.

Men rush to the depth charge racks.

They know the drill.

Race over the contact point, roll the 300lb depth charges set for 150 ft, and pray the Japanese submarine captain hasn’t already begun his evasive turn.

Contact fading, sir.

Losing him in the thermal layer.

The sonar operator’s voice cuts through the bridge noise.

The captain’s jaw tightens.

It’s happening again.

At 800 yd from the drop point, the sonar return scatters into meaningless static.

The submarine has slipped beneath a temperature gradient where warm surface water meets cold deep current.

You know, a layer that refracts and bends sound waves until the screen shows only noise.

They’re running blind toward a target that might have turned 90°.

Protocol demands the depth charges roll off the stern anyway.

Six canisters tumble into the Pacific.

The crew counts seconds until they detonate at 150 ft, erupting six geysers of white water 200 yd a stern.

The sea boils.

Shock waves ripple outward, then silence.

No oil slick, no debris.

The sonar operator sweeps his sector, nothing.

The Japanese submarine has vanished, and somewhere beneath 300 ft of ocean, its captain is already plotting his next move.

This tactical problem had plagued American anti-ubmarine operations in the Pacific since 1943.

The mathematics were brutal.

A destroyer traveling at 20 knots needed 2 minutes to close on a contact.

In that time, a Japanese submarine submerged at 8 knots could be anywhere within a circle half a mile in diameter.

In Pacific, temperature gradients created difficult sonar conditions rarely found in the Atlantic.

Warm equatorial currents over cold, deep water, varying salinity, and underwater topography that bounced sound unpredictably.

A submarine detected at 1,500 yd could disappear completely at 800 yd, leaving attackers guessing.

Japanese submarine commanders understood this advantage.

Imperial Japanese Navy doctrine emphasized deep diving.

Type B submarines could reach 330 ft, but and some pushed to 400 ft.

American depth charges were often set between 150 and 300 ft in early Pacific operations, frequently too shallow for Japanese boats diving deeper.

The traditional stern drop attack method also created a fatal gap.

The attacking ship had to pass over the submarine, losing sonar contact for 30 to 45 seconds.

Skilled Japanese commanders used those seconds for evasive turns or rapid depth changes.

Afteraction reports documented the frustration.

Off truck, in February 1944, hunter killer groups made 19 attacks on 23 sonar contacts for zero confirmed kills.

Near the Palo Islands in March, 24 attacks on 31 contacts resulted in one kill, and only because the submarine had surfaced with mechanical failure.

The tactical calculus was devastating.

American forces could detect Japanese submarines, but could not kill them.

Modifications to existing weapons yielded marginal improvements.

Deeper depth charge settings of 300 to 400 ft were countered by Japanese commanders who varied their diving depth unpredictably.

Saturation attacks dropping 12 or 18 charges instead of six, consumed massive quantities of ordinance for minimal return.

A destroyer escort carried around 100 depth charges, meaning five such attacks before needing replenishment.

Since a confirmed kill often required six to eight passes per submarine, the mathematics didn’t work.

You know, ships ran out of ordinance before achieving results.

Aircraft were another attempted solution, but patrol bombers could only attack surfaced submarines.

Japanese doctrine adapted, restricting surface operations to night.

By May 1944, American patrol aircraft over the Solomon Islands and Admiral T approaches were spotting fewer than three surfaced submarines per week.

The Japanese submarine scouting line remained submerged, gathering intelligence while American ships expended depth charges overhead that killed only fish.

The consequences escalated throughout early 1944.

Submarines from Tru and Rabal tracked American carrier task forces, reported fleet movements, and radioed convoy schedules, feeding intelligence directly into Japanese planning for the Mariana’s campaign.

American commanders knew submarines were watching as intercepted communications confirmed.

Yet they remained untouchable.

A merchant convoys bound for forward bases in the Admiral required escort protection, tying up warships needed for offensive operations.

A slow convoy to Manis might need four destroyer escorts.

Japanese commanders recognized that they didn’t need to sink ships.

Forcing escorts to expend ordinance and return for replenishment left convoys vulnerable and achieved a strategic effect.

Morale among anti-ubmarine crews deteriorated.

Sonar operators developed cynical fatalism that they could find submarines, but finding and killing were different problems.

Depth charge crews went through the mechanical motions of failure, feeling detonations rumble through the hole plating to see nothing but empty ocean afterward.

Conversely, Japanese submarine captains gained confidence.

Intercepted communications revealed their assessment of American anti-ubmarine capability as ineffective.

Type B submarine commanders shared tactics on diving deep and exploiting thermal layers.

Analysis of recovered Japanese documents showed their commanders calculated that American depth charge attacks had less than a 5% probability of inflicting serious damage against an alert crew following proper evasion procedures.

The tactical problem crystallized during April 1944 operations near Manus.

Over 10 days, American forces detected seven Japanese submarines.

Destroyer escorts mounted 43 separate attacks, expending nearly 400 charges for zero confirmed kills.

One submarine suffered minor damage from a near miss that cracked external fuel tanks, leaving an oil slick.

The remaining six escaped unharmed to continue their reconnaissance mission without interruption.

Commander task force reports acknowledged the crisis bluntly.

Existing anti-ubmarine weapons could not reliably destroy Japanese submarines in Pacific conditions.

The traditional attack method of dropping depth charges a stern created a blind period that Japanese captains exploited with practiced efficiency.

What the Pacific fleet required was a weapon that attacked forward, not a stern.

one allowing attacking ships to maintain continuous sonar contact while delivering ordinance accurately, hitting submarines before they knew death was coming.

Urgency intensified as May 1944 approached.

American intelligence confirmed Japanese submarine deployments across the approaches to the Maranas.

The Japanese submarine scouting line was just one element of a comprehensive intelligence gathering operation.

Imperial Japanese Navy headquarters was positioning submarines to observe every phase of the coming American offensive.

These submarines had to be destroyed, not merely harassed.

A planners faced an uncomfortable reality.

They were about to launch the largest Pacific amphibious operation yet, and Japanese submarines would be watching.

While American anti-ubmarine forces had demonstrated a consistent inability to stop them, destroyer escort crews throughout the Pacific waited for something better, something that worked.

They needed a weapon that eliminated the blind spot that maintained contact during attack and that killed submarines where traditional depth charges only bruised water.

Sonar operators needed to watch their targets die, not watch them vanish into thermal layers.

Captains needed weapons they could trust to turn contacts into confirmed kills instead of frustrating near misses.

The solution existed.

It was already being installed on newly commissioned destroyer escorts arriving from American shipyards.

Some crews had trained with it.

Most hadn’t.

But in 12 days during May 1944, a one ship would demonstrate exactly what this new weapon could accomplish against Japanese submarines that thought themselves safe from American anti-ubmarine warfare.

The killing was about to become devastatingly efficient.

On the destroyer escort’s gray steel deck, sailors crowded around a strange apparatus welded forward of the bridge.

Ship fitters had installed a cluster of 24 spigot mortars in a rectangular pattern angled upward at 45°.

Each tube held a 65lb projectile with a contact fuse.

Unlike the time delay mechanisms of conventional depth charges, the contraption resembled an oversized garden fence more than ordinance crude compared to the elegant depth charge racks mounted aft.

The weapons officer demonstrated the loading procedure, showing how each bomb slid down over its spigot.

When we launch, he explained, all 24 go at once.

They’ll land in an ellipse about 140 ft ahead of the bow, roughly 30 yard across.

A gunner’s mate studied the thinned, blunt-nosed projectiles skeptically.

They were painted haze gray like the deck and had no propulsion system, just dead weight that would drop in a ballistic arc.

“How’s that better than rolling charges off the stern?” someone asked.

The answer was simple.

Maintaining sonar contact.

With conventional depth charges, a ship had to pass over the submarine, losing acoustic contact as its screws and explosions deafened the sonar gear.

By the time the charges detonated, the target’s position was a guess.

This forwardthrowing weapon changed everything.

Sonar operators could track right up to impact, feeding corrections to the bridge.

The submarine stayed painted on the scope throughout the attack run, but the crew was skeptical.

They had seen experimental weapons fail in combat.

This one looked fragile.

Its exposed spiggots vulnerable to heavy seas and its electrical circuits to salt spray.

The projectiles carried only 35 lb of torpex each, compared to 600 lb in a standard depth charge, seeming laughably inadequate.

A direct hit was required, not just a near miss.

This required a precision most crews couldn’t achieve against a maneuvering submarine 300 ft below the surface.

USS England DE635 was a Buckley class destroyer escort m an emergency warship built to counter access submarines.

She displaced 1,400 tons, was 306 ft long, and could make 23.5 knots, respectable for convoy duty, but inadequate for fast carrier task forces.

Her main battery was 33 3in/50 caliber guns, sufficient against surfaced submarines, but outmatched by destroyers.

Twin 40mm bowors and 20 mm oricons provided anti-aircraft defense.

Three 21-in torpedo tubes gave her a punch against surface targets, and she carried standard depth charge racks.

But the weapon that would define her service was the Mark 10 hedgehog anti-ubmarine projector mounted forward of the bow structure.

The hedgehog was British in origin, developed at the Admiral T’s Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development.

The American version used 24 spigots in four rows of six, launching a Mark 44 projectile with a contact fuse containing 35 lbs of torpex.

The bombs launched in a ballistic arc who reaching their maximum range of 250 yds in about 7 seconds.

Impact velocity drove the fuse, requiring direct contact with a submarine’s pressure hull to detonate.

Near misses accomplished nothing.

This limitation proved strategically brilliant, as contact fuses meant failed attacks produced no explosion.

Sonar operators could immediately determine the outcome and maintain contact if the pattern missed.

The submarine’s captain, hearing nothing, would be unaware of an attack and often continued on his course while the escort maneuvered for another run.

England commissioned December 10th, 1943 in San Francisco.

Her crew of 15 officers and 198 enlisted men were mostly reserveists with little naval experience.

Her captain had commanded merchant vessels and the sonar and hedgehog crews were newly trained.

She departed for the Pacific in January 1944.

Assigned to escort division 39 out of Espiritus Sananto New Heis.

The tactical situation was ideal for her mission.

Japanese submarines were running supplies to support garrisons cut off by American advances.

Intelligence indicated submarine movements northeast of the Solomons where they supplied isolated outposts, evacuated personnel, and conducted reconnaissance.

On May 18th, 1944, England sorted with destroyer escorts USS George and USS Rabi to sweep the track of reported Japanese submarines.

The next day at 1335 hours, the sonar detected a submerged contact at 1,300 yd.

It was I16, a 2,200 ton type C cruiser submarine tasked with resupplying isolated garrisons.

England maneuvered into attack position.

Her sonar team calling bearing and range.

At 400 yd, the firing key closed.

24 projectiles arked forward, hitting the water in their elliptical pattern.

After 7 seconds, a muffled detonation was felt through England’s hull.

A spreading oil slick marked I-16’s grave.

The kill took one pattern is with probable hits from at least two bombs on the pressure hull.

3 days later, on May 22nd, England contacted RO106, a type KS coastal submarine.

The first pattern missed as the captain dove deep, but England’s sonar held contact through a temperature layer.

The second pattern struck at 0924 hours and RO106 broke up at depth.

On May 23rd, England found RO104, another type KS boat.

One hedgehog pattern at607 hours produced multiple detonations.

The submarine surfaced briefly.

A bow angled steeply up, then slid backward into the depths.

The next day, May 24th, England engaged RO116.

This hunt demonstrated the hedgehog’s advantage.

The first two patterns missed silently, so the submarine maintained its course.

The third pattern fired at 0545 hours achieved hits and RO116 imploded at depth.

May 26th produced the longest hunt.

RO108 proved elusive.

Her captain’s maneuvers breaking sonar contact twice.

England pursued for over 6 hours.

No her skilled sonar operators reacquiring the target.

Four patterns missed before the fifth connected at 1415 hours.

The detonations were a sustained rumble indicating catastrophic hole failure.

England’s success had attracted command attention and she was diverted to intercept I351, a large type D submarine tanker running supplies to Trou.

The interception occurred May 31st.

The submarine attempted to evade at extreme depth, but England sonar tracked the target to over 400 ft.

This was beyond the range where conventional stern dropped attacks remained accurate, but perfect for the hedgehog’s forward firing pattern.

Two patterns missed.

The third fired at 1310 hours produced the characteristic muffled detonations.

I351 broke apart.

A massive oil slick marking the grave of England’s sixth victim in 12 days.

The tactical pattern England established became doctrine.

Her sonar team learned to identify temperature layers and predict submarine maneuvers.

They discovered that a steady approach speed improved contact quality.

The bridge developed procedures for rapid course corrections based on last second bearing changes.

Trusting the sonar team implicitly, the hedgehog crew refined their loading sequences to minimize the interval between patterns.

Critical when a submarine maneuvered after a silent miss.

Enemy recognition came via radio intercepts as Japanese submarine command ordered boats to avoid the area.

A post-war analysis of Japanese naval records revealed that crews reported aggressive depth charge attacks that produced no explosions, the silent hedgehog patterns.

This led to confusion about whether depth charges were malfunctioning or if a new weapon was in use.

But the hedgehog’s limitations were real.

In heavy seas above force six, the spigots couldn’t maintain proper alignment, and misfires increased dramatically.

The contact fuses occasionally failed on oblique impacts.

The projectiles glancing off a submarine’s curved hole without detonating.

The system required exceptional sonar operators.

Most destroyer escorts achieved far lower hit rates with the same equipment.

England’s success rested on crew skill as much as weapon capability.

Production of hedgehog systems accelerated after England’s performance reports reached Washington.

Over 600 destroyer escorts received the Mark 10 or the improved Mark 11 variant by war’s end.

The installation priority went to Pacific Fleet escort groups hunting Japanese submarines along supply routes.

Atlantic convoy escorts received hedgehogs as refits became available, though many retained conventional depth charges as primary arament since Ubot by 1944 were increasingly caught on the surface where gunfire was more effective.

England continued operations through the Okinawa campaign in 1945.

On May 9th, a kamicazi aircraft penetrated the screen and struck her portside amid ships.

The explosion killed 37 crew members, wounded 25 more, and ruptured fuel tanks.

Fire swept through birthing compartments.

Damage control teams contained the flooding and extinguished the fires, but structural damage was severe.

She made port under her own power, but assessment determined repair costs exceeded her remaining service value.

England decommissioned October 15th, 1945.

Her war record complete.

Six confirmed submarine kills in 12 days by a record unmatched by any warship of any navy in World War II.

Postwar analysis credited England’s achievement to the combination of effective weaponry and exceptional crew performance.

The Hedgehog solved the fundamental problem of anti-ubmarine warfare, maintaining contact through the attack, but only in the hands of skilled operators.

Other destroyer escorts using identical equipment achieved far lower success rates.

The weapon enabled the tactic, but could not execute it alone.

Modern naval historians recognize England’s campaign as demonstrating that anti-ubmarine warfare depended less on ship size or speed than on sonar capability, tactical doctrine, and crew training.

The fragile destroyer escort critics had dismissed proved that in submarine hunting, the hunter who maintained contact longest usually won.

England’s crew kept faith with their ungainainely forwardthrowing mortar when conventional wisdom said it couldn’t work.

12 days in May 1944 proved the skeptics