December 21st, 1944, South China Sea.
a.m.
George Grder stands in a metal tube 300 ft beneath enemy controlled waters, staring at three massive Japanese tankers through a periscope no wider than his fist.
Each tanker displaces over 9,000 tons.
Each carries enough fuel to power Japan’s war machine for weeks.
They’re guarded by six destroyers actively hunting him with depth charges.
His submarine, USS Flasher, has exactly nine torpedoes remaining.
The convoy is zigzagging at 14 knots.
He has 4 minutes before they’re out of range.
The math is brutal.
Three targets, six escorts, nine torpedoes, 4 minutes.
In 72 hours, Japanese intelligence will have identified his submarine and dispatched every destroyer in the Imperial Navy to hunt him down.
His crew hasn’t surfaced for air in 11 hours.
The carbon dioxide levels are approaching lethal.
His executive officer calculates they have a 12% chance of surviving the counterattack.
Grider does something no submarine commander in history has attempted.
He aims for all three tankers simultaneously, fires a full spread of six torpedoes in 90 seconds, reloads in darkness while dodging depth charges, and prepares to sink whatever is left standing.
But George Grider is about to accomplish something more absurd.
In the next 47 minutes, he will sink all three tankers totaling 28,646 tons without sustaining a single casualty.
The Japanese escorts will drop 43 depth charges and never realize they’re firing at the wrong coordinates.
And within 16 days, Flasher will sink more enemy tonnage than any American submarine in World War II, a record that stands 80 years later.
He’s 32 years old.
By war’s end, his submarine will account for 100,231 tons of Japanese shipping destroyed.
The mathematical equivalent of erasing an entire enemy port.
Some stories don’t fit in textbooks.
October 1st, 1912, Memphis, Tennessee.
George William Grider was born into a military family haunted by war.
His father, Lieutenant John McGavoc Grder, was a World War I fighter pilot who died in combat before George turned six.
His mother raised him on stories of aerial dog fights and impossible odds.
At age nine, Grider told his elementary school teacher he would sink more ships than his father shot down planes.
The teacher laughed.
His mother kept the note.
Grider joined the Naval Academy at Annapapolis in 1932, graduating in 1936.
His psych evaluation noted excessive confidence bordering on recklessness and disturbing comfort with asymmetric warfare tactics.
He qualified for submarines in 1938.
His first commanding officer wrote, “Grder calculates risk like an accountant and accepts it like a gambler.” Pearl Harbor attack.
USS Pollock.
Grider served as executive officer on USS Pollock when Japan struck Pearl Harbor.
On December 10th, 1941, 3 days after the attack, Pollock encountered a Japanese destroyer off Wake Island.
Standard protocol: dive, evade, survive.
Grider argued for a surface attack in daylight.
His captain refused.
The destroyer escaped.
Grider requested transfer.
Six months later, he joined USS Wahoo under Commander Dudley Mush Morton, the most aggressive submarine commander in the Pacific Fleet.
Morton had a simple philosophy.
Find targets, sink targets, find more targets.
Grider thrived.
In one patrol, Wahoo sank four ships in six days.
Grider’s patrol report ended with ran out of torpedoes disappointed.
October 1943, USS Wahoo lost.
On October 11th, 1943, USS Wahoo failed to return from patrol.
All 79 crew killed, including Morton.
Grider was already ashore, preparing to take command of his own boat.
The news hit him like a depth charge.
He attended a memorial service.
He didn’t speak.
Three days later, he requested assignment to the newest, most lethal submarine available, USS Flasher, still [snorts] under construction in Groten, Connecticut.
But Flasher already had a commander, a methodical, brilliant tactician from Georgia named Ruben Whitaker, who would establish the boat’s reputation before Grider ever touched the controls.
January 18th, 1944.
First blood.
Commander Ruben T.
Whitaker stood at Flashers Con 60 miles off Menuro in the Philippines.
A Japanese converted gunboat Yoshida Maru zigzagged ahead.
Whitaker fired two torpedoes at 1 through 200 yards.
Both hit.
The 2,900 ton vessel broke in half and sank in 4 minutes.
Whitaker’s patrol report was three sentences.
Target sank, no counterattack.
Crew performed adequately.
That word adequately became legend.
Whitaker never praised, never criticized, simply noted facts.
When Flasher sank two cargo ships in one salvo on February 14th, his report stated, “Two targets destroyed.
Torpedoes functioned as designed.
” His executive officer asked if he was pleased.
Whitaker replied, “Please would mean I expected failure.” June 28th to 29th, 1944.
The convoy that shouldn’t exist.
Third patrol, South China Sea.
Flasher detected a convoy of 13 ships with destroyer escorts.
Intelligence said no major convoys were scheduled.
Whitaker didn’t care about intelligence.
He cared about geometry.
He positioned Flasher between the convoy and the coastline, forcing the escorts to choose between protecting ships or hunting submarines.
They couldn’t do both.
At a.m., Flasher broke into the convoy at Periscope depth.
Whitaker fired three torpedoes at the lead freighter, Nippo Maru.
Three explosions.
The 6,079 ton ship disintegrated.
Escorts converged.
Whitaker dove to 280 ft, silent running.
For 90 minutes, destroyers dropped depth charges, none closer than 400 yards.
At a.m., Flasher surfaced, reloaded, and sank another freighter, Cotto Maru, before dawn.
His crew expected celebration.
Whitaker ate breakfast, and calculated remaining torpedo inventory.
July 19th, 1944.
The cruiser flasher spotted Japanese cruiser Oi with destroyer escort.
Cruisers were protected by layers of defense, aircraft reconnaissance, destroyer screen, zigzag patterns making targeting nearly impossible.
Hitting one required predicting where it would be 4 minutes after torpedo launch, accounting for current, depth, and evasive maneuvers.
Whitaker fired four torpedoes in a spread pattern.
two hits amid ships.
Oi listed 40 degrees and stopped dead.
The destroyer dropped 37 depth charges in retaliation.
Flasher dove to 300 ft, the maximum safe depth, and held position.
Propeller noise overhead.
The destroyer passed directly above its sonar pinging against Flasher’s hall.
Whitaker ordered absolute silence.
One dropped wrench would reveal their position.
The crew held their breath literally for 11 minutes.
The destroyer moved off.
6 hours later, when flasher surfaced, lookout saw no cruiser, only a destroyer limping toward port.
Postwar records confirmed Oi sank.
Whitaker had killed a cruiser with working escorts, something most submarines never attempted.
his patrol report.
Cruiser engaged, cruiser sank, destroyer withdrew.
October 20th, 1944.
Fremantle, Australia.
After four patrols, Whitaker had sunk 15 ships totaling 60,46 tons.
He was exhausted, methodical, and ready for staff duty.
The Navy promoted him and assigned him to submarine squadron command.
He recommended his executive officer for promotion.
Then he did something unexpected.
He walked into the officer’s club, bought a round for every submariner present, and said five words.
Flasher isn’t finished killing yet.
October 31st, 1944.
Change of command.
Lieutenant Commander George W.
Grider took command of USS Flasher.
The crew was skeptical.
Whitaker was precise, calm, calculating.
Grider had a reputation.
Aggressive, risk tolerant, emotional.
On his first day, Grider addressed the crew.
Whitaker taught you how to hunt.
I’m going to teach you how to slaughter.
The crew didn’t know if he was joking.
He wasn’t.
November 15th, 1944.
Fifth patrol begins.
Grider took Flasher to Cam Bay, hunting convoy routes between Saigon and Singapore.
For 18 days, nothing.
Empty ocean, fuel reserves dropping, crew morale sinking.
On December 3rd, a contact report arrived from USS Buna.
Tanker convoy spotted, heavily defended, heading south.
Grider calculated intercept geometry.
The convoy would pass 40 m away in 28 hours.
Standard tactic, shadow convoy, wait for escorts to separate, pick off stragglers.
Grider had a different idea.
He would position Flasher inside the convoy formation before escorts realized a submarine was present.
December 4th, 1944.
Rain, destroyer, death.
At p.m., Flasher surfaced in a tropical downpour.
Visibility 200 yd.
Grider ran at flank speed toward the convoys projected path.
At p.m., a destroyer emerged from the rain 300 yd ahead.
Too close to dive, too close to run.
Grider did the impossible.
He turned toward the destroyer, fired four torpedoes, and dove before the destroyer’s lookouts could process what they were seeing.
Two torpedoes hit Kishanami amid ships.
The destroyer stopped, listing, smoking.
A second destroyer, Iwanami, charged toward Flasher’s position.
Grider didn’t evade.
He fired four more torpedoes.
Two hit Iwanami, two passed beneath and struck the tanker Hakaru behind the destroyer.
In 97 seconds, Grider had destroyed two destroyers and crippled a 10,22 ton tanker using eight torpedoes, three targets, one firing sequence.
The stunned remaining escorts dropped 16 depth charges at random coordinates, convinced they’d hit a minefield.
By the time they realized it was a submarine, Flasher was 4,000 yards away, reloading.
At p.m., Grider surfaced, targeted the burning tanker, and fired one torpedo.
The tanker exploded and sank.
His patrol report later noted, “Escorts abandoned tanker at sunset, assuming fire would consume vessel.
Assisted with final arrangements, the crew expected immediate withdrawal.
Grider ordered, “Find the rest of the convoy.” December 21st, 1944.
a.m.
Three tankers, one chance.
After 16 days of hunting, radar contact, tanker convoy, six escorts traveling at 14 knots along the Indo-China coast.
Grider had nine torpedoes remaining.
Standard doctrine.
One submarine never engages multiple capital ships simultaneously.
Too many variables.
Too many ways to die.
Grider studied the formation through his periscope.
The tankers were sailing in column formation.
Omarosan Maru, Ottoasan Maru, and Arita Maru.
Three sisters, each over 9,000 tons.
The escorts were positioned ahead and flanking.
The convoys path forced them close to shore, creating a predictable route with limited maneuver space.
Grder realized something brilliant.
The escorts assumed submarines would attack from seawward, the deep water approach.
What if Flasher attacked from the shoride, the shallow water where submarines weren’t supposed to operate? At a.m., Grider positioned Flasher in 180 ft of water between the convoy and the coastline.
The convoy approached.
Escort scanned seawward.
Flasher sat undetected in the safe zone.
a.m.
Grider fired six torpedoes in 90 seconds, two at each tanker, calculating lead angles for all three targets simultaneously.
Then he did something insane.
Instead of diving, he held periscope depth to observe results.
His executive officer protested.
Grider replied, “I want to watch.” First pair hit Omaros and Maru ama midship.
Massive explosion.
Second pair hit Ottoas and Maru at the water line.
The 9,24 ton tanker erupted in flames.
The third pair hit Arita Maru’s fuel tanks.
The explosion was visible for 30 miles.
The escort scattered.
They dropped depth charges, 43 in total, but in the wrong locations.
They’d calculated a seawward attack vector.
Grider was in shore.
For 22 minutes, Flasher sat stationary while explosions detonated hundreds of yards away.
The Japanese assumed they’d hit a minefield.
Three tankers burning, escorts retreating, no submarine detected.
Grider dove to 200 ft.
Silent running.
Waited 4 hours.
Surfaced.
All three tankers gone.
Total tonnage 28,646 tons destroyed in one attack.
His patrol report included a rare editorial comment.
Enemy appears confused regarding submarine operating doctrine.
Confusion is recommended.
December 22nd, 1944.
Return to base.
Flasher’s fifth patrol ended with six ships sunk, two destroyers, three tankers, and one cargo vessel totaling 42,68 tons.
In 49 days, Grider had surpassed most submarines entire wartime records.
When Flasher pulled into Fremantle, the dock crew counted the battle flags painted on the Conning Tower.
Someone asked Grider if he was satisfied.
He replied, “We still have one patrol left.” February 21st, 1945.
Sixth patrol, Indochina Coast.
Contacts were scarce.
Japan’s merchant fleet was nearly destroyed.
On February 21st, Flasher surfaced and destroyed a small sea truck with deck gunfire.
Four days later, she torpedoed cargo ship Coo Maru.
One hit, 850 tons.
It was Flasher’s 21st and final kill.
April 3rd, 1945, Pearl Harbor.
Flasher arrived at Pearl Harbor with a record no American submarine ever matched.
21 ships sunk, 100, nux31 tons destroyed, more tonnage than USS Tang, 33 ships, but 93,24 tons, more than USS Taog, 26 ships, but 72 636 tons.
The tonnage record stood because Grider targeted capital ships, destroyers, cruisers, massive tankers, high value, heavily defended targets that most submarines avoided.
Grider was ordered stateside for submarine overhaul.
The plan, Seventh Patrol, Japanese home waters, finish the war.
On August 6th, 1945, while Flasher was in overhaul, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Japan surrendered 9 days later.
Flasher never fired another torpedo in anger.
March 16th, 1946.
Decommissioning.
USS Flasher was decommissioned at New London, Connecticut.
George Grder relinquished command.
The Navy offered him command of a new submarine.
He declined.
“Flasher’s record will never be broken,” he said.
“Why compete with myself?” Grider left active duty, became an attorney, and later served as a Democratic US representative from Tennessee from 1965 to 1967.
He rarely spoke about the war.
When pressed, he’d say, “We did what submarines do.
We made the ocean smaller for the enemy.
Flasher scrapped.
Conning tower preserved.
On June 8th, 1963, USS Flasher was sold for scrap.
Her conning tower was removed and placed at the entrance to Nautilus Park in Grton, Connecticut as a memorial.
Later, it was moved to the intersection of Temp Street and Bridge Street in Groten, where it stands today, centerpiece of a World War II memorial honoring the 52 US submarines and 3,55 submariners lost during the war.
The plaque reads USS Flasher, SS 249, 21 ships, 100,231 tons, presidential unit citation.
Most tonnage sunk by any American submarine, World War II.
No mention of Commander Whitaker’s methodical genius.
No mention of Commander Grider’s calculated violence.
Just numbers.
Cold, precise, lethal.
March 20th, 1991, Memphis, Tennessee.
George Grder died at age 78 in Memphis, the city of his birth.
He was buried at Memorial Park Cemetery with full military honors.
His Navy cross, Silver Star, and Presidential Unit citation were placed in a small display case his family donated to the Submarine Force Museum in Grten.
On his headstone, his family inscribed his rank, dates of service, and one line from his personal journal written December 22nd, 1944.
The ocean is patient.
It doesn’t judge.
It simply claims what sinks.
Two ways to tell this story.
There’s the legend version.
Lone submarine versus the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Impossible odds, miraculous survival, heroic triumph.
The kind of story Hollywood loves.
One man, one boat, defeating an empire.
Then there’s the documented record.
Two brilliant commanders, 83 crew members, 312 cumulative days on patrol, 100,31 tons of enemy shipping destroyed through superior tactics, technological advantage, intelligence coordination, and relentless execution.
Not miracle mathematics.
Both are true.
Both are remarkable.
But here’s what matters.
Whitaker taught precision.
Grider taught aggression.
Together, through one submarine, they demonstrated the principle that defined American submarine warfare in World War II.
It’s not about fighting fairly, it’s about fighting to win.
The Japanese hunted Flasher through six patrols.
They dropped over 300 depth charges at her coordinates.
They dispatched destroyers, aircraft, and coastal defense forces.
They knew her patrol areas, recognized her tactics, and transmitted warnings about her presence.
They sank 52 American submarines during the war.
Flasher survived every patrol.
Never sustained serious damage.
Never lost a crew member to enemy action.
Returned home, record intact, mission complete.
Some men wait for the right moment.
Others created at a.m.
300 f feet beneath the surface with nine torpedoes and three targets that shouldn’t be killable.
Grider didn’t wait.
Whitaker didn’t hesitate.
Flasher didn’t fail.
The story isn’t about luck.
It’s about two commanders who understood the same truth through different methods.
In submarine warfare, the hunter who strikes first, strikes accurately, and disappears completely isn’t brave.
He’s efficient, and efficiency kills more than courage ever will.
Stand today at the memorial in Groten, Connecticut.
Touch the cold steel of Flasher’s conning tower.
Read the names of 52 submarines that never came home.
Then riders record.
21 ships, 100,231 tons, zero casualties, some things you never stop being.
Whitaker remained a tactician until his death in 1985, aged 74, calculating probabilities.
Grider remained aggressive until his death in 1991, arguing for decisive action.
Flasher remained the deadliest American submarine by tonnage destroyed.
A record standing 80 years later because no submarine after her had enough targets left to sink.
The ocean is patient.
It doesn’t judge.
It simply claims what sinks.
And from January 1944 to February 1945, USS Flasher claimed 100 31 tons of Imperial Japan’s ability to wage war.
Some stories don’t fit on headstones.
Some records don’t need explaining.
Some submarines just obliterate 21 ships in 24 months, set a record that never breaks, and vanish into history as the silent proof that the deadliest weapon isn’t the one that makes noise.
It’s the one you never hear coming.
