Tag Archives: Medal of Honor

The Hard Choice

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This day in history – November 19, 1943.

The submarine Sculpin (SS-191) was heavily damaged by the Japanese destroyer Yamagumo north of Truk in the Caroline Islands. Though he has time to escape the boat before it sinks, Captain John P. Cromwell, the commander of the submarine squadron of which Sculpin was a part, chose to go down with the boat rather than face interrogation during his capture that might force him to reveal his knowledge of U.S. Central Pacific strategy and plans.

Captain Cromwell had detailed knowledge of Operation Galvanic (Tarawa), Operation Hailstone *Truk and the Gilbert and Marshall Islands) and the fact that the U.S. had broken the Imperial Japanese Navy coded message traffic (JN-25) more broadly known as ULTRA.

Sculpin was on her ninth war patrol. After engaging a convoy, she was subjected to multiple depth-charge attacks. The damage caused her to surface where she engaged Yamagumo with her deck guns – to no avail. With her captain killed in action as well as others, the surviving senior officer ordered Sculpin abandoned and scuttled. Before he opened the vents, he informed Captain Cromwell. Because of his top secret knowledge, he elected to go down with submarine.

For Captain Cromwell’s selfless sacrifice, he received a posthumous Medal of Honor.

The 42 survivors were picked up by Yamagumo and were POWs for the remainder of the was, liberated in September 1945. Sadly, while being transported to Japan, 21 of the sailors were lost when the cargo ship carrying them was sunk by the USS Sailfish. The survivors were used as slave labor in the Ashio Copper mines in Japan.

A Medal of Honor

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As World War II in the Pacific moved into 1944 the submarines of the U.S. Navy continued to extract a heavy toll on Japanese merchant shipping as an increasing number of Balao-class submarines entered service in the Pacific. At the same time, the Pacific submarines, now having sufficient numbers, began to patrol in “submarine groups” – receiving the inevitable nickname, “Wolf Pack.”

On this day in history (1944) A submarine group attacked a Japanese convoy near Bashi Channel south of Formosa, sinking four ships and damaging three others. During the operation, the submarine Parche (SS-384) engaged in a daring predawn surface attack against the convoy, torpedoing four ships. Despite the flames from the burning convoy ships illuminating Parche and drawing fire from the convoy’s escorts, Commander Lawson P. “Red” Ramage Naval Academy Class of 1931) aggressively attacked the enemy shipping. What ensured was a melee by any measure – and unseen in submarine warfare before or since.

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