Wreck of HIJMS Submarine Chaser No. 156

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Submarine Chaser No. 156 was a Convoy Escort Vessel with the Imperial Japanese Navy during the closing years of the Second World War, and though not much is known about her history it's likely that she was either a coastal patrol or civilian vessel pressed into convoy escort duty as a result of the IJN's critical shortage of escort vessels in 1944.

In November 1944 Sub Chaser No. 156 formed up as part of a Convoy Escort force in charge of a large group of merchant ships, tankers and troopships bound for Singapore. Under the command of the Escort Carrier Shinyo, the convoy was steaming through the Yellow Sea when it was sighted by the patrolling US Submarine USS Spadefish (SS-411) during the evening of November 17th. As night fell, the American Submarine surfaced and made a surprise attack on the convoy striking the Shinyo in the Starboard side and setting off massive explosions.

Sub Chaser No. 156 immediately began a submarine sweep but she and the other escort craft found no evidence of the US Sub and resumed their escort of the merchant ships, leaving the Shinyo furiously burning and sinking. With her entire crew on high alert for the US Submarine they knew was still in the area, Sub Chaser No. 156 resumed her station in the convoy. Their fears were well founded as the USS Spadefish again made another run at the convoy shortly after midnight on November 18th. Having sighted the Sub Chaser as the nearest warship to their path of attack, the Spadefish fired four more torpedoes at the convoy, three of which struck Sub Chaser No. 156.

The small and probably unarmored vessel was decimated by the large detonations rocking her hull, and post-battle reports from the USS Spadefish state that Submarine Chaser No. 156 was never seen after the initial fireball and mountain of spray subsided. It is unlikely that any of her crew were able to escape the ship before she sank at this location on November 18th, 1944.