Wreck of USS Grenadier (SS-210) | Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, submarine, United States Navy

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, submarine, draw only border, United States Navy

USS Grenadier was the 11th member of the Tambor Class of Submarines, laid down in April 1940 and commissioned into service with the US Atlantic Fleet in May 1941. After conducting her shakedown and crew familiarization exercises in Atlantic waters through the Summer and Fall of 1941, the Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor brought orders for the Grenadier and her crew to report to Pearl Harbor and join the US Pacific Fleet in the fight against the Empire of Japan.

Conducting three war patrols out of Pearl Harbor after her January arrival, the Grenadier prowled the waters off Mainland Japan, Midway Atoll and Truk Naval Base in search of enemy shipping, and though she found herself in target-rich environments the presence of overwhelming Japanese surface and air anti-submarine forces prevented several chances for the Grenadier to attack. Nonetheless, the Grenadier and her crew had notched their first kill of the war on a Japanese Steamship laden with scientists, economists, and industrial experts bound for recently-captured Japanese Territory with intentions of building large-scale industrial facilities to support the Japanese war effort.

Terminating her third War Patrol at Fremantle, Australia in September 1942, the Grenadier and her crew began operations along the Malay Barrier and the Dutch East Indies against Japanese merchant shipping with their fourth War Patrol in October, and completed a fifth patrol to the Straits of Makassar by February 1943. Now credited with sinking five ships and damaging a further two, the Grenadier and her crew stood out on their sixth War Patrol to the waters of the Indian Ocean West of the Makassar Strait once again in mid-March 1943, and within 17 days she had notched her sixth kill on a small Japanese Freighter off Phuket before continuing North to her station in the entrance to the strategically important strait.

Sighting a pair of slow-moving merchant ships during the night of April 20th, the Grenadier began her stalk of her quarry which quickly became aware of her presence and began evasive maneuvering. Rather than trying to keep up with the two ships, the Grenadiers skipper moved ahead and positioned himself in the path of the vessels and began a surface run towards a predetermined intercept point. Electing to remain surfaced despite the dangers posed by the rapidly evaporating cover of darkness, the Grenadier raced towards her targets until sharp-eyed lookouts spotted a Japanese aircraft closing in the distance at 0835hrs. Clearing her decks and crash diving, the Grenadier went to 150ft and was still diving when she was rocked by a heavy explosion just aft of her Stern. Rolling the sub to 15 degrees, the blast severely damaged the Grenadiers two prop shafts and started a large fire in her maneuvering room which produced copious amounts of acrid black smoke and consumed large amounts of vital oxygen aboard ship before it was extinguished.

Forced to lie silently on the bottom at 260ft, the Grenadier’s crew began a 13 hour period of frantic damage control efforts to counteract flooding and damage in conditions so foul that many of her crew were regularly losing consciousness from a combination of the heat, lack of oxygen and amount of smoke and poisonous Chlorine gas in the available air supply onboard. Fortunately for the ship and crew, Japanese anti-submarine sweeps carried out by surface ships were unable to find the Grenadier on the bottom, so no further attacks took place and repairs were able to be completed to a level which allowed the battered sub to return to the surface well after dark on April 21st. Topside damage inspections found irreparable damage to her deck gun, efforts to get underway revealed that only one of the Grenadiers two screws was operational and there was no steering control. With such heavy damage clearly beyond the capabilities of her crew to repair, Grenadier’s Captain ordered the sub be moved closer to shore so she could be abandoned and scuttled, however her damage prevented even this seemingly simple task. With darkness rapidly giving way to dawn and the sub no closer to land, the order was passed for the scuttling charges to be rigged and all confidential material onboard destroyed.

Shortly after dawn lookouts sighted an enemy ship on the horizion, followed shortly thereafter by a Japanese aircraft which quickly closed in to attack the American Sub. Damaged but not defenseless, the Grenadier and her crew waited until the Japanese pilot was nearly overhead before they raked his aircraft with machine gun fire, mortally wounding the pilot and causing the torpedo he dropped to land 200 yards away from the sub and explode harmlessly. Her final battle won, the crew of Grenadier resumed the destruction of onboard confidential documents and machinery as the Japanese ship continued to close on their position. As the merchant man closed to within two miles, the order was issued for all vents to be opened and the scuttling charges set off, and the crew of Grenadier took to the water to await their fate. Moments after her last crewman left her deck the Grenadier shuddered as the charges on her scuttles went off and allowed massive amounts of water to enter her hull. Quickly flooding by the Stern, the Grenadier gave out and sank at this position shortly after 0700hrs on April 22nd, 1943.

The entire 76 man crew of Grenadier were quickly pulled from the water by the Japanese Trawler which had chased down the stricken sub, and were all landed at Penang and interred as POW’s for the duration of the war. Throughout the next two years, the crew endured regular beatings, starvation and torture at the hands of their captors for not revealing confidential information about their ship and the US Submarine Force. Despite this treatment, all but four of the Grenadiers crew survived their time as POW’s and were liberated in late 1945.

For her actions during the Second World War, USS Grenadier received four battle stars and is credited with sinking six enemy ships and damaging a further two for a total of 12,000 tons of enemy shipping.

www.navsource.org/archives/08/08210.htm