With the Battle of Midway raging in the Pacific in June 1942, Japanese forces 2,500 miles to the north were seizing control of the Aleutian Islands of Kiska and Attu.
Their aim was clear: Distract American forces from Midway while sending a message that Japan was capable of hitting additional territories belonging to the United States.
In the months that followed, the northern region would host a series of fights whenever weather permitted. U.S. submarines made their presence known that Fourth of July, when the submarine Triton sank the destroyer Nenohi.
But it was the following day that saw the combat debut of two names destined for submariner immortality: The USS Growler and its skipper, Cmdr. Howard Gilmore.
Howard W. Gilmore was born in Selma, Alabama, on Sept. 29, 1902. He enlisted in the Navy in November 1920 before commissioning at the U.S. Naval Academy.
In 1931 Gilmore transferred to the Navy’s submarine school at New London, Connecticut. Climbing the ranks and earning a reputation as more aggressive personality than his peacetime counterparts, Gilmore attracted the attention of superiors and was rewarded by being named executive officer of the submarine USS Shark (SS-174).
While serving aboard Shark, Gilmore’s career — and life — were almost cut short. On shore in Panama, he and a crewmate were assaulted by thieves. Gilmore’s throat was cut in the brawl, but he survived.
In December 1941 Gilmore was given full command of Shark, but the role was short lived. The day after the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor Gilmore was transferred to the Gato-class submarine USS Growler (SS-174).
The boat’s first war patrol was to the Aleutians, where, on the morning of July 5, 1942, it spotted a tempting sight: Three Japanese destroyers off the island of Kiska.
Approaching directly, Gilmore loosed two torpedoes, dealing serious damage to Kasumi and killing 10 of its sailors. Next, it blew off the bow of Shiranui, killing three seamen and forcing the destroyer to be towed to Maizuru, Japan, for repairs.
Gilmore then calmly turned toward the destroyer Arare. He fired another two torpedoes, the second of which sent the ship and its crew to the ocean floor. Arare’s commanding officer and 42 survivors were rescued by the damaged Shiranui.
For these efforts Gilmore was awarded the Navy Cross — but he was just getting started.
In a second patrol Growler sank four merchant ships, totaling 15,000 tons, in the East China Sea near Formosa (now Taiwan). Gilmore was awarded a gold star in lieu of a second Navy Cross.
After an uneventful third patrol, Growler set out on what would become an ominous fourth.
Departing Brisbane, Australia, on New Year’s Day 1943, Growler headed toward Rabaul in the western Solomons, sinking a transport on Jan. 16 and another on the 19th. On Jan. 30 it damaged a freighter but was driven down by a barrage of gunfire and depth charges.
The area had become a hornet’s nest, courtesy of Japanese evacuations from Guadalcanal.
On Feb. 4 Gilmore tailed two freighters escorted by two patrol craft toward Gazelle Channel. As he moved Growler into position for an ambush, the lead Japanese ship proved ready and fired on the sub at 5,000 yards.
Gilmore ordered a dive, forced to wait out an hour-long depth charge attack. One concussion ruptured a manhole gasket in the forward main ballast tank. Emergency repairs slowed the leak.
Just before 6 a.m., Gilmore, believing the patrol vessels to have moved on, brought Growler to periscope depth to pursue a ship five miles away.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 7 Growler’s crew spotted a target. Gilmore ordered torpedo tubes readied and reduced the range to 2,000 yards, but the Japanese vessel reversed course.
Growler’s radar lit up. The enemy ship was headed straight for the sub.
The nemesis was Hayasaki, a 920-ton ammunition ship converted to an auxiliary escort. It was armed with one 3-inch and two 25mm anti-aircraft guns, as well as a single 13mm machine gun.
With the range between Growler and Hayasaki too close for the sub’s torpedoes to arm, Gilmore ordered “Left full rudder.”
Just then the collision alarm sounded and the antagonists crashed head-on at 17 knots, throttling the sub and knocking everyone off their feet.
Growler heeled 50 degrees. An 18-inch section of bow bent sideways, disabling the sub’s forward torpedoes.
Hayasaki had been rammed amidships but its 13mm gun crew, realizing they were holding a tiger by the tail, fired on the sub’s conning tower with the only weapon they could bring to bear.
At point-blank range, the machine gun crew killed Ensign William Wadsworth Williams and Fireman 3rd Class Wilbert Fletcher Kelley.
Grievously wounded, Gilmore clung to the bridge frame.
Belowdecks the battered XO, Lt. Cmdr. Arnold F. Schade, was finding his feet when he heard Gilmore’s next order.
“Clear the bridge!”
Wounded personnel were pulled down the hatch. Then came Gilmore’s final order.
“Take her down!”
Schade hesitated, as did the crew under the conning tower, but Gilmore did not appear. Another 13mm burst swept the upperworks, leaving a hole that let in the sea.
The crew closed the hatch and submerged.
Assuming command, Schade used controlled flooding to level Growler off while the crew scrambled to make temporary repairs.
After about 30 minutes he ordered “battle surface,” but the damaged Hayasaki had already withdrawn to Rabaul.
There was sign of Gilmore.
Thanks to its skipper’s sacrifice, Growler managed to limp back to Brisbane, where it was restored to combat readiness.
“The performance of the officers and crew in effecting repairs and bringing the ship safely back to base is one of the outstanding submarine feats of the war to date,” Commodore James Fife Jr., the chief of staff of Asiatic Fleet Submarines, remarked.
In New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 13, 1943, Rear Adm. Andrew C. Bennett, the commandant of the Eighth Naval District, awarded Howard Gilmore the Medal of Honor. Present to receive it was his widow and their children.
Under Schade’s command Growler took part in five more patrols, sinking the destroyer Shikinami and the escort ship Hirado on Sept. 12, 1944.
The boat dispatched a total of 15 ships, totaling 74,900 tons, and claimed seven more damaged.
During its 11th patrol, however, Growler, then under command of Thomas B. Oakley, vanished somewhere in the South China Sea off Mindoro, possibly falling victim to the destroyer Shigure.
Hayasaki, meanwhile, managed to survive mines, air attacks and submarines until the end of the war. After two years of repatriation duties, on Oct. 3, 1947, it was ceded to the Soviet Union as the Olekma.
Howard Gilmore’s memory is marked in the Howard family plot — his widow’s family — in Magnolia Cemetery, Meridian, Mississippi.
Carved in stone are his last words, which remain similarly etched into the memories of every U.S. Navy submariner.
“Take her down!”
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