Wreck of America’s most lethal World War II sub found near the Philippines | Stars and Stripes

An organization on a quest to find and memorialize all 52 U.S. submarines lost during World War II has located the wreck of the USS Harder, a sub credited with sinking the most enemy warships during that conflict.

The Naval History and Heritage Command confirmed the wreck site using data collected and provided by Tim Taylor, the CEO of Tiburon Subsea and The Lost 52 Project, according to a command news release Thursday.

...The sub completed six successful patrols in just over a year before it was last seen off the coast of Luzon, Philippines.

...On its fifth patrol, regarded as its most successful, Harder sank three Japanese destroyers and heavily damaged two others, all over the span of only four days.

...Japanese records state that on Aug. 24, 1944, Harder fired three torpedoes at escort ship CD-22, which it evaded, the Heritage Command said.

The escort ship then dropped a series of depth charges in Dasol Bay, Luzon. The fifth depth charge attack is believed to have sunk Harder, the Heritage Command said.

The Navy declared Harder, along with its crew of 79, to be presumed lost in January 1945. The sub was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its first five patrols.

Harder’s commander, Samuel D. Dealey, received the Navy Cross four times while commanding and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

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USAF 1981 - 2001

It has always been a source of puzzlement for me that the German U-boats in the Atlantic didn't mount a concerted campaign to knock down the number of escorts on the convoys. I say that based on never having seen such a thing mentioned in a variety of history books.

Yes, I get that the merchies were carrying the goods that the Third Reich needed to interdict, but surely popping off the escorts first would have made life easier. I would have thought the plan was to have a wolfpack reduce the escorts to nothing, surface, then go after the merchant ships with deck guns.

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Release the Kraken

Here she is

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“Hit ‘em again, Harder”

I still remember that quote from a book about Harder’s cruises and loss.

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15 Days to Flatten the Curve

During the Pacific war Naval Intelligence figured out the Japanese Navy's destroyer fleet was stretched thin and were becoming scarce when it came to protecting tankers and other ships. It was a conscious decision on the part of the naval command to target destroyers knowing it would leave convoys and tankers (especially) more vulnerable than ever to attack with less danger to the attacking submarines.

The German Navy tried to strangle England with the U-Boat campaign. The US Navy accomplished that against Japan.

What I found disturbing was the Navy lost 52 subs. I had no idea that many were lost. Maybe my dad joining the Seabees was a good idea.

During WWII the two services with the greatest chances of becoming a casualty were being a member of the 8th Air Force and the Submarine Service.

One would think being in the infantry but statistically the other two were more dangerous. No airplane ever won a fight with the ground and very few survived a submarine that was sunk.

At least one US sub was sunk by friendly fire...a destroyer sank it not knowing it was American.

Here you go

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Brave, brave men.

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No baby we aint

My dad did 3 combat patrols in the south china sea. One on the Hake and two on the Lapon. On one patrol they had 240 depth charges dropped on them.

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Well done > well said

Got those for you

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It is hard to imagine what it would be like to be at depth in a sub, especially a WWII era one, and having depth charges going off around you. In an airplane at least you can see and there is the hope of possibly being able to parachute.

My uncle drove a bulldozer in Normandy with the CB's. He carried a Winchester carbine in a leather pouch tied to a bull dozer where he could get to it. He managed to bring it home and my cousin, his grand son still has it. I've tried to buy it for over 40 years but of course he won't sell it.

Life as a fighting CB, was not that safe.

Even after the wars were over, our Ballion lost at least three lives in
work related accidents, while reparing Guam after a major storm, ripped it up.
Heavy equipment and electricy can be dangerous to your health.

Thank you very much. I will print them off.

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Well done > well said

I think the escorts were smaller, moved faster and were more maneuverable than a slow merchant ship. Thus being harder to hit.

That is true, but they were not a strategic target either. Admiral Lockwood, the COMSUBPAC, charged his submarine captains with sinking oil tankers with first priority and merchant ships a close second. This strategy would help starve the Japanese navy of fuel oil and the Japanese people of everything else.

Although the brave men of the USS Harder are credited with sinking the most enemy warships with three confirmed enemy destroyers, the Harder is tied for 15th by number of total ships credited sunk by a US submarine.

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Live long and prosper

The U-boats were hampered by a number of things...centralized control by their command...and the codes were broken and being read by the Allies. The American and British navies formed hunter-killer groups specifically to search out and destroy U-boats before they could get to convoys. Once long range aircraft became available (and escort carriers for the hunter-killer forces) the U-boats couldn't hide...they had to stay submerged to avoid detection but were unable to surface and charge their batteries thus limiting range and effectiveness. The snorkel equipped boats came along too late and in too few numbers to make any difference. Also...the most capable and experienced U-boat captains had been KIA and the attrition of skilled, experienced crew meant new boats were going out with reduced chances of survival. It took the Americans and British a while to build the forces and develop the equipment and techniques to destroy the U-boat threat but in the end they succeeded well.

In the Pacific...the Japanese Navy considered transports and cargo ships unworthy targets for their submarine force. Their doctrine called for them to attack combatant ships. Outside of a few...and spectacular...successes...the Japanese submarine force didn't accomplish much.

An interesting video game related to this is silent hunter 3.
It's a German u boat simulator.
They did their best to keep it historically accurate.
Your torps sucked until later in the war. Even then, the good torps were scarce.
If the escorts detected your fish in the water, they usually had the speed and maneuverability to evade them, thus wasting ordinance.
It was better to see if they worked by bouncing them off a freighter which was too sluggish to get out of the way.
Deck guns ....
They had them too, and a lot more ammo to keep them fed.
The best strategy was to go straight for cargo and troop transport. Kill or cripple as much as you could.
Then surface at night to finish off the crippled with the 88mm.

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it just needs more voltage

Once the Liberty ships came onto the scene, their being armed made a surface attack an even playing field, therefore a disadvantage to the U-boats.

How many of the Lost 52 have been found so far?

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protocalldesign.com

So the Germans had issues with their torpedoes that the USN did?

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Release the Kraken

Yeah ... Getting them to go boom reliability never really happened. They just improved.
Their gen 1 accounted for most of their inventory.
It was designed to track a straight line and maintain a set depth.... It did neither particularly well.
Later designs had some interesting party tricks.
Programmable ladder pattern runners and sound seekers. These were acceptable weapons.
But like the Me 262, they couldn't produce enough of them.
Germany had some phenomenal developments in the U boat program. The type 21 would have been a game changer. I think they only ever had one prototype

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it just needs more voltage