Crowley was replaced as skipper of the S-28 on 20 March 1943. The change of command took place at the Canadian naval base at Esquimalt, British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The Canadian Pacific Fleet, lacking any submarines of its own, borrowed the S-28 to practice antisubmarine training.21 The S-28’s new skipper, Vincent A. Sisler, had seen action with the fleet submarine Sailfish, and although he had experienced defective torpedoes and depth charge attacks, Sisler considered the southwestern Pacific a place for “sissies” compared with conditions in the Aleutians.22
In May 1943 the Americans would retake Attu from the Japanese after a bitter fight. Under the command of Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, the Americans made their third amphibious landing assault of the war on the south coast of the island at the aptly named Massacre Bay (Russian Cossacks had slaughtered Aleuts at the site two centuries earlier). The submarines Narwhal and Nautilus played a role in U.S. operations, slipping in 200 army scouts before the main landing. Although the battle for Attu was expected to last three days, it continued for three weeks, with heavy casualties from both the fighting and the cruel weather. In the soggy tundra, the Americans’ military vehicles proved largely useless, and many of the troops contracted trench foot. Nevertheless, of the 2,000 Japanese defending the island, fewer than 30 survived to become prisoners of war.23
Having captured Attu, the Americans turned their attention to the Japanese fortifications on the bat-shaped island of Kiska. On 15 August 1943, after a prolonged bombardment, almost 35,000 U.S. troops staged another amphibious landing on Kiska's rocky beaches. They were surprised to find the island deserted; the Japanese garrison had slipped away in the murky mists. Admiral Kinkaid described the action as “a darn good dress rehearsal under combat conditions really.”24 Even so, the Americans suffered several hundred casualties, largely from “friendly fire” by jittery troops in the fog.
The S-28 made two more war patrols in northern latitudes before heading for the friendlier climate of Pearl Harbor, where it arrived on 16 November 1943. After an overhaul, the aging submarine was utilized for training exercises. By the end of 1943, all the S-boats had been relegated to training or less active patrol duties.25
Despite being taken out of combat and assigned to the warmer waters of Hawaii, a grim fate awaited the S-28. Naval reservist Jack G. Campbell assumed command of the S-28 on 20 June 1944. On 4 July, while participating in sonar exercises with the Coast Guard cutter Reliance, the submarine vanished. When the Reliance lost contact with the S-28, it summoned additional ships from Pearl Harbor to join the search, but they found only a large oil slick where the submarine had last dived. In waters more than 8,000 feet deep, rescue or salvage was not a possibility. A subsequent inquiry concluded that the submarine had probably lost depth control, but there was no way of knowing whether this had resulted from mechanical failure or human error. Less than two months later, John Crowley's next command, the USS Flier, would be lost as well.
2
A New Boat
John Crowley's reward for his perseverance with the S-28 was command of the brand-new fleet submarine the USS Flier (SS-250). After being replaced on the S-28 in March 1943, Crowley attended the Prospective Commanding Officer School at New London, Connecticut. All officers receiving their first command or a newly constructed ship were required to take a four-week course of lectures and practical training. With its focus on attack techniques and rigorous exercises at sea, the course would later be called the “Command Class in Attack Technique.”1
Beginning in July 1943 Crowley was involved in fitting out the Flier at Groton, Connecticut. The Flier’s keel had been laid at the Electric Boat Company in Groton many months earlier, on 30 October 1942. Originally known as the Electric Storage Battery Company, Electric Boat had obtained patents in 1897 for the first submarine capable of recharging its own batteries while at sea. From that point on, Electric Boat built the lion's share of the U.S. Navy's submarines.
The U.S. submarine-building program first picked up during World War I and continued to gain momentum thereafter. Following the fall of France in May 1940, Congress approved the building of more than seventy new submarines. By July 1941 Electric Boat had eleven ways in operation for submarine construction. By March 1943 an additional ten ways were in use at a new facility called the Victory Yard. The USS Dace (SS-247) became the first submarine built at the Victory Yard, as production reached full throttle. With the motto “Keep’em sliding,” swing shifts operated twenty-four hours a day. By the time the Flier was launched in July 1943, a new submarine was being completed at Electric Boat every other week.2
The official launching of ships served a number of purposes beyond simply carrying on a naval tradition. At times, the launching of a new craft reflected the family networks so pervasive in the navy. For instance, when Slade Cutter was assigned to the newly constructed USS Requin, his wife became the sponsor and officially christened the submarine on 1 January 1945. At other times, ship launchings provided an occasion to grease the wheels of bureaucracy and consolidate government patronage. Thus, when the USS Missouri was launched, Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri was the principal speaker at the event, and Truman's daughter, Margaret, christened the ship. The ceremony would prove prophetic: when Japan surrendered, Truman was president of the United States, and it was Truman who decided that the surrender ceremony at Tokyo Bay should be carried out on the deck of the Missouri.3
With less spectacular results, the launch of the USS Flier was similarly politicized. The secretary of the navy designated Mrs. Anna Smith Pierce from Lynchburg, South Carolina, the Flier’s sponsor. Not coincidentally, she was the daughter of Ellison DuRant Smith, a member of the Senate's Naval Affairs Committee. Smith had first been elected to the Senate as a South Carolina Democrat in 1908. He gained the nickname “Cotton Ed” for his efforts on behalf of the Southern Cotton Association. Any anticipated gains from Smith's navy patronage proved short-lived, however. He died on 17 November 1944, barely a year after the Flier was commissioned.
The launch of the Flier was, as expected, organized with military precision, and press releases were distributed to the South Carolina newspapers. Mrs. Pierce, along with her sister-in-law Mrs. Farley Smith, would depart South Carolina by train on 9 July 1943. They were scheduled to arrive at Groton on Sunday, 11 July, at 3:30 P.M., with the ceremony set to commence at 4:45 P.M. The two women would begin their return trip the same evening.
Employees of Electric Boat, along with their families, were encouraged to attend the launch ceremony at the company's Victory Yard. To reduce worker absenteeism, the ceremony included a raffle in which maintenance electricians with perfect attendance records would have the chance to win a $25 war bond.4
Veteran skipper Glynn R. “Donc” Donaho delivered the keynote address at the Flier’s launch. Lieutenant Commander Donaho, then on leave, had been recommended by Commander Lewis Parks to give the approximately five-minute speech. Donaho had been awarded three Navy Crosses, the navy's second highest combat decoration. He had a reputation as a “spit and polish guy” who was a stickler for military protocol. Paul Schratz, who encountered Donaho at New London, described him as “humorless and a rigid perfectionist.”5 Donaho's notorious inflexibility had been demonstrated in 1942 as he commanded the Flying Fish on its maiden cruise from New London to Pearl Harbor. Despite spotting a Nazi U-boat on the way to Panama, he made no attempt to close with the enemy, stating that his operation orders said nothing about attacking enemy ships while in transit. As a result, all future operation orders were altered to specifically direct an attack on any enemy craft encountered. For the Flier’s launch, Donaho chose as his text, “Building Subs that Can ‘Take It’ in Battle.” Electric Boat's personnel manager, A. D. Barnes, later assured Donaho that his talk had been “one of