USS Baya

USS ''Baya'' (SS/AGSS-318), a ''Balao''-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy named for the baya. During World War II, she completed five war patrols in the South China Sea, Gulf of Siam, Java Sea, and Philippine Sea between 23 August 1944 and 25 July 1945. She sank four Japanese vessels totaling 8855  gross register tons, and shared credit with the submarine for sinking a Japanese 8,407-gross register ton passenger-cargo ship. After World War II, she saw service as a research submarine during the Cold War and operated off Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Construction and commissioning

''Baya'' was launched on 2 January 1944 by Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut; sponsored by Mrs. Charles C. Kirkpatrick, and commissioned on 20 May 1944.

Service history

World War II

Following a month of sea trials and training off the coast of New England, ''Baya'' departed New London, Connecticut, on 25 June 1944. As she proceeded via the Panama Canal to Hawaii, she continuously drilled and conducted exercises. She arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in August 1944 and carried out a final round of training there.

First war patrol

''Baya'' embarked on her first war patrol on 23 August 1944, departing Pearl Harbor in company with the submarines and , with which she formed a coordinated attack group. After a brief stop at Saipan in the Mariana Islands for fuel, the three submarines proceeded to the Palau Islands, where they joined two other coordinated attack groups in intelligence-gathering missions in support of U.S. forces invading the islands. The reconnaissance group shifted position several times as it gathered information for Admiral William Halsey, Jr.’s United States Third Fleet, but for the submarines on patrol, it proved to be only a month of fighting heavy seas while not encountering any Japanese ships.

During the night of 25 September 1944, while patrolling in Luzon Strait, ''Baya'' submerged to avoid discovery by a Japanese airplane. She surfaced in rough seas about 30 minutes later. Her executive officer, engineering officer, and quartermaster were topside when a large wave crashed over ''Baya''’s stern, washing the three men overboard and flooding ''Baya'' through the conning tower hatch. ''Baya'' sank to a deoth of before the hatch was secured. Her crew, fortunately at battle stations already, drained the conning tower, surfaced, and recovered the men washed overboard within half an hour. Repairs took a few hours at most, and ''Baya'' soon returned to her patrol.

While prowling the South China Sea on 7 October 1944, ''Baya'' encountered the only significant contact of the patrol when her radar detected three Japanese ships, an 8,407- gross register ton passenger-cargo ship, later identified as ''Kinugasa Maru'', accompanied by two escorts, part of Japanese convoy HI-77. ''Baya'' and ''Hawkbill'', each aware of the other's presence in the area but unaware that they are attacking the same ship, both joined in an attack on the merchant ship. ''Hawkbill''′s first salvo of torpedoes missed, but ''Baya''′s scored two hits. On her next try, ''Hawkbill'' also struck home with two torpedoes and, seconds later, ''Kinugasa Maru'' exploded and disappeared. On 9 October 1944, ''Baya'' departed the South China Sea and headed for Fremantle in Western Australia, where she arrived on 22 October 1944.

Second war patrol

After a short refit and training period, ''Baya'' got underway from Fremantle for her second war patrol, forming an attack group with the submarines and in the South China Sea. In four separate incidents between 8 and 10 December 1944, ''Baya'' made contact with three Japanese destroyers and a Japanese hospital ship but failed to achieve a suitable attack position on any of the destroyers, and the hospital ship enjoyed immunity from attack. After that series of contacts, ''Baya'' took station in a scouting line deployed off Mindoro in the Philippine Islands between 14 and 25 December 1944. While shifting to the west on 27 December 1944, ''Baya'' sighted a Japanese task force consisting of two heavy cruisers and four destroyers attempting to retreat from the Philippines. She closed for an attack and fired a full spread of torpedoes at the leading heavy cruiser, but scored no hits. Soon thereafter, she received orders to proceed to Australia, and she arrived at Fremantle on 12 January 1945.

Third war patrol

After refit alongside the submarine tender , ''Baya'' put to sea once again on 19 February 1945 for her third war patrol, this time in company with the submarine , and proceeded to a patrol area in the South China Sea off Cap Varella on the coast of Japanese-occupied French Indochina. The submarines sighted no significant targets until 4 March 1945, when the five-ship Japanese convoy HI-98, consisting of the tanker ''Palembang Mar''u, a cargo ship, and three escorts, appeared on ''Baya''′s radar scope. Numerous sailboats hampered ''Baya'' as she attempted to approach the targets, and a calm, moonlit sea gave the advantage to her adversaries. However, two of the six torpedoes that she fired struck ''Palembang Maru'', which exploded in a tremendous blaze. Two others hit the cargo ship, but Baya could not determine the extent of damage she caused because the escorts drove her deep with depth charges.

''Baya'' emerged from the encounter unscathed and then shifted her attention to the Camranh Bay area off French Indochina. Two hours before the start of the midwatch on 20 March 1945, she contacted a single Japanese ship, the auxiliary netlayer ''Kainan Maru'', leaving Phan Rang Bay. Just after midnight, she fired a three-torpedo salvo from her stern torpedo tubes and scored one hit that sank ''Kainan Maru''. Later that morning, ''Baya'' fired another stern tube salvo at a convoy of two escort destroyers and a submarine chaser leaving Phan Rang Bay, but her luck did not hold. Her torpedoes missed and she had to dive to avoid the resulting depth charge counterattack that shook her up. Ordered to the newly liberated Subic Bay on Luzon in the Philippines, ''Baya'' arrived there on 27 March 1945 for repairs and a refit alongside the submarine tender .

Fourth war patrol

''Baya'' got underway with ''Cavalla'' on 20 April 1945 for her fourth war patrol, again assigned a patrol area off Camranh Bay, where, besides routine submerged patrolling, she and ''Cavalla'' were assigned lifeguard duties in support of air strikes against Saigon. On 29 April 1945, a United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber which mistook her for a Japanese submarine dropped a bomb which exploded about ahead of ''Baya'' while ''Baya'' was operating approximately east-northeast of Pulo Cecil de Mer, French Indochina, at . ''Baya'' suffered no damage or casualties.

On 2 May 1945, ''Baya'' joined the submarine in the Gulf of Siam just north of Singapore. The next night, she began tracking a Japanese convoy made up of two gasoline tankers and two escorts. ''Baya'' maneuvered into position and fired her bow tubes, but the attack proved unsuccessful. The leading escort, a minelayer, gave chase, but ''Baya'' quickly eluded her pursuer. The following day, ''Baya'' rendezvoused with ''Lagarto'' to plan a coordinated attack on the convoy. The convoy's unusually alert escorts frustrated the efforts of the two submarines, and no opportunities for attack presented themselves that day. Early the next morning ''Lagarto'' tried to attack the convoy from a position away from ''Baya''. Afterward, ''Baya'' attempted to contact ''Lagarto'' but her calls went unanswered. ''Lagarto'' was never heard from agan, and Japanese records indicated that the minelayer sank a submarine in that location at that time. ''Lagarto'' was lost with all hands.

''Baya'' shifted her patrol to the Java Sea, where on 13 May 1945 off Rembang, Java, she attacked a three-ship convoy consisting of the tanker ''Yosei Maru'', the tanker ''Enoshima Maru'' — which she misidentified as a cargo ship — and an escort bound for Palembang, Sumatra. She chose ''Yosei Maru'' as her first target and scored three hits with a spread of six torpedoes. She then aimed her stern tubes at the escort, and believed she scored two hits. To make a clean sweep, she fired her two remaining torpedoes at ''Enoshima Maru'' and retired, leaving ''Yosei Maru'' sinking and, her crew believed, the other two ships severely damaged. The guard boat ''No.17 Shonan Maru'' carried out an unsuccessful counterattack on ''Baya''. Although ''Baya'' claimed to have sunk ''Enoshima Maru'', the latter had, in fact, escaped unscathed. On 18 May 1945, ''Baya'' reached Fremantle for a refit alongside the submarine tender .

Fifth war patrol

A fire in the maneuvering room delayed the start of ''Baya''′s fifth war patrol, but after the completion of repairs, she got underway on 20 June 1945. At the beginning of the patrol, she operated south of Cape Selatan in support of Allied landings at Balikpapan, Borneo. On 27 June 1945, she intercepted a single Japanese minelayer but her torpedoes missed. On 29 and 30 June 1945, ''Baya'' and the submarine conducted a coordinated gun attack on five Japanese small craft. Heavy return fire ended this engagement before ''Baya'' could add another sinking to her record.

Baya performed lifeguard duties in the Java Sea during the first half of July 1945 and then continued her patrol in that same area. On 16 July 1945, she torpedoed and sank the Japanese ''Ōtori''-class torpedo boat , then en route from Surabaya, Java, to Ambon with two torpedoes; two officers, 22 men, and one civilian passenger who survived ''Kari''′s sinking ultimately reached Masalamo Besar on 18 July. After an unsuccessful gun attack on another Japanese patrol craft, ''Baya'' received orders to proceed to Subic Bay on 26 July 1945. She reached Subic Bay on 31 July 1945 and moored alongside ''Anthedon''. She was at Subic Bay when hostilities with Japan ended on 15 August 1945.

End of war

Two weeks after Japan's capitulation, ''Baya'' departed Subic Bay bound for San Francisco, California, which she reached on 24 September 1945, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge as part of Admiral Halsey's symbolic end-of-war parade. Shortly thereafter she began inactivation, remaining in the San Francisco area, and on 14 May 1946 she was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Mare Island Navy Yard at Mare Island, California.

Research submarine

''Baya'' was converted to an electronics experimental submarine and recommissioned on 10 February 1948. All torpedo loading and stowage equipment was removed at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard to make room for Naval Electronics Laboratory (NEL) personnel and equipment. Reclassified as an auxiliary research submarine, AGSS-318, on 12 August 1949, ''Baya'' conducted experiments for NEL San Diego, California. She participated in local operations near San Diego and served with a joint American-Canadian task force gathering scientific data off western Canada in November and December 1948. During July–September 1949 she made a cruise to the Arctic to gather valuable scientific data in the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea.

In April 1953, ''Baya'' began an overhaul at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and, upon completing it, resumed her duties in support of underwater electronics research, which occupied her throughout 1954 and for most of 1955. Between July and October 1955 she was deployed to Pearl Harbor for further experimental research. In December 1955 she commenced an overhaul at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco to update her capabilities for NEL testing.

''Baya'' was used as a testbed for two early sonar transducer arrays which markedly changed her appearance. The first arrangement of 196 transducers in a 14×14 array was attached to the former gun mount abaft the conning tower, facing starboard and surrounded by a fairwater resembling a second conning tower. She then operated from San Diego and Pearl Harbor for the rest of her career. She conducted a one-day cruise to film an episode of the 1958–1961 television show '' Sea Hunt'', starring Lloyd Bridges.

After the first array and fairwater were removed, ''Baya'' was completely reworked at Mare Island Naval Shipyard during 1958 and 1959 to test a second array, called LORAD (for "LOng RAnge Detection"). The forward torpedo tubes were removed and replaced by a blunt bow containing the forward-facing transducer array. A mushroom anchor was installed in the bottom of the hull; and a section was added between the former forward torpedo room and the forward battery compartment, with quarters for twelve scientists. These modifications increased her overall length to , and her submerged displacement to approximately 2,600 tons. Her maximum speed was reduced to

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''Baya'' served in the Vietnam War zone for two months in 1966 in conjunction with sonar research operations for NEL and in submerged visibility studies for the Naval Oceanographic Office. In 1968, she commenced a series of tests for the Operational Test and Evaluation Force, Pacific, and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. In 1971, she performed research in the Gulf of Alaska before returning to San Diego in December 1971. In April 1972, she made one last cruise to Pearl Harbor to conduct sonar experiments before returning to San Diego.

Decommissioning and disposal

''Baya'' was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register on 30 October 1972. She was sold on 12 October 1973 for scrapping.

Honors and awards

* Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with four battle stars for World War II service
* World War II Victory Medal
* Vietnam Service Medal with two battle stars for Vietnam War service

References

Citations

*

Bibliography

Hinman, Charles R., and Douglas E. Campbell. ''The Submarine Has No Friends: Friendly Fire Incidents Involving U.S. Submarines During World War II''. Syneca Research Group, Inc., 2019.
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External links

*
USS Baya Homepage: USS ''Baya''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baya (SS-318)
Balao-class submarines
World War II submarines of the United States
Cold War submarines of the United States
Ships built in Groton, Connecticut
1944 ships
Maritime incidents in April 1945
Friendly fire incidents of World War II