USS ''Grunion'' (SS-216) was a ''Gato''-class submarine that sank at

Kiska Kiska ( ale, Qisxa, russian: Кыска) is one of the Rat Islands, a group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. It is about long and varies in width from . It is part of Aleutian Islands Wilderness and as such, special permission is required ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

, during World War II. She was the only ship of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

to be named for the

grunion Grunion are two fish species of the genus ''Leuresthes'': the California grunion, ''L. tenuis'', and the Gulf grunion, ''L. sardinas''. They are sardine-sized teleost fishes of the New World silverside family Atherinopsidae, found only off th ...

Construction and commissioning

''Grunion''′s

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

by the

Electric Boat Company Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

in Groton,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, on 1 March 1941. She was launched on 22 December 1941, (sponsored by Mrs. Stanford C. Hooper, wife of Rear Admiral Hooper), and commissioned on 11 April 1942 with

Lieutenant Commander Lieutenant commander (also hyphenated lieutenant-commander and abbreviated Lt Cdr, LtCdr. or LCDR) is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander. The corresponding rank i ...

Mannert L. Abele, USNA class of 1926 in command.

Service history

After

shakedown Shakedown may refer to: * Shakedown (continuum mechanics), a type of plastic deformation * Shakedown (testing) or a shakedown cruise, a period of testing undergone by a ship, airplane or other craft before being declared operational * Extortion, ...

from

New London New London may refer to: Places United States *New London, Alabama *New London, Connecticut *New London, Indiana *New London, Iowa * New London, Maryland *New London, Minnesota *New London, Missouri *New London, New Hampshire, a New England town * ...

, Connecticut, ''Grunion'' sailed for the Pacific on 24 May. A week later, as she transited the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

for

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

, she rescued 16 survivors of the USAT ''Jack'', which had been torpedoed by the German

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...

, and conducted a fruitless search for 13 other survivors presumed to be in the vicinity. Arriving at

Coco Solo Coco Solo was a United States Navy submarine base and naval air station, active from 1918 to the 1960s. History The submarine base at Coco Solo was established May 6, 1918. The site corresponds with modern-day Cativá in Panama. It was on the ...

on 3 June, ''Grunion'' landed the survivors and continued on to

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

, arriving on 20 June. Departing

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

on 30 June after ten days of intensive training, ''Grunion'' touched

Midway Atoll Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; haw, Kauihelani, translation=the backbone of heaven; haw, Pihemanu, translation=the loud din of birds, label=none) is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the Unit ...

in the

Northwestern Hawaiian Islands The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands or Leeward Hawaiian Islands are a series of islands and atolls in the Hawaiian island chain located northwest (in some cases, far to the northwest) of the islands of Kauai and Niihau. Politically, they are all p ...

before heading toward the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a cha ...

for her first war patrol. Her first report, made as she patrolled north of

Kiska Island Kiska ( ale, Qisxa, russian: Кыска) is one of the Rat Islands, a group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. It is about long and varies in width from . It is part of Aleutian Islands Wilderness and as such, special permission is required ...

, stated she had been attacked by a Japanese

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

and had fired

Mark 14 torpedo The Mark 14 torpedo was the United States Navy's standard submarine-launched anti-ship torpedo of World War II. This weapon was plagued with many problems which crippled its performance early in the war. It was supplemented by the Mark 18 elec ...

es at her with inconclusive results. She operated off Kiska throughout July and sank two Japanese sub-chasers ('' CH-25'' and '' CH-27'') and possibly damaged a third ('' CH-26'') as she waited for enemy shipping. On 30 July, the submarine reported intensive antisubmarine activity and was ordered back to

Dutch Harbor Dutch Harbor is a harbor on Amaknak Island in Unalaska, Alaska. It was the location of the Battle of Dutch Harbor in June 1942, and was one of the few sites in the United States to be subjected to aerial bombardment by a foreign power during Worl ...

. ''Grunion'' was never heard from again. Air searches off Kiska were fruitless, and on 5 October ''Grunion'' was reported overdue from patrol and assumed lost with all hands. Her name was stricken from the

Naval Vessel Register The ''Naval Vessel Register'' (NVR) is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from t ...

on 2 November 1942. Captured Japanese records show no antisubmarine attacks in the Kiska area, and the fate of ''Grunion'' remained a mystery for 65 years, until the discovery in the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Ameri ...

in August 2007 of a wreck believed to be her. In October 2008, the U.S. Navy verified that the wreck is ''Grunion''.

Honors and awards

* Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one

battle star A service star is a miniature bronze or silver five-pointed star inch (4.8 mm) in diameter that is authorized to be worn by members of the eight uniformed services of the United States on medals and ribbons to denote an additional award or ser ...

for

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

service.

Finding ''Grunion''

In 1998

Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Richard Lane purchased for $1 a wiring diagram from a Japanese cargo ship, ''Kano Maru'', which had been active during World War II.Peter F. Stevens. ''Fatal Dive: Solving the World War II Mystery of the USS Grunion'', Regnery History, 2012 Hoping to authenticate the document, Lane posted it on a Japanese naval historical website, asking if anyone could help. He was contacted by Yutaka Iwasaki, a Japanese naval historian, who not only authenticated it, but suggested he knew what happened to ''Grunion''. Lane contacted

ComSubPac Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC) is the principal advisor to the Commander, United States Pacific Fleet ( COMPACFLT) for submarine matters. The Pacific Submarine Force (SUBPAC) includes attack, ballistic missile and aux ...

, and their public affairs officer, Darrel Ames, posted the information on ComSubPac's ''Grunion'' Web site. When ''Grunion'' disappeared in 1942, her captain, Lieutenant Commander Abele, left behind three sons — Bruce, Brad, and John. For nearly 65 years, they had been searching for information about the loss of their father's boat. When the Abele brothers encountered the post, they contacted Yutaka Iwasaki. He sent them a translation of an article written by the officer who had commanded the merchant ship ''Kano Maru''. The article described an encounter with a submarine near Kiska Island in the Aleutians about the time ''Grunion'' was reported missing. Several years later,

John Abele John E. Abele (born 1937) is an American businessman, and the co-founder and a director of Boston Scientific, a medical device company. He was awarded the ASME Medal in 2010. As of May 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$640 million. He was f ...

, cofounder of

Boston Scientific Boston Scientific Corporation ("BSC"), incorporated in Delaware, is a biomedical/biotechnology engineering firm and multinational manufacturer of medical devices used in interventional medical specialties, including interventional radiology, in ...

, met Dr.

Robert Ballard Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of ...

, famous for discovering the wreck of the RMS ''Titanic''. Ballard gave him advice on how to locate a shipwreck, and Abele decided to fund an expedition to find the lost submarine ''Grunion''. In 2006, Williamson Associates, using

side-scan sonar Side-scan sonar (also sometimes called side scan sonar, sidescan sonar, side imaging sonar, side-imaging sonar and bottom classification sonar) is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea ...

, located a promising target almost at the exact location indicated by the commander of ''Kano Maru''. The sunken object had many characteristics typical of a submarine. In 2007, using a

remotely operated underwater vehicle A remotely operated underwater vehicle (technically ROUV or just ROV) is a tethered underwater mobile device, commonly called ''underwater robot''. Definition This meaning is different from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the ai ...

(ROV), DSSI/''Oceaneering'', returned to the site and took

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

recordings of the imploded remains of a submarine, which had markings in English, and

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

guards and

limber hole A limber hole is a drain hole through a frame or other structural member of a boat designed to prevent water from accumulating against one side of the frame, and allowing it to drain toward the bilge. Limber holes are common in the bilges of woo ...

s identical to those of ''Grunion''. The following year, the U.S. Navy confirmed that the find was ''Grunion''. Although it is not absolutely certain, the evidence strongly suggests that ''Grunion'' was lost as a result of multiple torpedo failures during her encounter with ''Kano Maru''. Her first torpedo ran low, but despite its

magnetic pistol Magnetic pistol is the term for the device on a torpedo or naval mine that detects its target by its magnetic field, and triggers the fuse for detonation. A device to detonate a torpedo or mine on ''contact'' with a ship or submarine is known as a ...

it failed to detonate. Two more bounced harmlessly off ''Kano Maru'' without exploding. However, the remaining torpedo missed its target and circled back, striking the

periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...

supports on the submerged submarine without exploding. The damage the torpedo inflicted, combined with a jammed rear dive plane, triggered a sequence of events that caused the loss of depth control. ''Grunion'' lunged below her maximum operational depth, and at about would have imploded. What remained of the ship struck the seabed, breaking off about of her bow. The wreckage then slid down the side of an extinct

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

, coming to rest on a notch in the underwater mountain. In 2019, the missing bow section was located a from the rest of the submarine on a slope of an underwater volcano at a depth of over .

References

External links

navsource.org: USS ''Grunion'' hazegray.org: USS ''Grunion''The USS Grunion may have been Found
nbsp;— a story at

NPR.org National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from othe ...

ABCNews.com, 3 October 2006."Object Off Alaska Coast May Be WWII Sub"
viewed 3 October 2006.

viewed 5 October 2006 Defunct site prior to January 2011
Detroit sailor only one of WWII crew whose relatives can't be located

The Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the '' Detroit Tribune'' on Februa ...

from 24 August 2007
Wreckage of WWII submarine found off Aleutian Islands
dated 24 August 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Grunion (Ss-216) 1941 ships 1942 in Alaska 2007 in Alaska Gato-class submarines Lost submarines of the United States Ships built in Groton, Connecticut Ships of the Aleutian Islands campaign Shipwrecks of the Alaska coast World War II submarines of the United States Shipwrecks in the Bering Sea Ships lost with all hands Maritime incidents in July 1942