How U.S. Submarines Shaped the Pacific: Heroes of Leyte Gulf and the Philippine Sea

This year (2024) marked the eightieth anniversary of two epic naval battles of the Pacific Theatre of WWII: the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Though neither of these battles turned the tide of the war per se the way the Battle of Midway did two years prior and therefore they’re not commemorated to the extent the Midway is, they were nonetheless both epic battles that were smashing victories for the United States Navy and crushing defeats for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN).

Indeed, Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle in history.  

Mind you, when one thinks of these two particular naval battles, they’re mainly remembered for: 

--(1) “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”

(2) the sinking of the super-battleship Musashi by U.S. Navy USN warplanes during the former battle 

(3) history’s last battleship-versus-battleship engagement

(4) “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” during the latter battle. 

However, what sometimes gets lost in the shuffle is the fact that the “Silent Service,” i.e. the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet, also made some impressive contributions to American victory in both of these battles, much to the chagrin of the IJN.  

Battle of the Philippine Sea: USS Cavalla (SS-244) and USS Albacore (SS-218) 

USS Cavalla and USS Albacore were both Gato-class submarines, commissioned on February 2, 1944, and June 1, 1942, respectively. The Gato-class boats were diesel-electric submarines with a submerged displace of 2,463 tons, packing an arsenal of ten 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, six forward, fore-aft. 

During the Philippine Sea battle, Cavalla and Albacore would put those torpedoes to good use by pulling off a major feat: sinking one Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) aircraft carrier apiece. 

In Cavalla’s case, under the command of Commander Herman J. Kossler, she sank the 32,620-ton carrier Shokaku on June 19, 1944, with three hits out of six fired at a danger-closer distance of 1,000 yards; the “tin fish” strikes ruptured fuel tanks on the carrier causing fires to spread throughout the stricken ship, and about three hours later bomb magazine exploded, dooming the vessel with a loss of 1,272 hands, 571 were saved, including Shokaku’s skipper: Captain Hiroshi Matsubara. 

As for Albacore, skippered by Lieutenant Commander James W. Blanchard, she sank the 320,248-ton Taiho on that same day, doing so with just one torpedo hit out of six shots fired. 

Now, mind you, a mere single torpedo wouldn’t have been enough to sink a carrier of Taiho’s size. However, incompetent damage control made Taiho the exception to that rule. An inexperienced damage-control officer ordered that the carrier’s ventilation system operated full-blast in an attempt to clear explosive fumes from the ship.   

This instead had the disastrous effect of spreading the volatile vapors throughout the vessel, and approximately thirty minutes after Shokaku’s eruption, Taiho was herself rent apart by a huge explosion, and sank shortly after with a loss of 1,650 commissioned officers and enlisted sailors (out of a 2,150-man complement).  

Battle of Leyte Gulf: USS Darter (SS-227) and USS Dace (SS-247) 

Though the “Silent Service” didn’t pull off sinkings of IJN “flattops” during this battle as they did in the previous battle, that’s not to say that American subs didn’t contribute their fair share of enemy ship kills in this epic engagement as well. 

Say hello to the Gato-class subs USS Darter and USS Dace, or as I like to call them, “The Double-Da Dynamic Duo.” 

Commissioned on September 7, 1943, and July 23, 1943, respectively, Darter and Dace were skippered respectively by Commander David H. McClintock and Bladen D. Claggett during this epic battle.  

As noted by Captain (USN, Ret.) for the Naval Submarine League (NSL) “The opening salvo of this mega-melee was fired by two 71t1 Fleet submarines operating as a wolfpack in Palawan Passage near the entrance to Balabac Strait…Darter’s attack was unquestionably the most damaging individual submarine attack of the war…It is said that in war, fortune favors the bold. Darter, in one slashing attack, effectively removed four Japanese warships from the task force sent to destroy our amphibious forces bringing General MacArthur and his troops back to re-conquer the Philippines.” 

All told, Darter was credited with sinking heavy cruiser Atago and heavily damaging Atago’s sister ship Takao, whilst Dace sank a third sister ship, Maya.  

Where Are They Now? 

Only one of these valiant warships survives today, that being Cavalla, who, after WWII ended, was reclassified twice, first as a hunter-killer submarine (SSK-244) and lastly as an "auxiliary submarine" (AGSS-244) before being decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register on December 30, 1969. 

On January 21, 1971, Cavalla was transferred to the Texas Submarine Veterans of World War II, and ever since then, she has resided as a floating museum as part of the Galveston Naval Museum in Seawolf Park on Pelican Island, just north of Galveston, Texas. Having recently undergone an extensive and successful restoration project, she is now open for self-guided tours. 

As for the other three gallant boats: 

--Albacore was presumably sunk by a mine off of northern Hokkaidō, on November 7, 1944. 

--Dace, after undergoing GUPPY ( Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program) upgrades in January 1955, was sold to the Italian Navy, whereupon she was renamed the Leonardo da Vinci (S 510), decommissioned in 1973, and sold for scrap on April Fool’s Day 1975.  

--Darter was grounded in the Palawan Passage and scuttled on October 24, 1944. 

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for the National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch , The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last, but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS).

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