The Action of 24 July 1945 was one of the final naval battles during the Pacific Theater of World War II. In a desperate attempt to destroy as many allied ships as possible, the Imperial JapaneseNavy began arming their submarine fleet with manned torpedos called kaitens. The submarine I-53 was one of these vessels and her kaitens engaged in a bloody battle with a convoy of American warships off Luzon.[3][4]
Action
File:USS Underhill (DE-682).jpgUSS Underhill off Boston in 1944.
In July of 1945 the destroyer escortUSS Underhill, under Lieutenant Commander Robern N. Newcomb, was assigned flagship of a convoy carrying battle weary United States Army soldiers of the 96th Infantry Division from Okinawa to the Philippines. The convoy included eight other escorts, the submarine chasers USS PC-1251, PC-803, PC-804, PC-807, SC-1306 and SC-1309 as well as the patrol boatUSS PC-872. These vessels were tasked with delivering six LSTs, and the troopshipUSS Adria. USS Underhill found the convoy off Buckner Bay, Okinawa on or about July 21 and three days later the Americans ships were steaming around 250 miles northeast of Cape Engano and nearing their destination. That day, on July 24, a Japanese bomber, scouting for the Japanese submarine I-53, suddenly appeared. Lieutenant Commander Newcomb ordered his ships to battle stations but the bomber remained outside of the ships' range. Forty-five minutes later, the convoy was sailing southwest when Commander Saichi Oba released his six kaitens and sent them foward. Other accounts say that there were at least eight kaitens involved in the attack though only a single Japanese submarine participated and it was designed to carry four kaitens. The kaitens were presumably manned by Sub-Lieutenant Jun Katsuyama, Ensign Toyooki Seki and Flight Petty Officers 1st Class Tsutoma Kawajiri and Masahiro Arakawa. They were armed with a 3,000 pound explosive, equivalent to two torpedos, and once released could not be retrieved.[5][6]
Three kaitens aboard a Japanese submarine during World War II.
To divert the American convoy into the path of the kaitens, Commander Oba released a dummy mine which was observed and engaged by the guns of USS Underhill. After several direct hits the mine was determined to be a dud by the Americans and they continued on with their patrol. At this time one of the submarine chasers lost power and had to be towed by USS PCE-872. Shortly thereafter a sonar contact was made so the the Underhill and the PC-804 began depth charging the area. The destroyer escort is credited with sinking one of the human torpedos at this point while another attacked the PC-804. It missed but it turned around and surfaced to attack the Underhill but as soon as the kaiten was out of water, Commander Newcomb ordered a ramming maneuver because the submarnie was too close for his guns to bear. The USS Underhill then sailed right over the kaiten and it exploded at 3:15 pm along with the escort's boilers and readied ammunition. USS Underhill was torn in two, the bow section of the ship quickly sank with all hands, the aft section of the ship remained afloat until being sunk by American gunfire the following day. All 122 survivors were wounded in action and each sailor recieved a Purple Heart. Lieutenant Commander Newcomb was killed and he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. Two of the remaining American warships depth charged the area for an hour long while after the Underhill was destroyed but the I-53 escaped and arrived back in Japan a month later, just before the end of the war. The last of the American survivors were picked up after at least an hour of being in the water though rescue operations continued until 6:30 pm that night. Most of the survivors were in need of urgent medical assitance which they recieved on PC-803 and LST-647. The engagement was one of the last in the Pacific War and was one of the few victories of the Japanese kaiten program.[7][8]
United States
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Robert N. Newcomb
Saichi Oba