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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024: One Busy Bug

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-684905

Above we see the Balao-class fleet submarine USS Bugara (SS-331), in her gun-less Fleet Snorkel configuration, off Oahu on the 14th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Commissioned some 80 years ago this week on 15 November 1944, you wouldn’t think she’d even have a chance to get in the Big Show before the war ended.

You’d be very wrong about that.

The Balaos

A member of the 180+-ship Balao class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlier Gato class. U.S. subs, unlike those of many navies of the day, were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. The Balao class was deeper diving (400 ft. test depth) than the Gato class (300 feet) due to the use of high-yield strength steel in the pressure hull.

Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.

Some 311 feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for today’s inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.

An amazing 121 Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:

• Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
• Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
• Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
• Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
• Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)

We have covered a number of this class before, such as the sub-killing USS Spikefish and USS Greenfish, the rocket mail-slinging USS Barbero, the carrier-slaying USS Archerfish, the long-serving USS Catfish, the U-boat scuttling USS Atule, and the frogman Cadillac USS Perch —but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories.

Meet Bugara

Our subject was the first (and only) U.S. warship named for the common label for the Rainbow surfperch (Hypsurus caryi), a multicolored little guy found along the coast of California. Laid down on 21 October 1943 at Groton, Connecticut by the Electric Boat Co, she was launched on 2 July 1944, and sponsored by Mrs. Anna A. Perry, the wife of Annapolis All-American football legend Capt. Lyman Spencer “Pop” Perry (USNA ’19), who at the time was serving as a Commodore of training operations on the West Coast.

80-G-448203

Commissioned at the U.S. Submarine Base, New London, on 15 November 1944, Bugara’s plankowner skipper was T/CDR Arnold Frederic Schade (USNA ’33). He was the youngest submarine commander in the Navy for a time and started the war on the training boat USS R-12 (SS 89), then was XO on the famed USS Growler (SS 215) when his commander in February 1943, CDR Howard Walter Gilmore, earned the MOH the hardest way.

In all, the 32-year-old Schade was the veteran of eight previous war patrols, including the last two as Growler’s skipper. He already had a Navy Cross and Silver Star on his jacket for sinking a trio of Japanese destroyer leaders on the 4th of July 1942 and for five other ships on the second patrol.

Bugara’s crew was one of veterans, no surprise as the Navy had been at war for three hard years when it was formed. Of the sub’s nine officers that made up her wardroom and seven chiefs in her goat locker, they counted no less than 73 war patrols among them, including one LT (j.g) with the unintentionally ironic last name of “Sinks” who had nine patrols on his own.

After abbreviated shakedowns and post-delivery maintenance, Bugara left New London for the Pacific via Panama on Christmas Day 1944. After all, there was a war on.

First Patrol

This overhead view of the Bugara (SS-331) was taken during torpedo practice firings off Panama Bay in January 1945 while heading to the Pacific. The torpedo retrieving davits are rigged, which are used for hauling the practice torpedo out of the water. Note at this point she only has one 5″/25, forward, as well as a twin 40mm Bofors aft. USN Archive photo # 19-N-76588.

Bugara cleared Pearl Harbor on 21 February 1945 on her 1st War Patrol and steamed directly to recently secured Saipan, ordered to patrol north of Luzon, Philippines in support of the Iwo Jima campaign.

A snooze fest with Japanese shipping already largely sanitized from the area, she fought off a typhoon and had to crash dive for several enemy aircraft while on the surface. In fact, she encountered far more fellow Allied submarines on patrol– American (USS Perch, Besugo, Blueback, Tuna, Tigrone, Puffer, Spot, Sea Fox, Hake, and Pargo), British (HMS P-248) and Dutch (Hr.Ms. K-14)– than she did anything else.

Disappointingly, the only Japanese vessels she spotted that were large enough to warrant a torpedo were marked as hospital ships. The only “action” her crew saw was in destroying a floating mine via gunfire.

It was essentially a qualifying cruise, with 29 of the 36 crewmembers who lacked their “Dolphins” earning them while underway.

On 21 April 1945, Bugara ended her inaugural patrol at the big Allied sub base at Fremantle, Australia after steaming 13,724 miles in 59 days.

Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.

Schade noted, “Morale of all hands is high despite the lack of combat opportunity.”

Second Patrol

After a three-week turnaround that included installing a second 5″/25 on her aft deck– the so-called gunboat submarine configuration— and director antennae for her APR, on 16 May 1945 Bugara sailed out of Fremantle for her 2nd War Patrol, ordered to hunt in the South China Sea off Hainan and serve as a floating “Log Joint” lifeguard station for aircrews downed at sea during the Okinawa campaign.

As on her first patrol, Bugara met or operated with other Allied subs on just about every day she was underway, and only a few local native craft– Chinese junks from which she would barter cigarettes for fresh fish– were spotted. Likewise, while on her first patrol, she often had to cope with Japanese aircraft, they too were scarce and instead, she typically logged voice contacts with passing four-engine Navy PB4Y Privateers.

On 20 June 1945, Bugara ended her monotonous 36-day patrol at recently liberated Subic Bay, where, in a twist of fate, she tied up next to the new Fulton-class sub tender USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16), named after Schade’s old boss on Growler.

Bugara logged zero enemy contacts despite the fact she steamed 10,118 miles across the Western Pacific, waters that the Empire had owned just a year prior.

Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.

Such boring late-war patrols often drove eager submarine skippers to think out of the box to find a fight.

For instance, in April 1945, USS Bluegill under LCDR Eric Barr landed some Australian Commandos followed by a short party of his own on the deserted low-lying reef of Pratas, some 160 miles southeast of Hong Kong, and “captured it.” 

57 Sunk!

Shifting operations further south where the Japanese may still have some naval and merchant assets and with the new Loran navigation system installed, on 14 July 1945 Bugara departed Subic Bay to begin her 3rd War Patrol, ordered to the relative backwater of the Gulf of Siam where the Japanese had been unabated since early 1942.

The 29-day patrol report makes absolutely great reading and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

On the night of 23 July, she put a “Commando Party ashore north of Lem Chong Pra– armed to the teeth with demolition equipment,” but had to take them back off the next morning just before dawn “highly embarrassed as the jungle had been so thick they couldn’t get off the beach.”

While a six torpedo spread against a small Japanese convoy on the early morning of 20 July yielded no hits– all of the fish running deeper than their settings– she had much better luck with her guns. In fact, while a normal load of “fish” was 24 torpedoes, Bugara had instead left Subic with just 12 (apparently worthless) torpedoes but with a full 240 rounds for her 5-inchers including 60 rounds of VT, stowing four racks full of ammo in her torpedo room instead.

In all, she made contact with 62 small surface vessels and, after finding them to be under Japanese control, sent at least 57 to the bottom in a series of one-sided gun actions over the fortnight between 24 July and 7 August, many in the dark.

From her War Patrol report:

She even ran into a batch of canoe-borne Malay pirates while in mid-attack on a Chinese schooner and performed actions worthy of the days of Stephen Decatur and Edward Preble.

In all, she fired 201 rounds of 5-inch, 291 of 40mm, and 400 of 20mm, finding in fact that the VT fuzed shells were not ideal as they were fired typically too close (within 600 yards on average) to arm.

Realizing that many of the crews on these wooden coasters and schooners were natives working under threat of death, Bugara’s crew went to great lengths to save them, even though on one occasion she had to submerge when a strange aircraft approached and left her rescues bobbing in the Gulf of Siam for a few minutes until she surfaced again after it had passed. Keep in mind that during this period she was working in typically just 10 fathoms (60 feet) of water, almost bottoming when completely submerged.

This also allowed her to glean some good old-fashioned HUMINT, with one particularly friendly Chinese who spoke pidgin English kept aboard for a couple of weeks as a translator. Schade included it with a wish list of items should he be sent back to the area:

On 17 August 1945, Bugara ended her final patrol of WWII at Fremantle, two days after Japan announced its unconditional surrender. Bugara and her crew were finally awarded the Submarine Combat Insignia for a patrol.

Few late-war subs could beat her record of “bunny bashing” in gun actions. The only one I can think of was Bill Hazzard in USS Blenny (SS-324) which bagged 62 mischievous Japanese vessels.

Bugara’s 3rd Patrol was the subject of at least one patch by her crew, emblazoned with a “57” on a hapless skull.

Bugara’s WWII patches. NHHC 2017.001.020 and NHHC 2017.001.021.

Sent with SubRon 5 to Subic Bay in September, she patrolled local waters there into mid-November when her squadron was ordered to clear Japanese-held islands in the South China Sea. This included Bugara sending large and heavily armed landing forces ashore at Tizard Bank and Itu Aba, where all they found were destroyed weather and radio stations.

Arriving back at San Diego in February 1946, three months later, she was back in Pearl Harbor, SubRon 5’s next home port.

There, as part of Operation Road’s End, on 28 May 1946, Bugara successfully sank her only Japanese ship via torpedo– the captured Type AM (I-13-class) submarine I-14 in a test of the new Mark 10-3 exploder– which worked.

A huge aircraft-carrying submarine (the largest submarines ever built until U.S. Poseidon SSBNs of the 1960s), I-14 was sent to the bottom in deep water off Barber’s Point at deliberately unrecorded locations along with four other captured enemy boats (I-400, I-401, I-201, and I-203) to keep their technology out of Soviet hands.

I-14 and I-400 alongside USS Proteus (AS-19), in Japanese home waters, after WWII. Note: the crew of deck and another sub (unidentified) along in the background. NH 50387

These boats, had the war gone on long enough, were part of a Japanese plan to wage biological warfare against cities in Southern California, in retaliation for the U.S. firebombing of Japanese cities, or alternatively an attack on the Panama Canal– keep that in mind the next time someone says the A-Bombs didn’t have to be dropped.

To prove to Stalin that these went to Davy Jones, the Navy filmed the sinking of all these big I boats– in beautiful color.

Bugara received three battle stars for her service in World War II, one for taking part in the Iwo Jima campaign (12-16 March 1945), one for Okinawa (17 March to 4 April 1945, and one for her third patrol (14 July 45 – 17 Aug 45) as well as an Occupation Service clasp for July- August 1948 when she returned to the area on a West Pac patrol.

Korea

Stationed at Pearl Harbor when the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel into South Korea in June 1950, she was soon sent forward on a series of war patrols off the embattled peninsula that was broken up by a five-month Fleet Snorkel conversion at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in late 1951 that saw her guns landed, a snorkel fitted along with better sensors, and a new, streamlined fairwater that covered her scopes installed.

Compare these two silhouttes.

Bugara received two Korean War battle stars during the conflict, logging four periods in theatre (5 Oct-28 Nov 50, 20 Jan-18 Jun 51, 20 Apr-4 Jun 54, and 14-27 Jul 54).

She also survived a crack-up during the conflict with the escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) that left both vessels damaged but gratefully without any casualties, and each soon returned to work.

That’s not going to buff out

By August 1955, she was transferred to San Diego as part of SubRon 3.

USS Bugara (SS-331), May 1956. Shown while operating off San Diego. 80-G-696504

Same as above. 80-G-696503

USS Bugara (SS-331) off Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, December 7, 1955. 80-G-684904

She would fall into a decade of drills training evolutions, shipyard availabilities, and regular WestPac deployments and SEATO exercises where she would typically interact with the growing Japanese, Filipino, Australian, and Taiwanese fleets.

USS Bugara with an S-2 Tracker overhead, likely in an ASW exercise. Submarine Forces Museum

She also got a bit of payback against tin cans for her Whitehurst damage.

In April 1958 while using a practice torpedo against USS Yarnall (DD-541), which was set to run at 30 or 40 feet, it actually ran at 10 and smacked the Fletcher class destroyer on the port bow.

Yarnall’s skipper radioed, “We’ve been hit and are taking on water.”

Bugara’s skipper offered assistance.

Yarnall’s captain replied, “You can go to hell!”

Then came…

Vietnam

During the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, no less than 60 different submarines were operational off Vietnam at some time between 1964 and 1975, many staying long enough to earn campaign stars. Most, 42, were old “smoke boats,” such as Bugara, including many of her sisters. Eighteen others were modern SSNs which were utilized more sparingly.

Vietnam War. June 1969. Sailors aboard the guided missile frigate USS Brooke (DEG 1) watch as the Gato-class submarine USS Bluegill (AGSS 242) travels on the surface. Official U.S. Navy photo (K-74080)

Most of these boats would be tasked with providing “special” undersea reconnaissance and surveillance.

Communications intelligence personnel on board the submarine intercepted a message from the trawler that made clear the enemy was unaware of the submarine trailing her until the last hours of the mission. During the passage from Hainan, the submarine’s sonarmen became intimately familiar with the trawler’s distinctive shaft and propeller sounds. Periscope photographs of the white-colored trawler confirmed their analysis.

They also performed submerged lifeguard duty for downed aviators between Hanoi and Haiphong and the carriers on Yankee Station.

A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2 (HS-2) “Golden Falcons” sits on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12) for a deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 12 August 1965 to 23 March 1966. In the background is the Fleet Snorkel Balao-class submarine USS Segundo (SS-398).

Others, such as Perch and Tunny, would carry out commando raids near shore. Submarines carried UDT 11 and UDT 12 frogmen to their dangerous missions in Operations Starlite, Jackstay, Dagger Thrust, Blue Marlin, and scores of other amphibious operations during the war.

Some, such as USS Salmon (SSR-573), would lay mines off North Vietnamese harbors. 

They also served as an OPFOR “tame wolf” for the carriers’ escorts, embarked SH-2/3s, and land-based P-3 Orions to keep their ASW skills sharp should a Russki boat come poking too close.

A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 8 (HS-8) “Eightballers” from USS Bennington (CVS-20) is seen flying over an unidentified Fleet Snorkel conversion submarine during the carrier’s deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 30 April to 9 November 1968.

Many of these submarines still have the exact details of their Vietnam service classified. They don’t call it the “Silent Service” for nothing. 

Those who tallied up multiple Vietnam campaign stars included USS Grayback (8 stars), Razorback (5), Tunny (5), Barbel (4), Bluegill (4), Bonefish (4), Sea Fox (4), Swordfish (4), Tang (4), Salmon (3), Scamp (3), Tiru (3), Wahoo (3), Barb (2), Blueback (2), Bonefish (2), Carbonero (2), Pomfret (2), and Rasher (2).

Our girl Bugara beat out all but Grayback and received an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and seven campaign stars for her service during the Vietnam War.

Bugara was, by most accounts, the first submarine ordered into Vietnamese waters with a war face on since WWII, assigned to Task Force 77 for operations in the South China Sea as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964.

In 1965, Bugara passed her 6,000th dive on her 21st birthday.

Steaming cross-Pacific in 1966 allowed her the rare treat of “Tying the Knot” by doing surfaced and submerged 360-degree turns at both the Equator and the 180th meridian.

She appeared in several films and broadcasts highlighting the American Navy in Vietnam as she was one of the few subs to make port calls in Thailand (Bangkok, Ko Sumui, and Satahib) and Vietnam (DaNang) in addition to her regular WestPac calls at Subic Bay, Australia (Perth and Geraldton), Yokosuka, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Kaohsiung and Keelung).

On 7 July 1967, she loaded and fired four exercise torpedoes. She also carried one war shot torpedo, serial #63813 which she would use on the 11th to send the stricken Buckley-class destroyer escort ex-USS Currier (DE-700) to the bottom in deep water off California.

ex-USS Currier (DE-700) SINKEX by USS Bugara, 1967. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)

Close up. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)

Currier, who had received two battle stars for WWII service and one for Korea, had been with the Fleet Sonar School since 1954 and was sent to mothballs for seven years before her SINKEX.

Part of Bugara’s 1968 enlisted crew with non-reg black berets of the type commonly available in Vietnamese markets, complete with embroidered Dolphin insignias. (Photo: Bugara Veteran’s Site)

Bugara’s 1969 Bangkok mooring, complete with locals. (Photo: Bugara Veteran’s Site)

With the ASW vendetta between The Bug and the 7th Fleet’s escorts continuing, in 1969 she was hit by a practice MK 44 torpedo shot by an American destroyer. The torpedo failed to shut down as it was expected to, causing a big hole in Bugara’s aft superstructure. While the exercise torp was never recovered, months later its transducer and nose of the torpedo were found in a space outside of the pressure hull below the aft torpedo tubes.

Her 12th and final post-Korea WestPac cruise was capped in August 1969 when she arrived home in San Diego. She logged her 7,000th dive later that year.

Despite a year-end yard period and battery renewal that would have bought Bugara another half-decade of service, the first week of January 1970 instead brought a flash from the CNO that the five remaining Fleet Snorkel boats (our girl plus USS Medregal, Segundo, Carbonero, and Sabalo), considered too obsolete to transfer overseas much less to keep in service, were to be prepped for use as mobile targets for Mk. 48 torpedo service weapon tests.

Bugara (SS-331) possibly off San Diego, 11 June 1970. Note the four-man MK 7 Mod 6 swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV) on her pressure hull. Photo courtesy of Cole Smith and atlanticfleetsales.smugmug.com. Via Navsource

Bugara in the end cheated to torpedo its meal and made her final dive on her own terms.

Decommissioned and Stuck from the Naval Register on 1 October 1970, ex-Bugara was slated to be expended in a SINKEX off the Washington coast.

However, in the tow from Mare Island to her death ground, our girl sank in a towing accident in the Strait of Juan de Fuca about 4 miles NW of Cape Flattery on 1 June 1971, with no injuries or lives lost. The next day, the Navy sent an NRF reserve ship out from Tacoma, USS Uhlmann (DD-687), to find the sunken hulk with sonar, and later DevGroupOne sent out an early deep-diving robot to film Bugara upright on the ocean floor.

In all, she stacked up a full dozen battle/campaign stars– three for WWII, two for Korea, and seven in Vietnam. In addition to the 57 “little boys” she sent to the bottom in 1945 in gun actions, she also deep-sixed a big Japanese I boat postwar and a tin can that was past its prime. All in all, not a bad run in 26 years.

Epilogue

Little remains of Bugara on dry land. Her WWII Jolly Roger-style battle flag has faded into history and I believe her bell was still aboard when she sank.

Her records are in the National Archives.

She rests 800 feet below the surface of what is now the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

In September 2008 ex-USS Bugara was surveyed by NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer as part of that oceanographic vessel’s shakedown cruise in a test of her state-of-the-art multibeam sonar system (Survey ID EX0801).

In 2017, she was surveyed as part of a larger expedition by NautilusLive.

She had a fairly active veteran’s group that, from what I can tell, had their last reunion in 2017 and has been offline for the past several years (archived here). They still maintain a group of images on Flickr, heavy on those released by NautilusLive.

She had 16 skippers between 1944 and 1970, the most noteworthy of which was Arnold Schade. Once he left Bugara in February 1946 he went on to other submarine commands, including SUBCOMLANT, a role in which he advised President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Commander Middle East Force in 1963-64, he earned the Legion of Merit and later pinned a Gold Star to his Distinguished Service Medal. VADM Schade retired in 1971 after 38 years of service– ironically the same year as Bugara.

Schade passed at the age of 91 in San Diego and is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Section CBEE, Row 2, Site 121.

She also had the deepest-dived Navy man in history as part of her wardroom during the Cold War. Bugara’s XO in 1962-63 was LCDR Don Walsh. Two years before being piped aboard the sub, he and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, while aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste (DSV-1), made the record maximum descent in the Challenger Deep, dropping into the darkness to 35,813 feet.

The world’s record descent, man’s deepest dive, had taken nine hours.

Krupp Sphere to Bathyscaph Trieste, 1960. Jacques Piccard center left and Lieutenant Don Walsh stand next to the sphere alongside an unidentified naval officer and civilian. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph. NMUSN-4764

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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