The USS Flier: Death and Survival on a World War II Submarine

6. Board of Investigation

39 6 Board of Investigation The Flier’s tow back to Pearl Harbor was not without incident. The day after leaving Midway, 23 January 1944, the ships encountered a severe storm in the predawn hours. At 5:42 a.M. the towline to the Florikan separated, leaving the Flier wallowing in the rough seas. The Flier tried to regain some steerage using the starboard screw, but it continued to drift. It took five hours under “the most adverse circumstances” to shackle up a new towline. John Crowley praised the efforts of the Florikan’s commander, George Sharp, as well as the work of several of his own crew, including Ensign Herbert “Teddy” Baehr, chief gunner’s mate Charles DeWitt Pope, and coxswain Gale Winstone Hardy. At one point Pope was washed overboard, but he was quickly hauled back aboard by his lifeline.1 Despite such heroics, the Flier’s crew must have felt a profound ambivalence. When they reached the submarine base at Pearl Harbor on the afternoon of 30 January 1944, there was no brass band waiting dockside to greet them. This was an ignominious return from a patrol of self-destruction. Sharp, at least, would get some recognition for his part in returning the Flier safely: he would be given a second chance at commanding a submarine. Sharp had been summarily relieved of command of the USS Spearfish after a bungled attack on a massive Japanese convoy in June 1943. Bringing the Flier back in one piece 40 The USS Flier had wiped the slate clean, and Sharp replaced William Davis Irvin as skipper of the Nautilus. Soon he would be operating out of Australia on “special missions” to the Philippines.2 Whether Crowley would be given another chance to command was still undecided, pending an investigation. Charles Lockwood, commander of the Submarine Force Pacific Fleet, instructed Captain John Bailey Longstaff, commander of Submarine Squadron Fourteen, to convene a board of investigation to look into the Flier’s grounding at Midway. Also appointed to the board were Captain Frank Thomas Watkins, Captain William Vincent O’Reagan, and Lieutenant Commander Ralph B. Johnson. Watkins had distinguished himself by becoming the first division commander to skipper a submarine, taking the Flying Fish out on patrol in mid-1943. At the age of forty-five, he was also the oldest American to captain a submarine during the war. He was credited with sinking a ship off Formosa and received a Bronze Star for his trouble.3 The inquiry was held on the tender USS Bushnell (AS-15), which had been launched by the Mare Island Navy Yard in September 1942 and commissioned on 10 April 1943. Displacing almost 10,000 tons, the ship was more than 530 feet long with a 73-foot beam. Eventually the Bushnell would serve as a submarine tender at Majuro, Midway, and Guam. In the meantime, having arrived at Pearl Harbor in July 1943, the Bushnell tended Longstaff ’s squadron. With the squadron and divisional staff domiciled on the ship, the members of the board could virtually step from their bunks to the inquiry.4 Crowley was officially notified of the proceedings and of his “status of defendant.” By naval tradition, the skipper was ultimately responsible for all decisions, and Crowley was no doubt aware that his career and reputation were at stake. Next to a courtmartial , a board of investigation was the most serious proceeding an officer could face. Before the war, any skipper who grounded his ship automatically and immediately lost his command, as well 41 Board of Investigation as any chance of future promotion. For instance, after the grounding of the submarine USS Razorback at Fisher’s Island off Portsmouth , both the skipper and the executive officer were relieved of command and put on disciplinary leave.5 The Flier was certainly not the first craft—or even the first submarine—to come to grief on a reef at Midway. After a refit at Midway in mid-1943, the USS Scorpion ran aground during training for its third war patrol. It took a tugboat five hours to pull the submarine free of the reef, and then, because of rough weather, the Scorpion had to wait another three days before returning to the Midway base. From there it sailed back to Pearl Harbor for repairs and an immediate board of investigation. The Scorpion’s skipper, William Naylor Wylie, as well as executive officer...