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

10. Cause and Effect

73 10 Cause and Effect Why did the Flier sink with such destructive force? The extent to which John Crowley pondered this question in the desperate hours and days that followed is unknown, but by the time he filed his “survival report,” he stated: “It is my opinion that a mine was in contact with the hull just below the waterline at the time of the explosion .”1 There were, of course, other possibilities. It is intriguing that neither Earl Baumgart nor Alvin Jacobson specifically mentioned an explosion in their firsthand narratives. Jacobson referred only to “a terrific gush of air” coming through the conning tower.2 Baumgart stated vaguely, “I guess we hit a mine in that strait.”3 Given the Flier’s mishap at Midway, it is tempting to speculate that the submarine may have hit a reef or other submerged hazard. The waters in the vicinity of Balabac Strait and Palawan Island were notorious for their shoals and coral heads, and the often deficient navigational charts supplied to American submarines magnified the hazards.4 In addition, visibility was poor the night the Flier went down. Taken together, these factors make running aground a feasible explanation, and during the course of the war, four U.S. submarines ended their careers that way. One of the most spectacular submarine groundings occurred later in the year, on 24 October 1944, when the USS Darter ran on to a half-mile-wide reef known as Bombay Shoal. The Darter was pursuing a Japanese convoy through the treacherous waters west 74 The USS Flier of Palawan Island, appropriately called Dangerous Ground. Besides being hazardous to traverse, much of the area was not properly charted, so the Japanese frequently sent convoys through the Palawan passage in the belief that no American submarine would venture there. That assumption proved costly. On 23 October the Darter sank Admiral Kurita’s flagship, the heavy cruiser Atago, and damaged another heavy cruiser; its sister submarine the Dace sank a third. Those losses proved to be an ill omen for the Japanese in the lead-up to the titanic battle for Leyte Gulf following the U.S. invasion of the Philippines. The next day the Darter suffered a mishap of it own. Running in overcast weather that prevented obtaining a navigational fix from the stars, the Darter slammed into a reef at full speed. Initially the crew thought they had been torpedoed. The force of the collision reared the Darter’s bow out of the water and left the entire submarine stranded like a beached whale. In the aftermath , Admiral Ralph Christie did not consider the Darter’s skipper , David Hayward McClintock, at fault. Christie believed that McClintock’s gamble had been justified: he took a chance on pursuing a wounded Japanese ship in dangerous waters, and he lost.5 Crowley was apparently aware that grounding might be raised as a possible explanation for the Flier’s loss. He noted in his survival report that at the fatal moment there had been no tendency for the craft to lift, and its back was not broken.6 In any case, there was no precedent for a submarine holed by coral or some other navigational hazard to sink so quickly. Another possible explanation was that the Flier had been hit by an enemy torpedo or, for that matter, a torpedo from a “friendly” sub. The records, however , show no evidence of any attacks by enemy or Allied vessels in the area. Yet another possibility was that the explosion came from inside the submarine. The very batteries that allowed a submarine to propel itself underwater also posed a significant risk. Every fleet submarine had a forward and an after battery compartment, each carrying 126 lead acid cells for storing electricity. Each battery was six feet high and weighed more than 1,000 pounds. The batteries’ South China Sea Philippine Sea Sulu Sea Celebes Sea Balabac Strait M i n doro Strait Luzon Strait Babuyan Channel P h i l i p p i n e T r e n c h Davao Gulf Illana Bay Moro Gulf Iligan Bay Camotes Sea Panay Gulf Bohol Sea Leyte Gulf S u r i g a o S t r ai t Visayan Sea T a b l a s S t r a i t Sibuyan Sea Lagonoy Gulf Lamon Bay R o g a y Gulf Tayabas Bay Manila Bay...