USS Thresher SS 200, Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941

After completing a simulated war patrol off of Midway from 31 October 1941 to 4 December 1941, USS Thresher SS 200 was returning to Pearl Harbor.  While on the return transit, heavy weather had set in with high winds and waves.  It was no place for Thresher or any other submarine on the surface, but on the surface she was.  As the bow plunged into the angry seas, water came over the periscope shears and conning tower.  One such wave hit with such force that it washed William D. Grover off the lookout platform onto the after "cigarette deck".  Grover was taken below and placed in the Captain’s cabin.  Ralph A. Millis PhM1, "Doc", stayed with Grover almost constantly and did all he could to make him comfortable.  Unknown to all at the time, Grover had sustained a skull fracture in the fall.

Thresher was some 50 nautical miles northwest of Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941 and had been picked up by her escort Destroyer USS Litchfield (DD 336) when they both were notified that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese.  As they neared the island of Oahu, a US Task Force was outbound and Litchfield left to join the task force. LCDR Anderson notified Pearl Harbor that the Litchfield had left and that there was a severely injured man aboard Thresher.  Anderson planned to submerge and then surface at sunset and then proceed into port at that time.  As Thresher was submerging she received a message not to leave her escort, which unfortunately had already occurred.  A message was sent to Litchfield to return to the area where they had separated to escort Thresher into port.  Shortly thereafter a destroyer was seen through the periscope at the designated location and Thresher surfaced.

To Thresher’s surprise it was not the Litchfield, but the USS Gamble (DD 123).

From the Deck Log of the USS Gamble (DD 123):

"7 – Dec 1941 - 1632 hours - sighted submarine surfacing - began attack"

The Gamble, a destroyer/ minelayer, thinking she had found a Japanese submarine turned bow on and commenced firing her forward deck gun and machine guns.  Fortunately for Thresher only two rounds from the deck gun were fired but the hostile conditions caused Thresher to take evasive action and dive to 250 feet.  As she was diving, Thresher sent out recognition signals which were evidently picked up by Gamble as she continued on her way without further attack.

Anderson advised Pearl Harbor of the attack and again of the urgency of getting into port because of Grover’s dire condition.  At that time there was of course mass confusion in Pearl Harbor.  The Base tried to set up an escort for Thresher but ships were obviously at a premium at that time.  Thresher spent the night avoiding any kind of surface vessel as to avoid a repeat of the Gamble incident earlier that day.  As one junior officer said, “We had no friends".

Grover died during the night of 7 December 1941.  Arguably making him the first US Submarine Service casualty of World War II. 

William D. Grover S2

Enlisted 7 December 1940 at Portland, Oregon, attached to Thresher 4 August 1941 at Pearl Harbor.

 

On the morning of 8 December 1941, Pearl Harbor advised that the entrance net would be open at a certain time and to proceed into port at that time.  Each time Thresher attempted to enter she was driven down by "friendly" forces.  After Pearl Harbor was notified of the attacks, Thresher was directed to a sanctuary and to remain submerged.  Even at the “sanctuary” Thresher was driven deep many times by “friendly” aircraft.

Finally an escort was sent, the destroyer USS Thornton (DD 270), and Thresher was escorted to the entrance and arrived at the Sub Base around noon, 8 December 1941, mooring to the USS Pelias (AS 14).

So many people think that we were totally surprised at Pearl Harbor on that fateful morning. But how do you account for this action, which happened over FOUR HOURS BEFORE THE ATTACK?

The reality was that U.S. forces in Hawaii were actually in a fairly high state of alert during the first week of December, 1941. They had actually been warned with pointed war warning message that had been received on 27 November. And while preparations had been made, patrols sent out, and an Army run radar station had been set up on Oahu's north shore, in general the Army and Navy forces in Pearl Harbor were not as ready as the 27 November war warning told them to be. The armed forces were still struggling to throw off a lethargy that had set in during the 20's and 30's, brought on by two ill-advised disarmament treaties and the Great Depression.

Some in the War Department however, took the war warning seriously and did what they could to be ready. One of those was a young naval officer on his first ocean patrol of his first command. LCDR William W. Outerbridge was in command of the USS Ward (DD-139) on that fateful morning. An old WWI era flush deck four stack Wickes-class destroyer, Ward was assigned anti-submarine patrol duties off the mouth of Pearl Harbor. He had been issued instructions that no friendly submarines were operating in the area and had been told to act appropriately if one was sighted. The intention was for him to report a sighting and wait for further instructions from the command at Pearl Harbor.

Outerbridge interpreted his orders differently. He initiated an action based on his experience, and his own personal beliefs and under his own initiative fired upon and dropped depth charges upon a submarine operating in his defensive sea area. He dutifully reported the attack immediately, but it was essentially ignored at the headquarters level and no additional action was taken to alert the rest of the fleet. Had they done so, several hours worth of warning would have been in place and hundreds more men would have survived and a portion at least of the ships lost would not have been. It was one of the greatest missed opportunities in the history of human warfare.

Outerbridge's outlook and beliefs were echoed by many within the Submarine Service, who looked upon the deteriorating situation with Japan with increasing dread in the fall of 1941. However, bureaucratic inertia, an unrealistic training regimen, a general lack of any training, faulty torpedoes, and marginally competent leadership all served to blunt the early actions of our submarines. But the underlying sentiment of the officers and men of the service was generally sound, and once the attack on Pearl Harbor swept away all of the pre-war entrenched thinking that existed, our Brothers of the 'Phin exacted a terrible revenge on Japan for their boldness and arrogance.

William Outerbridge and others like him paved the way for our ultimate victory. They should always be remembered.

One more fun fact: the men that manned Ward's number three 4"/50 caliber gun that morning were members of the Navy Reserve from Minneapolis. A Reservist fired the first shot of World War II!