USS Grenadier (SS-210) - COMSUBPAC Patrols, 1942

COMSUBPAC Patrols, 1942

Grenadier’s first war patrol from 4 February to 23 March 1942 took her near the Japanese home islands, off the coast of Honshū, and brought her several targets but no sinkings. On 12 April Grenadier departed Pearl Harbor for her second war patrol, along the Shanghai-Yokohama and Nagasaki-Formosa shipping lanes. On 1 May she sank the soviet merchant ship "Angarstroy". On 8 May she torpedoed and sank one of her most important kills of the war, transport Taiyō Maru. Post-war examination of Japanese records showed Taiyō Maru to be more than just the ordinary transport; she was en route to the East Indies with a group of Japanese scientists, economists, and industrial experts bent on expediting the exploitation of the conquered territory. Their loss was a notable blow to the enemy war effort.

On 25 May Grenadier was diverted from her patrol area to Midway Island, where she formed part of the submarine patrol line as the American fleet in a bloody but brilliant battle handed the Imperial Navy its first defeat in some three hundred years. Grenadier’s third war patrol was in the Truk area, heavily patrolled by enemy ships and planes. Although she sighted some 28 Japanese ships, enemy planes effectively hampered her, and she returned to her new base, Fremantle, Australia, empty-handed.