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HOW THE USS GRUNION WAS SUNK -- AND FOUND
Yesterday I went to a talk on the Search for the WWII Sub "USS Grunion" off Kiska, Alaska. This excellent talk was given by Bruce Abele, one of the sons of her commander. 45 minutes was of an excellent Power Point type of program of narration, stills and videos. Occasionally he would stop the program and provide further details. Afterwards he gave about 15 more minutes of stories. And we finished with about 15 more minutes of questions and answers.
THE SHORT VERSION
is that she sank because of a diving control malfunction. That there was and implosion of the pressure hull from the deep water. The compressed
air forcibly blew open the hatch that is seen to be open. And a close inspection of that hatch shows that it was indeed blow open from the inside pressure. There were no prisoners taken. There was no one who died from exposure in the water. The water depth here is about 3,000 feet.
THE LONG VERSION.
Presentation was at the Weston (Mass,.) Public Library. The room was about 75% full 1/2 an hour before the start. There were about 70 people attending this talk.
The Abele family had a quite large Victory Garden (as did about all of us in WWII). Their mother was the quiet hero of this situation.
Looking for this sub, there was a strange and most unlikely chain of circumstances and happenings. Here and there, there were delays but then another set of circumstances occurred and they were able to track down the sub's probable location. Thanks to a concerned person in Japan, Yutaka Iwasaki, they were able to piece together all of the needed info.
And absolutely ALL of the relatives of the crew were found and notified and were kept informed. One case in particular was detailed how the relatives were found. A lotta work and time for finding this one crewman's family.
There was a possibility of a circular running torpedo hitting the conning tower and knocking open the hatch. Also there was high pressure (collapsing) of the aft part of the conning tower. This circular torpedo hypothesis is a less likely one.
There was damage to the front of the conning tower's bridge. My guess is that this could have been from the front of the sub's front 50 feet breaking off when it hit bottom and its contacting the conning tower somehow. The remainder of the hull then slid 2/3rds of a mile along the bottom before coming to a stop. They did not find the bow. And the break occurred at about the middle of the torpedo room. The remaining part of the hull in this area showed evidence of implosion from the water pressure. It is unlikely that the bow or conning tower was hit by a circling torpedo. And there was no sign of an external explosion. And the torpedoes of that day were notoriously ineffective with their depth keeping and their magnetic detonators.
In this case, especially, determining how this boat became sunk was not a simple event.
1. This is the Grunion, established by details of the wreck's construction.
2. Hydrostatic pressure caused the failure and loss of the bow.
3. The open hatch at the aft battery compartment was show (by details) to have been blown open.
Crush depth was in excess of 300-feet, maybe as much as 500-feet.
The bow is still missing. Something about 20-feet in size was seen on the side-scan sonar in this area. But they were not able to spot the object later, searching with the ROV. Not enough time for that search.
A Japanese troop ship, the "Kanu Maru," fired machine gun rounds and 3 inch (antiaircraft) shells at the "Grunion." Minor damage to the top of the periscope indicates that a machine gun round may have hit it. Also the crew of the "Kanu Maru" saw what they believed to be a 3-inch shell hit something, followed by a brown colored liquid suddenly appearing in the water.
It is believed that a hydraulically raised mast on the conning tower was hit and the hydraulic fluid (under 300 psi pressure) was what was seen.
The sub had just fired 3 torpedoes and thus the bow was running light. This could have caused the sub to broach the surface and be seen and shot at. The type of shells used would have not been likely to have punctured the conning tower's pressure hull. And the sub would have tried to dive as quickly as possible.
On the wreck, the stern dive planes were in the full down position. It is felt that the most likely case was that something happened that prevented the crew from regaining control of the boat and get her to level off before reaching crush depth.
THE BELL STORY
Submarine bells were removed from the subs before they went to sea (to battle). A chaplain in the home port for the "Grunion" saw a bell in a scrap pile and asked if he could have it. He was refused, because it was to be sold as scrap. Then, some time later he received a rather large, heavy package. The bell was enclosed. It was then kept at the former chaplain's church and eventually its presence was discovered. There are further interesting stories about returning the bell.
The official website: http://www.ussgrunion.com/
The website's blog url. Interesting stuff. http://www.ussgrunion.com/blog/
IF YOU ARE IN THE NEW LONDON AREA
This talk will be repeated Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 1]http://www.mysticseaport.org/index.cfm? ... 0E3A6FF37A[/url]
Yesterday I went to a talk on the Search for the WWII Sub "USS Grunion" off Kiska, Alaska. This excellent talk was given by Bruce Abele, one of the sons of her commander. 45 minutes was of an excellent Power Point type of program of narration, stills and videos. Occasionally he would stop the program and provide further details. Afterwards he gave about 15 more minutes of stories. And we finished with about 15 more minutes of questions and answers.
THE SHORT VERSION
is that she sank because of a diving control malfunction. That there was and implosion of the pressure hull from the deep water. The compressed
air forcibly blew open the hatch that is seen to be open. And a close inspection of that hatch shows that it was indeed blow open from the inside pressure. There were no prisoners taken. There was no one who died from exposure in the water. The water depth here is about 3,000 feet.
THE LONG VERSION.
Presentation was at the Weston (Mass,.) Public Library. The room was about 75% full 1/2 an hour before the start. There were about 70 people attending this talk.
The Abele family had a quite large Victory Garden (as did about all of us in WWII). Their mother was the quiet hero of this situation.
Looking for this sub, there was a strange and most unlikely chain of circumstances and happenings. Here and there, there were delays but then another set of circumstances occurred and they were able to track down the sub's probable location. Thanks to a concerned person in Japan, Yutaka Iwasaki, they were able to piece together all of the needed info.
And absolutely ALL of the relatives of the crew were found and notified and were kept informed. One case in particular was detailed how the relatives were found. A lotta work and time for finding this one crewman's family.
There was a possibility of a circular running torpedo hitting the conning tower and knocking open the hatch. Also there was high pressure (collapsing) of the aft part of the conning tower. This circular torpedo hypothesis is a less likely one.
There was damage to the front of the conning tower's bridge. My guess is that this could have been from the front of the sub's front 50 feet breaking off when it hit bottom and its contacting the conning tower somehow. The remainder of the hull then slid 2/3rds of a mile along the bottom before coming to a stop. They did not find the bow. And the break occurred at about the middle of the torpedo room. The remaining part of the hull in this area showed evidence of implosion from the water pressure. It is unlikely that the bow or conning tower was hit by a circling torpedo. And there was no sign of an external explosion. And the torpedoes of that day were notoriously ineffective with their depth keeping and their magnetic detonators.
In this case, especially, determining how this boat became sunk was not a simple event.
1. This is the Grunion, established by details of the wreck's construction.
2. Hydrostatic pressure caused the failure and loss of the bow.
3. The open hatch at the aft battery compartment was show (by details) to have been blown open.
Crush depth was in excess of 300-feet, maybe as much as 500-feet.
The bow is still missing. Something about 20-feet in size was seen on the side-scan sonar in this area. But they were not able to spot the object later, searching with the ROV. Not enough time for that search.
A Japanese troop ship, the "Kanu Maru," fired machine gun rounds and 3 inch (antiaircraft) shells at the "Grunion." Minor damage to the top of the periscope indicates that a machine gun round may have hit it. Also the crew of the "Kanu Maru" saw what they believed to be a 3-inch shell hit something, followed by a brown colored liquid suddenly appearing in the water.
It is believed that a hydraulically raised mast on the conning tower was hit and the hydraulic fluid (under 300 psi pressure) was what was seen.
The sub had just fired 3 torpedoes and thus the bow was running light. This could have caused the sub to broach the surface and be seen and shot at. The type of shells used would have not been likely to have punctured the conning tower's pressure hull. And the sub would have tried to dive as quickly as possible.
On the wreck, the stern dive planes were in the full down position. It is felt that the most likely case was that something happened that prevented the crew from regaining control of the boat and get her to level off before reaching crush depth.
THE BELL STORY
Submarine bells were removed from the subs before they went to sea (to battle). A chaplain in the home port for the "Grunion" saw a bell in a scrap pile and asked if he could have it. He was refused, because it was to be sold as scrap. Then, some time later he received a rather large, heavy package. The bell was enclosed. It was then kept at the former chaplain's church and eventually its presence was discovered. There are further interesting stories about returning the bell.
The official website: http://www.ussgrunion.com/
The website's blog url. Interesting stuff. http://www.ussgrunion.com/blog/
IF YOU ARE IN THE NEW LONDON AREA
This talk will be repeated Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 1]http://www.mysticseaport.org/index.cfm? ... 0E3A6FF37A[/url]