Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger
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Warship Wednesday, April 2, 2025: Jeezy Breezy, We Hit Em!
Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 90825
Above, we see the Balao-class fleet boat USS Charr (SS-328), off Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Mare Island, California, 16 September 1946, just after the war.
Although she got into the war late, only starting her first war patrol in December 1944, Charr has the distinction of sinking the last enemy cruiser sent to the bottom by a U.S. submarine, a feat accomplished after a four-day chase some 80 years ago this week.
The Balao Class
A member of the 180+-ship Balao class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlier Gato class. Unlike those of many navies of the day, U.S. subs were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. The Balao class was deeper diving (400 ft. test depth) than the Gato class (300 feet) due to the use of high-yield strength steel in the pressure hull.
Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.
Some 311 feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for today’s inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.
An amazing 121 Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:
- Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
- Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
- Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
- Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
- Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)
We have covered a number of this class before, such as the sub-killing USS Greenfish, the UDT-10 carrying USS Burrfish, the rocket mail slinger USS Barbero, the carrier-slaying USS Archerfish, the long-serving USS Catfish, the U-boat scuttling USS Atule, Spain’s “30-one-and-only,” and the frogman Cadillac USS Perch —but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories
Meet Charr
Originally to be the first warship named after the Bocaccio, a type of West Coast rock fish, our subject was laid down, 26 August 1943, at Electric Boat in Groton. The powers that be swapped this tough to spell marine creature for the much easier Charr, a type of trout common to the Pacific Northwest, a month later.
As such, the future USS Charr- the only warship to carry the name- was launched on 28 May 1944, sponsored by the wife of a no doubt upstanding citizen of Groton, and commissioned on 23 September 1944, her construction spanning a scant 394 days. At the time, EB was building them so fast that it was a dual commissioning ceremony– the first at New London- with sistership USS Boarfish (SS-327), who had been laid down just a fortnight before Charr.
Charr’s plank owner skipper was CDR Francis Dennis Boyle (USNA ’34). It was his first command, having gone out as a junior officer and XO on three previous war patrols on other fleet boats.
Sailing for the West Pac on 5 November to join the Big Show after six weeks of shakedowns, she arrived at Pearl Harbor via the Ditch in early December and spent Christmas of 1944 at Pearl Harbor.
She had a fairly green crew, with her wardroom averaging out to about two patrols per officer (although her two most junior ensigns were mustangs with 14 patrols between them). Meanwhile, her goat locker had a similar average with three of her chiefs counting zero patrols between them. Overall, only 43 of her 80 men aboard had earned their dolphins.
War!
On 30 December 1944, Charr was escorted out of Pearl Harbor along with the veteran boat, USS Batfish, to begin her first war patrol, ordered to roam the South China Sea by way of Saipan. Clearing that occupied former Japanese possession on 13 January 1945 with a full load of diesel oil and provisions topped off from the sub-tender USS Fulton, Charr made for her patrol area and spent the next several weeks fighting heavy seas while hiding from Japanese patrol aircraft.
Carr in the distinctive late-war fleet “gunboat submarine” configuration with forward and aft 5″/25s augmented with matching 40mm and 20mm mounts. Photo by Lt. Herb Hanson via Navsource.
She dodged a couple of floating mines and made a rendezvous at sea with her commissioning mate Boarfish on 27 January off Pulo Kambir, some 8,500 miles away from New London. Small world!
The next day, she was dispatched to close with the coast of Japanese-occupied French Indochina to search for downed fliers. Anchoring just 2,700 yards offshore, a landing team recovered the radioman of a downed aircraft in broad daylight on the 29th, then had to return after dark for the rest of the aircrew but found herself in the middle of Japanese convoy HI-88-B (Singapore to Moji).
From Charr’s patrol report:
While Boarfish was lucky enough to sink the Japanese tanker Enki Maru (6968 GRT) and force the tanker Daietsu Maru (6890 GRT) aground, Charr came away from the encounter empty-handed, never able to get close enough to make an attack. Transferring her navy radioman aboard her sistership, which was Fremantle-bound, Charr remained on fruitless patrol, working off and on with the fellow fleet boats USS Tuna and Blackfin.
On 21 February, while Boarfish’s crew was enjoying the bars and beaches of Western Australia, Charr crossed the equator and was ordered to go to the rescue of the imperiled Dutch T-class submarine HrMs Zwaardvisch (P 322), which she did on the 22nd. She would spend the next four days on a risky southbound passage to Lombok Strait on the surface.
Charr ended her 1st patrol at Fremantle on 3 March, having not fired any torpedoes, dodged over 20 enemy air contacts, and only fired her guns (20mm) at enemy mines. Despite the risky rescue of the downed Navy radioman, and boldly escorting Zwaardvisch back to safety, the patrol was not deemed by COMSUBPAC to be successful.
On the bright side, she ran 13,799 miles across 63 days on her first patrol with no casualties, and 75 of 80 men aboard had dolphins at the end of it. She was ready.
Second Patrol
Charr sailed out of Freemantle again on 27 March after refit, ordered, in part, to comb the Flores, Java, and South China Seas in coordination with USS Gabilan (SS-252) and Besugo (SS-321) while HM Submarine Spark was nearby but not attached. Charr celebrated Easter submerged on 1 April entering the Lombok Strait.
Soon, this Yankee wolfpack would sniff out one of the Empire’s last operational cruisers outside of Japan’s home waters.
The Nagara class light cruiser Isuzu had helped seize Hong Kong from the British and survived the Solomons and the hellfire of the Leyte Gulf, but her days had run out.
Nagara Class Light Cruiser Isuzu pictured on completion off Uraga on August 20th, 1923
Nagara Class Light Cruiser Isuzu pictured underway in Tokyo Bay on September 14th, 1944
Tasked with collecting isolated Japanese troops from Kupang and taking them to Sumbawa Island with an escort of a torpedo boat and two minesweepers, Boyle’s wolfpack (he was SOPA) sighted the little convoy off Paternoster Island at 1125 on 4 April but were forced to submerge due to Japanese air cover. Meanwhile, Gabilan sank a small Japanese vessel with gunfire in a surface action.
Besugo got close enough in the predawn of 5 April to fire six torpedoes at Isuzu and one, throat down, at her escorts, all of which missed.
The pursuit continued with RAAF Mosquitos of No. 87 Squadron and FRUMEL intercepts, pointing the way for B-25s of the Free Dutch No. 18 Squadron to attack the force on the morning of 6 April, dropping 60 500-pound bombs without result.
Meanwhile, Isuzu picked up her assigned marooned troops and deposited them that afternoon at Sumbawa, unharmed. A second attack by B-24s of the RAAF’s Nos. 21 and 24 Squadrons later that day left Isuzu limping and on manual steering.
It was in the afternoon of 6th April, between Sumbawa and Komodo islands is the Sape Strait, that Boyle’s wolfpack caught up to the Isuzu group again. Besugo fired another 11 torpedoes in two attacks and bagged the escorting Japanese minesweeper W 12 (630 tons) for her effort, then was forced back to Freemantle as she was out of fish. She surfaced and saw survivors in the water after the Japanese had moved on “but all refused to be picked up.”
At 0255 on 7 April, Charr made radar contact with Isuzu and her two remaining escorts at 14,700 yards, making their way out of Sumbawa’s Bima Bay. “Bingo, this may be the jackpot,” noted Boyle.
Radioing the contact to Gabilan, who was in the path of the Isuzu group, that submarine made an attack on the cruiser with five torpedoes, one of which hit below the bridge, causing flooding forward and cutting her speed to 10 knots.
Meanwhile, Charr moved in for the kill. From her patrol report:
Isuzu was the last of her class in Japanese service remaining and the final Axis cruiser sunk by an American submarine.
The next day, the wolfpack broke up, with Gabilan and Spark heading on their ways as Charr was detailed to complete a Special Mission (planting a minefield off Pulo Island) while sinking a 500-ton Japanese coaster on 10 April via gunfire. On the 13th, they received word of FDR’s death (“All hands are deeply saddened”), then on the 16th fired six torpedoes at two Japanese escorts in the Gulf of Siam without luck.
Stopping in at Subic Bay briefly on 20-24 April, she then headed to Formosa for lifeguard duty, saving USAAF Lt. Hugo Casciola, a Fifth Air Force P-51 pilot (likely of the 3rd Air Commando Group), on 6 May.
Ending her 56-day patrol at Subic on 21 May, Charr sailed 11,688 miles. Her patrol was deemed a success and a Submarine Combat Insignia was authorized, with Charr credited for 5,670 tons of Japanese shipping sunk.
Third Patrol
On 14 June 1945, Charr left Subic Bay for her 3rd war patrol, ordered to the Gulf of Siam, one of the few areas with a significant Japanese presence afloat, even if it was in the form of coastal traffic. By the end of the month, she formed an Allied wolfpack with HMS Selene (P 254) and Sea Scout (P 253), later joined by Supreme (P 252). They chased down a small Japanese convoy not worth the torpedoes to sink but could never get close enough to engage it with gunfire.
On 5 July at 0042 while on the surface alone, Charr’s lookouts spotted an incoming torpedo that only missed them by 25 yards, with Boyle noting “Evidence of the torpedo from its wake is unmistakable” as Charr left the area at flank speed.
With the three luckless British S-boats returning to Freemantle, Boyle, on 11 Jul,y inherited an all-American pack built around USS Hammerhead, Blower, and Bluefish. Four days later, Bluefish, birddogged by reports from Blower, who fired four torpedoes at a Japanese I-class submarine contact, found I-351 on the surface 100 miles out of Natuna Besar, Borneo with a cargo of 42 irreplaceable naval aircrewmen. Bluefish sent I-351 and 110 of her 113 crew and passengers to the bottom with a four-torpedo spread.
Charr ended her 43-day 3rd war patrol at Fremantle on 26 July. Although her group bagged a big Japanese sub, that was Bluefish’s kill, and, thus, the patrol was not deemed worthy of an SCI.
As WWII ended before Charr could begin a fourth patrol, she ended the conflict with just one battle star for her second patrol. She was then dispatched to Guam to join SUBRON5.
Fleet boats USS Sea Cat (SS-399), USS Redfish (SS-395), and USS Charr (SS-328) alongside a tender at Apra Harbor, Guam, in 1945. Photographed by John R. Huggard. NH 93824
Submarine Squadron 5 boats of the squadron nested together in 1945. Photographed by Lieutenant Herb Hanson. Ships are (from left to right): Segundo (SS-398), Sea Cat (SS-399), Blenny (SS-324), Blower (SS-325), Blueback (SS-326), and Charr (SS-328). NH 86621
Charr then returned to the West Coast on 27 January 1946, capping 15 months deployed out of CONUS. A refit at Mare Island and a new skipper followed.
USS Charr (SS-328) off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Mare Island, California, 16 September 1946. NH 90826
Cold War Snorkel Days
With the Navy rapidly demobilizing, there still had to be somebody on watch, especially with conflict boiling around the suddenly post-colonial West Pac, and Charr was one of several subs tasked with making what were termed simulated war patrols. One 115-day training patrol, departing San Francisco on the 4 October 1946, included visits to Pearl, Subic Bay, Shanghai, and Tsingtao China, as well as Yokosuka Japan, and was concluded at San Diego on 27 January 1947. A second one followed soon after.
She then fell into a quiet peacetime period of drilling naval reservists on two-week coastal deployments along the California and Mexican coasts with two dozen reservists aboard, serving as a training boat to the Submarine Training Facilities San Diego, participating in exercises, and earning a series of Battle Es including the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Prize in 1948, the first for a Pacific sub.
TBM-3E Avenger attack planes of VS-25 in flight over USS Charr (SS-328), 15 March 1950, under deployment to Fleet Air Wing Four, Whidbey Island. Note that she is still in her original configuration. 80-G-443900
On 10 July 1951, she entered Mare Island to be converted to a “Four-engine Fleet-type Snorkel” submarine, emerging four months later with a radically different topside appearance.
Caiman, SS-323 and Charr at Mare Island conversion to Guppy IA and Fleet Snork
USS Charr at Mare Island 9 Nov 1951
Would you look at that snorter! USS Charr at Mare Island 9 Nov 1951
Besides the obvious snorkel installation and sensor updates, the conversion gave her a new streamlined sail and removed her deck guns. She also sported a two-tone scheme.
USS Charr (SS-328) off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Mare Island, California, November 1951. Following conversion to “fleet-Snorkel” configuration. Note her experimental paint scheme. NH 90830
Same as above. NH 90828
Same as above. NH 90829
Same as above.
Then came the Korean War, which included a six-month war patrol (26 March -2 October 1952) in the region under the orders of Commander Naval Forces, Far East.
Sent to the West Pac again after the cease fire, she left San Diego on 13 June 1954.
USS Charr at speed
She visited Formosa, Taiwan, and met the 7th Fleet boss and the inaugural commander of the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command, VADM Alfred M. Pride, who appeared on hand with exiled Generallisimo Chiang Kei-Shek himself. The 67-year-old first president of the Republic of China toured Charr extensively and got underway briefly on 9 November. Most Americans forget today, but the U.S. had upwards of 20,000 troops deployed at any given time to Taiwan through 1979, when the USTDC was disbanded under the Carter administration.
General Chiang Kai Shek on board USS Charr (SS 328) at Keelung, Formosa. General Shek peers through the periscope as Commander Whitman, Commanding Officer of the submarine, looks on, November 9, 1954. 330-PS-7025 (USN 649238)
General Chiang Kai Shek on board USS Charr (SS 328) at Keelung, Formosa. General Shek with Vice Admiral Alfred H. Pride on the navigation bridge, November 9, 1954. 330-PS-7025 (USN 649236)
General Chiang Kai Shek on board USS Charr (SS 328) at Keelung, Formosa. General Shek with Vice Admiral Alfred H. Pride on the weather deck, November 9, 1954. 330-PS-7025 (USN 649237)
Then followed a decade of West Coast operations, ranging from Vancouver to Acapulco with naval reservists and participating in public events such as the Seattle Sea Fair and supporting Girl Scout Marine Ship 36 of Pasadena with tiger cruises.
She was in 12,000 feet of water off San Diego on 26 September 1961 when, while rigged for deep submergence, a main motor circulating water hose ruptured at 150 feet, flooding the Maneuvering Room, a situation saved after two ratings sealed themselves in the engine room and maintained power to rapidly bring the Charr to the surface. Living to fight another day, she was towed to San Francisco Naval Shipyard for repairs. John McGee, EM1, received the Navy Commendation Medal, while Douglass Webster, EM3, received a Letter of Commendation for their efforts to save their ship that day.
Operationally, she drilled in PACTRAEX and completed active West Pac deployments with Seventh Fleet in 1957, 1959, 1961, and 1963.
USS Tilefish, USS Razorback, and USS Charr moored in Vancouver in 1957. Note the difference in sail types
Balao-class submarine USS Charr (SS-328) in drydock at Yokosuka, Japan, 1963
USS Charr (SS-328) underway, 14 December 1963. USN 1094488
Same as above USN 1094493
USS Charr (SS-328) underway off San Diego, California, 8 January 1965. USN 1110922
Balao class, 1965 Janes, at which point the Navy still had a whopping 80 of these boats on hand
With U.S. involvement in Vietnam ramping up in 1965, Charr was deployed to those waters as a sideshow to SEATO Exercise Sea Horse and, along with a half-dozen other diesel boats, would soon be laying off the North Vietnam littoral on secret observation and lifeguard missions for Rolling Thunder air strikes.
It was during these support operations that Charr recovered CDR Jack H. Harris, commanding officer of VA-155, from the Gulf of Tonkin on 29 March.
Harris, flying from the USS Coral Sea, had ejected from his damaged A-4E Skyhawk (BuNo 150078) after an Alpha strike against North Vietnamese air search radar facilities on Bach Long Vi Island, which is located about 70 miles offshore roughly midway between Haiphong and the Chinese island of Hainan. He was the last pilot to be rescued CSAR style by a lifeguard submarine, almost 20 years to the date from Charr’s WWII lifeguard service. The waterlogged pilot remained on Charr for several days and was eventually high-lined to a destroyer for return to Coral Sea. Sadly, he died in the fire on Oriskany in 1966.
Charr almost got a second rescue from Coral Sea off Bach Long Vi Island as well.
As noted by EM3(SS) Sid Anderson of the old USS Charr Association:
CDR William N. Donnelly, CO of Fighter Squadron 154, flying F-8D BuNo 148642, had his controls shot out while in a dive-bombing run against an AAA site. He ejected while inverted at 450 knots and 1,000 feet altitude, landing about 4 miles from the island. On the night of March 30th, upon becoming aware that transmissions from CDR Donnelly’s emergency radio were being received, the USS Charr surfaced and conducted a grid search but was unsuccessful in finding him. Later that day, during the mid-watch (12 noon to 4 p.m.) CDR Donnelly was sighted floating in his survival raft by aircraft that were en route to another bombing raid. His location was about 14 miles from the Charr, which was submerged at the time. Once in receipt of this information, LCDR John M. Draddy, CO of the Charr, surfaced and proceeded to CDR Donnelly’s location. Upon arrival at the site, a fleet of Chinese junks were already there, with no sight of CDR Donnelly or his raft. With the belief that the junks had gotten to him first, LCDR Draddy quickly assembled an armed boarding party intending to rescue him. However, before any action was taken, LCDR Draddy received word that CDR Donnelly had already been picked up by a U.S. Air Force HU-16 amphibian, and the boarding party was dismissed. In his raft, CDR Donnelly had successfully evaded North Vietnamese patrol boats for some 45 hours.
Entering the twilight of her career, Charr would be redesignated an Auxiliary Submarine (SGSS) in July 1966, and make her seventh West Pac deployment from May to December 1967 that included SEATO Exercise Sea Dog and service as a “tame” Military Assistance Program submarine on loan to the navies of the Philippines, South Korea and China for use in ASW training.
She made her 7,000th dive on 20 July 1968. Not bad work considering most of her constructors were war-hires and “Rosies.”
Charr’s (SS-328) 7000th dive, 20 July 1968. (L to R): TMSN Don McClain (IC Electrician watch), HMC(SS) “Doc” Taft(standing by just in case), TM1(SS) Vince Solari (OOD/Diving Officer), LCDR Jim Callan (port lookout), CS1(SS) Jake Wade (Chief of the Watch), EN1(SS) Harley Rackley (trim manifold watch), EM2(SS) Lin Marvil (starboard lookout). Photo by J.D. Decrevel EM2(SS), via Navsource.
Spending the rest of her career stateside, Charr was decommissioned on 28 June 1969 in a mass five-way ceremony with the old fleet boats Bream, Tunny, Bluegill, and Raton.
Bream (AGSS-243), Tunny (AGS-282), and Charr (AGSS-328), during the decommissioning ceremony at Mare Island on 28 June 1969. Photo courtesy of the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum via Darryl L. Baker, via Navsource.
Charr continued “In Service, In Reserve” for another 18 months until 20 December 1971, at which time she was struck from the Navy List. She was sold to Nicolai Joffe, Beverly Hills, for $105,381 on 17 August 1972, then subsequently scrapped in Kearny. New Jersey
Charr earned an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for her Vietnam cruise, added to two for Korea, and her sole WWII battle star.
Epilogue
Little remains of Charr.
Her Cold War deck logs, WWII patrol reports, and war history are digitized in the National Archives.
She had an active veteran’s group that was online until about 2020.
Post-WWII, Charr’s only wartime skipper CDR Boyle, who earned a Navy Cross for sinking Isuzu, did a stint at JPL then got heavily into guided missile research, rising to head White Sands in the late 1950s. He earned his surface warfare badge as commander of the USS Springfield (CLG-7) just after her conversion to a guided missile cruiser and then later broke his flag over Cruiser Destroyer Flotilla 7 as a rear admiral. He retired in 1968 and passed a decade later at age 68. His papers are in the Hoover Institution.
RADM Doyle, Charr’s WWII skipper
Her Vietnam-era skipper, LCDR John Draddy, the man who was ready to fight off a fleet of Chinese junks on the surface with Tommy guns and M1 Carbines to save a downed naval aviator, earned a Bronze Star for that cruise. He retired from the Navy as a captain, 29 years a submariner. He passed in 2005, aged 76, with a host of grandkids, and is buried at Arlington.
The P-51 pilot that Charr plucked from the drink off Formosa in May 1945, Hugo Casciola, survived the war and passed in Pennsylvania in 1976 at age 60. During WWII, U.S. submarines rescued no less than 504 downed airmen from all services.
It would be almost two decades after Chiang Kai-shek rode on Charr that the Republic of China obtained its first submarines, receiving the Balao-class ex-USS Tusk (SS-426) and Tench-class ex-USS Cutlass (SS-478) in 1973, recommissioning them as the “unarmed” training boats Hai Po and Hai Shih respectively. They were later augmented by a pair of Dutch-built SSKs.
Taiwan’s first Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS), Hai Kun (SS-711), was launched last February at the CSBC shipyard in Kaohsiung. She is set to wrap up sea trials this month.
Taiwan IDS submarine, the future Hai Kun, departing for sea trials. CSBC picture.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***
Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.
***
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