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 on a Friday, Dec. 27, 2024: Taking a Licking
Above we see the Balao-class fleet submarine USS Bergall (SS-320) upon her triumphal return to Freemantle, Australia, some 80 years ago this week, on 23 December 1944, on completion of her epic Second War Patrol. The path of a 278-pound 8-inch shell fired from the Japanese heavy cruiser Myoko is clearly marked, having passed from port to starboard through the sub’s pressure hull.
But you should see the other guy!
The Balaos
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. U.S. subs, unlike those of many navies of the day, 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.
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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) Mk 14 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 Spikefish and USS Greenfish, the rocket mail-slinging USS Barbero, the carrier-slaying USS Archerfish, the long-serving USS Catfish, the U-boat scuttling USS Atule, the Busy Bug that was the USS Bugara, and the frogman Cadillac USS Perch —but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories.
Meet Bergall
Bergall was named for a small fish (Tautogolabrus adspersus) found along the East Coast.
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Via the State of New York Forest, Fish, and Game Commission, 1901, painted by SF Denton.
Laid down on 13 May 1943 at Electric Boat in Groton, Bergall launched just nine months later and commissioned on 12 June 1944, her construction running just 396 days.
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Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut. Shipway where future USS Bergall (SS-320) is under construction, circa summer 1943. Two welders are at work in the foreground. 80-G-K-15063
Her plankowner skipper, T/CDR John Milton Hyde, USN, (USNA 1934), had already earned a Silver Star as executive officer of the Salmon-class submarine USS Swordfish (SS-193) across four Pacific war patrols that bagged 11 Japanese ships and commanded that sub’s sister, Snapper (SS-185) while the latter was under overhaul.
Bergall carried out shakedown operations off New England for three weeks then, following post-shakedown availability at New London, set out for the Pacific via the Caribbean and the Panama Canal, pausing to rescue the two fliers of a crashed Army training plane in the Mona Passage off Puerto Rico.
She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 13 August and was soon ready for battle.
War!
Made the flagship of SubRon 26’s SubDiv 262, Bergall departed from Pearl Harbor on 8 September 1944 on her First War Patrol, ordered to hunt in the South China Sea.
Arriving off Saipan on the 19th, she soon had her first encounter with the Empire’s fighting men:
Her first contact with the enemy came a day and a half west of Saipan when in the high periscope she sighted a small boat containing five Japanese infantrymen. Bergall closed, attempting rescue, but the efforts were abandoned when the Japanese made gestures that indicated that they wanted us to leave them alone and that we were the scum of the earth. The Americans marveled at the pride and insolent bearing of the enemy, admired their courage, and pitied their stupidity.
Continuing West, she damaged a small Japanese transport vessel with gunfire east of Nha Trang, French Indo-China on 3 October with an exchange of 5-inch (20 rounds) and 40mm (40 rounds) gunfire, and six days later sank a small (700-ton) Japanese cargo vessel just south of Cam Ranh Bay with a trio of Mark 14 torpedoes.
She followed up on that small fry on 13 October by stalking a small four-ship convoy off the coast of Vietnam and sent the tanker Shinshu Maru (4182 GRT) to the bottom via four Mk 23s– and survived a five-hour-long depth charging in retaliation.
On the 27th, she torpedoed and sank the big Japanese tanker Nippo Maru (10528 GRT) and damaged the Japanese tanker Itsukushima Maru (10007 GRT, built 1937) south-west of Balabac Strait, a heroic action seeing the two vessels were protected by a thick escort of four frigates.
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On her way back to Freemantle on 2 November, she sank, via 420 rounds of 20mm, a small junk loaded with coconuts and chickens east of the Kangean Islands. Hyde noted in his patrol report “Regret the whole affair as picayune.”
Bergall’s very successful First War Patrol ended at Freemantle on 8 November 1944, covering 15,702 miles. Seventh Fleet authorized a Submarine Combat Insignia for the patrol and credited the boat with sinking 21,500 tons of Japanese shipping.
Not a bad first start!
Hyde would pick up his second Silver Star while the boat’s XO, LCDR Kimmel was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V.”
Cruiser Shootout
On 2 December 1944, Bergall departed Fremantle for her Second War Patrol, ordered once again to hunt in the South China Sea.
On 13 December, nearing sunset, our boat spotted a large ship at 35,000 yards off Royalist Bank and made a plan to attack after dark.
Over the next couple of hours, running in just 12-to-14 fathoms of water, she fired six Mk 23s while on the surface and received gunfire back. It turned out she blew the stern off the heavy cruiser Myoko and left her dead in the water. In return, the surfaced submarine was bracketed by shells typically credited as being 8-inchers from Myoko but more likely 5-inch shells from the escorting Japanese destroyer Ushio. One of these zipped right through Bergall’s pressure hull, a disaster that kept the submarine from surfacing while floating some 1,200 miles inside Japanese territory.
Her patrol report on the attack:
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While the shell impact left no personnel casualties, the sub was severely damaged and, with no welding capability, repairs consisted of a mix of brazed and bolted plates, plugged with pillows and mattresses:
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With all guns manned, demolition charges set for scuttling, and her damage patched up as best as possible, Bergall headed for home and was grateful when, on the morning of 15 December, she rendezvoused with the Gato-class submarine USS Angler (SS-240).
Transferring 2/3rds of her crew (54 men and one officer, the junior ensign) to Angler, Hyde noted of the attempt to make the Karimata Strait:
“if mandatory we could dive in shallow water and sit on the bottom. With Angler near at hand the enterprise didn’t seem too bad for the skeleton crew and officers. To have scuttled our ship in itself seemed unthinkable and it wasn’t much further to deep water in the right direction that it was in the wrong. The weather was very much in our favor too. The sky was heavily overcast with rain storms coming from the west-northwest.”
The men who remained aboard, all volunteers, comprised eight officers and 21 crew, the latter including at least three chiefs. This allowed an underway watch bill with two officers on the bridge, two men (helm and radar) in the tower, three (Chief of Watch, Aux, and I.C.) in the control room, and one EM in the maneuvering room.
By the end of the 16th, Bergall and Angler cleared the Karimata Strait without incident.
By the 18th, they cleared the Lombok Strait– just skirting Japanese patrol boats in the dark.
Making Exmouth on the tip of Western Australia’s North West Cape on the 20th, Bergall was able to remove the lightly brazed plating from the torpedo loading hatch and had new plates arc welded in place, enabling her to make for Freemantle on the 23rd where she ended her abbreviated patrol.
Hyde would receive the Navy Cross for the patrol and three other officers received the Silver Star.
The patrol was later dramatized in an episode of The Silent Service coined, “The Bergall’s Dilemma.” Hyde appears at the end of the episode for a brief comment.
As for Myoko, arriving at Singapore via tow on Christmas day, she would never sail again under her own power and surrendered to the Royal Navy in September 1945.
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Japanese Heavy Cruiser Myōkō in Singapore four days after surrendering to Royal Navy units, tied up alongside the submarines I-501 (ex U-181) and I-502 (ex U-862) – September 25, 1945 IWM – Trusler, C (Lt) Photographer IWM A 30701
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Captain Power visits the damaged Japanese cruiser. 25 September 1945, Singapore. In May 1944, five ships of the Twenty-Sixth Destroyer Flotilla attached to the British East Indies fleet, led by HMS Saumarez, with Captain M L Power, CBE, OBE, DSO, and BAR, as Captain (D), sank the Japanese cruiser Haguro in one hours action at the entrance to the Malacca Strait. When Saumarez entered Singapore Naval Base, Captain Power with his staff officers, paid a visit to Myoko, the sister ship of Haguro, now lying there with her stern blown off after the Battle of the Philippines. Crossing to the deck of the Myoko via the conning tower of a German U-boat, Captain Power and his party were met by Japanese officers who took them on a comprehensive tour of the ship. Two British naval officers examine what is left of the Myoko’s stern. IWM A 30703
Cuties
Patched up and taking on a supply of diminutive new Mk 27 passive acoustic torpedoes– dubbed Cuties as they only went about half the size of Mk 14s and 23s— Bergall left Fremantle on 27 January 1945 for her Third War Patrol, ordered to scour the Lombok Strait of small Japanese escorts and move on to the South China Sea.
However, with a short range (just 5,000 yards), the shallow-water Cuties had to be used up close to work. Carrying a warhead with just 95 pounds of Torpex, they were meant for killing small escorts.
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Between 27 January and 7 February, Bergall made five nighttime attack runs with Cuties while in the Lombok, each time allowing a single slow (12 knots) Mk 27 to swim out at ranges as close as 200 yards. The result was in sinking of the Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Wa 102 (174 tons)– picking up two survivors and making them POWs– and damaging the store ship Arasaki (920 GRT).
Moving toward the Philippines, Bergall sank the Japanese frigate Kaibokan 53 (745 tons) and damaged the tanker Toho Maru (10,238 GRT) off Cam Ranh Bay.
Then, on 13 February, working in conjunction with fellow subs USS Blower and Guitarro off Hainan island, she came across a ripe target for any submariner– a pair of Japanese battlewagons– the hybrid battleship/carriers Ise and Hyuga.
She ripple-fired six Mk 14s in a risky daylight periscope attack from 10,000 yards– without success.
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She ended her patrol on 17 February at recently liberated Subic Bay, PI, having traveled 6,070 miles.
The “Cutie Patrol” would be immortalized in an episode of The Silent Service, “The Bergall’s Revenge.”
The hits keep coming
The boat’s uneventful Fourth War Patrol (5 March to 17 April) which included a special mission (typically code to land agents) and rescuing four USAAF B-25 aircrew from the water, ended at Freemantle.
Bergall then left Australia on 12 May 1945 on her Fifth Patrol, bound to haunt the coast of Indochina.
On the morning of the 18th, she battered a small Japanese coastal freighter in the Lombok Strait but didn’t get to see it sink as enemy aircraft were inbound.
Joining up with an American wolfpack in the Gulf of Siam including USS Bullhead (SS-332), Cobia (SS-245), Hawkbill (SS-366), and Kraken (SS-370), she sighted a small intercoastal convoy of tugs and barges in the predawn moonlight of 30 May, and sank same.
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Then, on 13 June, she swept a mine the hard way while chasing an enemy convoy.
Ironically, the minefield, a mix of three dozen acoustic and magnetic-induction type mines, had been laid by Allied aircraft out of India in March and was unknown to the Seventh Fleet command. While the mine, which had at least a 490-pound explosive charge, was believed to be some 90 feet away from the hull when it went off, and Bergall’s hull retained integrity, it nonetheless rocked the boat severely.
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From her damage report:
The impact of the detonation jarred the entire ship. Personnel were knocked off their feet, tossed out of bunks, and in the maneuvering room were thrown up against the overhead. Lighting failed in the maneuvering and after torpedo rooms. The overspeed trips operated on Nos. 2 and 3 main Diesel engines, which were on propulsion, and No. 1 main Diesel engine, which was charging the batteries, causing all three engines to stop and thereby cutting off power to the main propulsion motors.
However, just 20 minutes after the explosion, Bergall had restarted her engines and was motoring away. While still capable of operations, her engineering suite was so loose and noisy it was thought she would be unable to remain operational and she was ordered to Subic, arriving there on 17 June.
Quick inspection at Subic found that the facility was unable to effect repairs and Bergall was ordered to shlep some 10,000 miles back to New London via Saipan, Pearl Harbor, and the Panama Canal.
Arriving at New London on 4 August 1945, she was there when the war ended.
Bergall earned four battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation (for her 2nd patrol) for her World War II service. Her unconfirmed record at the end of the war included some 33,280 tons of enemy shipping sunk across five sunken warships and five merchantmen along with another 66,000 tons damaged.
Her WWII battle flag carried an upside-down horseshoe with the number “13” inside of it since so many incidents in her service had occurred on the 13th day of the month.
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CDR Hyde, when he left the vessel in September 1945, was given a farewell watch by his crew. Engraved on its back was a large “13.”
As for Myoko, she towed to the Strait of Malacca in 1946 and scuttled off of Port Swettenham (Port Klang), Malaya.
Cold Warrior
Finishing her repair and overhaul– she picked up new sensors including an SV radar– Bergall rejoined the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1945 and, as part of SubRon1, would spend the next five years stationed in Hawaii. This typically involved a series of reserve training dives, simulated war patrols and cruises between the West Coast and Hawaii, ASW exercises with the fleet, and acting as a tame sub for maritime patrol squadrons.
From December 1948 through February 1949, she roamed to the West Pac, visiting Australia and Japan for a bottom mapping exercise, a cruise that earned her a Navy Occupation Service Medal and a China Service Medal.
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Bergall at Brisbane in December 1948, note she is still largely in her WWII configuration. Via Navsource. Photo courtesy of John Hummel, USN (Retired).
Transferring to the Atlantic Fleet in June 1950, she had her topside streamlined, landing her deck guns and receiving a new sail, then, between November 1951 and April 1952, received a Fleet Snorkel conversion at Philadelphia Navy Yard.
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Bergall circa 1950, with her topside streamlined but before her snorkel conversion.
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USS Bergall (SS-320), 22 July 1952. USN 479940
Bergall, in the spirit of her “lucky 13” nature, lost her periscope twice within five years during her peacetime service.
The first, in 1949, was to a passing Van Camp tuna boat off the California coast.
The second, during LANTFLEX on Halloween 1954, had her periscopes and radar masts where sliced through by the destroyer USS Norris (DDE-859)’s bow, luckily without any casualties.
Ironically, USS Angler, the same boat that stood by Bergall after she was holed in the fight against Myoko a decade prior, stood by her and escorted the sub into port.
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Bergall (SS-320) as a causality on 2 November 1954. Photo and text i.d. courtesy of Mike Brood, bergall.org.
Repaired, she completed two Mediterranean cruises (9 Nov 1955-28 Jan 1956 and 31 Aug -6 Dec 1957), and, once she returned, was reassigned to Key West Naval Station for preparations to be handed over at military aid.
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Bergall 1958, returning from Bermuda just before she was handed over to a NATO ally as military aid. Via Bergall.org
Turkish Guppy Days
Between May 1948 and August 1983, the Turkish Navy would receive no less than 23 second-hand U.S. Navy diesel submarines, all WWII-era (or immediately after) fleet boats.
These would include (in order of transfer): ex-USS Brill (SS 330), Blueback (SS 326), Boarfish (SS 327), Chub (SS 329), Blower (SS 325), Bumper (SS 333), Guitarro (SS 363), Hammerhead (SS 364), Bergall (SS 320), Mapiro (SS 376), Mero (SS 378), Seafox (SS 402), Razorback (SS 394), Thornback (SS 418), Caiman (SS 323), Entemedor (SS 340), Threadfin (SS 410), Trutta (SS 421), Pomfret (SS 391), Corporal (SS 346), Cobbler (SS 344), Tang (SS 563), and Gudgeon (SS 567).
Our Bergall would sail from Key West on 26 September 1958, bound for Izmir, Turkey, where she would arrive 19 days later.
On 17 October, she was decommissioned and handed over in a warm transfer to the Turkish Navy in a ceremony that saw her renamed Turgutreis (S-342), officially on a 15-year lease.
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The highlights of the handover ceremony, in Turkish:
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Ex-Bergall/Turgutreis (S-342) in Turkish service. She would take part in the Cyprus War in 1974, among other operations with the Turkish fleet.
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Turkey’s collection of Snorkel and GUPPY modified U.S. Navy fleet boats via the 1960 edition of Janes, to include Bergall/Turgutreis.
While in Turkish service, Bergall in the meantime had her name canceled from the Navy List in 1965 and was stricken from the USN’s inventory altogether in 1973, with ownership transferred to Istanbul.
Following the delivery of new Type 209 submarines from West Germany, Bergall/Turgutreis was no longer needed for fleet operations and in April 1983 she was decommissioned.
Renamed Ceryan Botu-6, she was relegated to pier side service at Golcuk Naval Shipyard for another 13 years, where she was stripped of parts to keep other American boats in operations while serving as a battery charging boat with a 15-man crew, primarily of electricians.
In June 1999, Ceryan Botu-6/Turgutreis/Bergall was pulled from service and sold for scrap the following year.
Turkey only retired its last two ex-USN “smoke boats,” Tang and Gudgeon, in 2004
Epilogue
Few lingering relics remain of Bergall.
Her War History and deck logs are in the National Archives.
Her wartime skipper, John Milton Hyde (NSN: 0-73456), retired from the Navy following Korean War service as a captain with a Navy Cross and three Silver Stars on his salad bar. He passed in 1981, aged 71, and is buried in Arlington’s Section 25.
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“The Old Man” completed 12 war patrols, five of them on Bergall.
The Navy recycled the name of its rough-and-tumble Balao for another vessel, SSN-667, a Sturgeon-class hunter-killer built, like her namesake, at EB, ordered on 9 March 1965.
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USS Bergall (SSN-667) conducts an emergency surfacing test off the east coast, in September 1969. K-77428
Commissioned on 13 June 1969 (!) her ship’s crest carried five stars in a salute to the old Bergall’s five WWII Pacific war patrols. In another, less Navy-approved similarity to her namesake, she suffered a casualty-free peacetime collision with the submarine rescue vessel USS Kittiwake (ASR-13).
Notably, SSN-667 was the first submarine in the fleet to carry the Mk 48 heavy torpedo on deployment, as well as the first east coast-based submarine to carry a DSRV, and earned two Navy Unit Commendations. She decommissioned on 6 June 1996.
A vibrant veterans’ group saluting both Bergalls endures.
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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