The First Submarines Arrive at Pearl Harbor

Today's date marks the ninety-first anniversary of the arrival of the first submarine division in Pearl Harbor.  Submarine Division Fourteen, consisting of six R-boats numbering R-15 through R-20, arrived in Pearl Harbor on June 25, 1919 and served in Hawaii for the next eleven years.

State of the art for their time, the Navy built R-class boats as the First World War came to an end.  The subs weighed in at about 600 tons, measured at 186 feet in length, and carried a crew of only twenty-nine Sailors.  The R-18 made history at the fledgling base as the first submarine to moor at Pier 1, located at Pearl Harbor’s Quarry Point.  The other five boats anchored at nearby Kuahua Island, along with the division’s tender, the USS Beaver, until more improvements occurred at the piers.  Kuahua functioned as a temporary submarine facility until February of 1920.  The construction of facilities at Quarry Point lacked funding at the time that the new submarines arrived.  As a result, the crews of the R-boats were forced to find shelter in tents provided by the Beaver.  Once described as a “swamp and cactus covered wasteland,” Quarry Point posed a challenge for the submariners to establish a livable environment.  They cleared the land and installed temporary facilities shipped over from  France following America’s withdrawal from Europe at the end of World War I. 

Lieutenant Commander Felix X. Gygax, a man with an unforgettable name and a distinguished career as a pioneer in the submarine business, was the first commanding officer of this small contingent.  He holds the distinction of the first Officer in Charge of the Submarine School in new London, Connecticut.  However, it was his replacement who eventually rose to naval legend. 

On July 17, 1920, the Executive Officer on board the battleship USS South Carolina relieved Commander Gygax as Commander of Submarine Division Fourteen, of the new division tender USS Chicago, and of the Submarine Base.  His name was Commander Chester W. Nimitz.  Despite the economic restraints placed on much of the military’s operations in the years following the war, Nimitz was largely credited with providing the base with its earliest infrastructure using surplus equipment left over from the wartime expansion.  The first permanent structure was built on Pearl Harbor sub base in 1923.  Nimitz left Pearl Harbor in 1922 for the Naval War College, unaware of the historic circumstances that would necessitate his return twenty years later.  

The submarine base at Pearl Harbor experienced many changes through the years.  The base remained inadequately funded until the 1930s drew to a close and the United States slowly awakened to the “gathering storm” in Europe.  Following America’s entry into World War II, hundreds of workers funneled through the base and dozens of temporary structures required wholesale changes to the geography of the base.  Inevitably, it became a vital center of undersea operations in the Pacific.

But what of the old R-boats, the first tenants of Quarry Point?

Surprisingly, all of the subs served through World War II as training vessels and most transferred to the U.K. under the Lend-Lease program.  Eventually, the Navy scrapped them.  

Tragically, the R-19, later redesignated SS-96, sunk when the Canadian vessel HMCS Georgian rammed the submarine on June 21, 1942 in the western Atlantic.  All hands were lost.

A Celebration of Pearl Harbor's History

Yesterday we unveiled nine new wayside exhibits around the naval station at Pearl Harbor.

Wayside exhibits have been referred to as "captions on the landscape".  When you visit a museum you see documents, photographs or objects on display and there will generally be some kind of signage that will describe what you are looking at.  A wayside exhibit accomplishes the same function but on a much larger scale by describing an entire area. 

Each exhibit highlights an area of Pearl Harbor's century long history.  It is hoped that the wayside exhibits will educate and inform the public who visit the base, as well as the civilian and military employees who live and work here.

MERRY POINT LANDING

Features a brief synopsis of Pearl Harbor's history and a description of the area before Western contact. Probably one of the more frequented areas on the base.

COALING STATION WALL

In many ways where it all began.  The coaling station was designed to provide ships with the needed coal to continue their transit across the Pacific.  Fully completed in 1918 as ships were beginning to make the transition from coal to oil, the USS Nevada (BB 36) commissioned in 1916 being the first American battleship to be built soley as an oil burning vessel.

HOSPITAL POINT

Originally the area known as Hospital Point  contained a high powered radion station as well as the naval hospital.  The hospital eventually moved ts operations to Aiea Heights, but the homes once occupied by the commanding officer, surgeons and pharmacists are still here.  Inceidentally this was the site of the unveiling ceremony.

FORD ISLAND

Known as Moku'ume'ume to the native Hawaiians, part of the island was eventually purchased by the War Department in 1917 for the construction of Luke Field.  In 1923 a naval air station was established which functioned until 1962.

SHIPYARD

For over 100 years, the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard has been servicing vessels for the U.S. Navy earning the motto, "We keep em' fit to fight."

HALE ALII

Established between 1914 and 1916, this area has been a welcome respite for officers and their families in times of peace and war.  Hale Alii means "Royal Homes" in Hawaiian.

SUB BASE

Originally a "swamp and cactus covered wasteland" these piers have been home to submarines of the pacific Fleet since its construction in the 1920s.

KUAHUA

Once an island similar to Ford Island, the area now known as Kuahua Peninsula has seen the transformation from a naval magazine to a supply center.

The Golden Ballast of the USS Trout

The picture above documented the USS Trout (SS-202) returning to Pearl Harbor from the Battle of Midway on June 14, 1942.  On board were two Japanese prisoners, Chief Radioman Hatsuichi Yoshida and Fireman 3rd Class Kenichi Ishikawa, survivors of the sunken cruiser Mikuma.  Admiral Nimitz awaited her arrival on the pier.  The USS Trout, a 1475-ton Tambor class submarine built by the Portsmouth Navy Yard, was commissioned in 1940. 

A highlight of her commendable war career occurred on January 12, 1942, when the Trout left Pearl Harbor to deliver 3,500 rounds of ammunition to American forces on Corregidor.  On February 3, she arrived at the besieged island.  Twenty tons of gold bars and silver pesos, evacuated from the Philippines, was loaded on the submarine since neither sandbags nor concrete was available for additional ballast.  Escorted through the mine fields to the open ocean, she left the next day.  On the afternoon of February 10, 1942, she scored two torpedo hits on the Japanese freighter Chuwa Maru.  That evening, she scored another kill on a patrol vessel while avoiding a hit by enemy torpedos.  Finally, on March 3, the Trout finally made her way back to Pearl Harbor.  She transferred her "golden ballast" to a waiting cruiser.

One of 52 American submarines now on eternal patrol, the career of the USS Trout came to an unfortunate end.  According to the Dictionary of American Fighting Ships,

On 8 February, the submarine began her 11th and final war patrol. Trout topped off with fuel at Midway and, on the 16th, headed via a great circle route toward the East China Sea. She was never heard from again.  Japanese records indicate that one of their convoys was attacked by a submarine on 29 February 1944 in the patrol area assigned to Trout.  The submarine badly damaged one large passenger-cargo ship and sank the 7,126-ton transport Sakito Maru.  Possibly one of the convoy's escorts sank the submarine.  On 17 April 1944, Trout was declared presumed lost.  Trout received 11 battle stars for World War II service and the Presidential Unit Citation for her second, third, and fifth patrols.

Pearl Harbor Submarine Base Memorial Park features plaques representing each American submarine lost in World War II. 

This plaque lists the names of the 81 crewmembers who lost their lives aboard the Trout in 1944.

Lt. Commander Albert Clark - Commanding officer of the USS Trout when she went down in 1944.

Chief John Boland from Boston, Massachusetts.  28

FC1 Norbert Brandt from Denver, Iowa.  24

F2 Roy Abbot from Columbus, Ohio.  18