USS Tang (hull number SS-306) was a Balao-class submarine of World War II, the first ship of the United States Navy to bear the name Tang. She was built and launched in 1943, serving until being sunk by her own torpedo off China in the Taiwan Strait on 24 October 1944.
In her short career in the Pacific War, Tang sank 33 ships totalling 116,454 tons.. Her commanding officer Lieutenant Commander Richard O'Kane explain that the Joint Army–Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) report initially credited Tang with fewer sinkings. In 1980, the relevant JANAC section "was officially replaced by the credits in the patrol reports." Commander Richard O'Kane received the Medal of Honor for her last two engagements (23 and 24 October 1944).
Tang was sunk during the last engagement by a circular run of her final torpedo, going down in of water; 78 men were lost, and the 9 survivors were picked up by a Japanese frigate and taken as prisoners of war. This was the only known time that a Momsen lung was used to escape a sunken submarine.
Construction
The contract to build USS Tang was awarded to Mare Island Naval Shipyard on 15 December 1941, and her keel was laid down on 15 January 1943. She was launched on 17 August sponsored by Mrs. Alix M. Pitre, wife of Captain Antonio S. Pitre, director of research at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, and commissioned on 15 October 1943 with Lieutenant Commander Richard O'Kane, former executive officer of , in command, and delivered to the Navy on 30 November 1943.
Tang completed fitting out at Mare Island and moved south to San Diego for 18 days of training before sailing for Hawaii. She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 8 January 1944 and conducted two more weeks of exercises in preparation for combat.
First war patrol Tang departed Pearl Harbor on 22 January 1944 to begin her first war patrol, destined for the Caroline Islands-Mariana Islands area. On the morning of 17 February, she sighted a convoy of two freighters, five smaller ships, and their escort. The submarine tracked the convoy, plotted its course, and then prepared to attack. An escort suddenly appeared at a range of and closing. Tang went deep and received five depth charges before the escort departed. Unscathed, she returned to periscope depth and resumed the attack. The range on the nearest freighter closed to , and Tang fired a spread of four torpedoes. Three hit, and Gyoten Maru (6,800 tons) sank by the stern. The submarine cleared the area by running deep and then attempted to get ahead of the convoy for a dawn attack, but the remaining freighter passed out of range, protected by aircraft.
During the night of 22 February, Tang made a surface attack on a convoy of three cargo ships and two escorts. She tracked the Japanese ships, through rain squalls that made radar almost useless, for 30 minutes before attaining a firing position, on the surface, off the port bow of a freighter. A spread of four torpedoes hit Fukuyama Maru (3,600 tons) from bow to stern, and the enemy ship disintegrated. Early the next morning, Tang made another approach on the convoy. The escort of the lead ship, the 6,800-ton Yamashimo Maru, moved from its covering position on the port bow, and the submarine slipped into it and fired four more torpedoes. The first hit the stern of the merchantman, the second hit just aft of the stack; and the third hit just forward of the bridge, producing a terrific secondary explosion. The ship was "twisted, lifted from the water",O'Kane's patrol report, quoted in . and began spouting flames as she sank.
On the morning of 24 February, Tang sighted a tanker, a freighter, and a destroyer. Rain squalls hampered her as she attempted to attain a good firing position, so she tracked the ships until after nightfall, then made a surface attack. She launched four torpedoes and scored three hits, which sank the Tatutaki Maru-class freighter. The two remaining ships commenced firing in all directions, and Tang submerged to begin evasive action. She shadowed the enemy until morning and then closed on the tanker for a submerged attack from extremely close range, just , barely enough to allow her torpedoes to arm., passim; Roscoe, Submarine Operations; Holmes, Undersea Victory. Additional lookouts had been posted on the target's deck, and when the spread of torpedoes from Tang struck her, they were hurled into the air with other debris from the ship. Echizen Maru sank in four minutes as Tang went deep and rigged for the depth-charge attack that followed. During this evasion, a water leak developed in the forward torpedo room, and Tang exceeded her depth gauge maximum reading of . The crew was able to get the submarine back under control and eventually return to the surface. (After the war, the Joint Army–Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) denied credit for the tanker seen to explode.)
Tang contacted a convoy consisting of a freighter, transport, and four escorts on the evening of 26 February. She maneuvered into position to attack the wildly zigzagging transport and fired her last four torpedoes and believed she missed; JANAC credited her with sinking Choko Maru, a 1794-ton cargo ship. Having expended all 24 of her torpedoes and scored 16 hits, the submarine arrived at Midway for refit.
Second war patrol
Tangs second patrol began on 16 March and took her to waters around the Palau Islands, to Davao Gulf, and to the approaches to Truk. She made five surface contacts, but had no chance to make any attacks. She was then assigned to lifeguard duty near Truk. Tang rescued 22 downed airmen, including some rescued by John Burns' Vought OS2U Kingfisher,Leave No Man Behind: The Saga of Combat Search and Rescue by George Galdorisi and Thomas Phillips, pp. 79–80 and took them to Hawaii at the end of the patrol.
Third war patrol Tang departed Pearl Harbor on 8 June and stalked enemy shipping in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea areas. On 24 June, southwest of Kagoshima, the submarine contacted a convoy of six large ships guarded by 16 escorts. Tang closed for a surface attack and fired a spread of three torpedoes at one of the ships and then fired a similar spread at a second target. Explosions followed, and Tang reported two ships sunk. However, postwar examination of Japanese records revealed by the Japanese government show that two passenger-cargo ships and two freighters were sunk. The ships must have overlapped, and the torpedo spread must have hit and sunk two victims in addition to their intended targets. Those sunk – Tamahoko Maru, Tainan Maru, Nasusan Maru, and Kennichi Maru – added up to 16,292 tons of enemy shipping. Tamahoko Maru had 772 prisoners of war (POWs) (197 British, 42 American, 258 Australian and 281 Dutch). 560 POWs died. There were also some 500 Japanese soldiers on board. On 24 June 1944 at 11:50 pm, in the Koshiki Straits 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Nagasaki, Tamahoko Maru was torpedoed by USS Tang and sank in less than two minutes.
On 30 June, while she patrolled the lane from Kyūshū to Dairen, Tang sighted another cargo ship steaming without escort. After making an end-around run on the surface, which produced two torpedo misses, Tang went deep to avoid depth charges, then surfaced and chased the target until she closed the range to . A single torpedo blew in half, and the transport ship sank, taking with her some 3,200 Japanese soldiers.
The next morning, Tang sighted a tanker and a freighter. While she sank the freighter Taiun Maru Number Two, the tanker Takatori Maru Number One fled. The submarine trailed the latter until dark, then she launched two torpedoes, which sank the tanker. Tang celebrated 4 July at dawn by an end-around, submerged attack on an enemy freighter that was near shore. However, with rapidly shoaling water and her keel about to touch bottom, Tang drew back, fired a spread of three with two hits, and then surfaced as survivors of the 6,886-ton cargo ship Asukazan Maru were being rescued by fishing boats. That afternoon, Tang sighted Yamaoka Maru, another cargo ship around the same size, and sank her with two torpedoes. The submarine surfaced, and with the aid of grapnel hooks and Thompson submachine guns, rescued a survivor who had been clinging to an overturned lifeboat. While prowling the waters off Dairen late the next night, the submarine sighted a cargo ship, and during a submerged attack with her last two torpedoes, sank Dori Maru. Credited with eight ships for 56,000 tons at the time, the score confirmed postwar by JANAC for her third patrol was 10 ships for a total of 39,160 tons.
Fourth war patrol Tang's fourth war patrol was conducted from 31 July – 3 September in Japanese home waters off the coast of Honshū. On 10 August, she fired a spread of three torpedoes at a tanker near the beach of Omaezaki, but scored no hits. The next day, after locating two freighters and two escorts, she launched three torpedoes at the larger freighter and two at the other. The larger freighter (Roko Maru) disintegrated, apparently due to a torpedo that exploded in her boilers. As the submarine went deep, her crew heard the fourth and fifth torpedoes hit the second ship. After a jarring depth-charge attack, which lasted 38 minutes, Tang returned to periscope depth. Only the two escorts were in sight, and one of them was picking up survivors.
On 14 August, Tang attacked a patrol yacht with her deck gun and reduced the Japanese ship's deck house to a shambles with eight hits. Eight days later, she sank a patrol boat (No. 2 Nansatsu Maru). On 23 August, the submarine closed in on a large ship; Japanese crewmen dressed in white uniforms could be seen lining its superstructure and the bridge. She fired three torpedoes, and two hits caused the 8,135-ton transport Tsukushi Maru to sink. Two days later, Tang attacked a tanker and an escort with her last three torpedoes, sinking the tanker, No. 8 Nanko Maru. Tang then returned to Pearl Harbor.
Fifth war patrol and loss
After a refit, Tang stood out to sea on 24 September for her fifth war patrol. After topping off her fuel at Midway Island, she sailed for the Formosa Strait on 27 September. To reach her area, Tang had to pass through narrow waters known to be heavily patrolled by the Japanese. A large area stretching northeast from Formosa was known to have been mined by the enemy, and O'Kane was given the choice of making the passage north of the island alone, or joining a coordinated attack group (, , and , under Commander John S. Coye, Jr., flag in Silversides) which was to patrol off northeast Formosa, and making the passage with them. Tang chose to make the passage alone, and these vessels never heard from Tang, nor did any base, after she left Midway.
The story of Tangs fate comes from the report of her surviving commanding officer.. Also in .