When Five Ships were Sunk in 30 minutes - Ramage's Rampage

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In the early hours of July 31st 1944, the  submarine USS Parche was tracking a Japanese   merchant convoy moving through the south china  sea. The boats captain, Commander Lawson Ramage   had been stalking this particular group of  ships for hours. Finally, not long before 4am,   Ramage decided it was time to make his  attack. He readied the boat and steamed   into the heart of the convoy. What would  later become known as ‘Ramage’s Rampage’   was about to begin. -  This video is sponsored by Wren. 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Thanks again to Wren for sponsoring this video.  - -  On June 17th 1944 the USS Parche departed  midway island to begin its second war patrol.   It was the flagship of a three-boat wolfpack  under Commander Lewis Parks consisting of Parche,   Hammerhead and Steelhead. The group  was nicknamed ‘Parks Pirates’,   though Commander Ramage suggested they might  also be known as ‘the headhunters’ since they   had Hammerhead, Steelhead and himself, a redhead. The wolfpack enjoyed a relatively incident free   journey to their patrol area between Luzon and  Formosa- modern day Taiwan. They arrived on July   1st and settled into a rhythm, submerging during  the day and surfacing at night while all the while   scouring the horizon for enemy ships. It was  a quiet period, with the only drama coming on   July 3rd when Parche was spotted and closed  down by a Japanese destroyer, which forced   the boat into a crash dive. From the middle of July the   weather worsened, with at times 60 knot winds  blowing and the deck of Parche getting swamped   by waves when it was on the surface. There was  a contact with a Japanese aircraft carrier on   July 19th that Ramage was able to get his boat  close to, only for it to turn away and disappear.   A submerged submarine unfortunately did not have  the speed to keep up with an aircraft carrier.  The days dragged on, with Park’s submarines  doing little more than battling the weather.   It was deeply frustrating. When the scheduled  end of the patrol came at the end of the month,   Commander Parks- aware that his boats  still had lots of torpedoes left-   asked for permission to extend  the patrol. This was granted,   and it almost immediately paid off. -  On July 30th, Hammerhead established contact  with a Japanese convoy- designated MI-11.   It was steaming south from Formosa to Borneo,  with 11 merchant ships and six military escorts.   Most notable were the troop transports  Fuso Maru and Yoshino Maru, which were   carrying 5000 troops each, and the two  oil tankers Koei Maru and Ogura Maru.  After some confusion when Hammerhead had  initially given the wrong position for the   location of the convoy, eventually the other two  boats were converging on it. Hammerhead herself   was detached to return to port, after having made  an attack run on the convoy and claimed one ship   sunk. Through the evening of July 30th Parche  closed in on the convoy, which by the early hours   was to its south east. The USS Steelhead was  doing likewise, closing from the eastern side.  At 2.40am MI-11 popped onto Parche’s radar  screen, at a range of 34,000 yards. An hour later,   with Parche still some distance away, Steelhead  began its attack. Firing 10 torpedoes, it hit   the tankers Koei Maru and Ogura Maru before  disengaging. The ships of the convoy began   to fire flares, trying to catch sight of their  attacker. The escort vessels closest to Parche   began to fan out, searching for a submarine.  Sensing the time for an attack, Commander   Ramage ordered his boat into a turn to  starboard, wheeling all the way round   to take up an easterly course and attack the  convoy. But by sheer coincidence, MI-11 also   turned to starboard at the same time, as part of  its evasive manoeuvres after a submarine attack.   This inadvertently put the American submarine  and Japanese convoy on a collision course.  Commander Ramage decided to press his attack  regardless, steaming on the surface headlong   into more than a dozen enemy ships. Suddenly,  the first merchant ship loomed out of the dark   less than 400 yards way. Parche had to  turn hard to avoid being rammed by it,   passing down the side of the ship so close  that the two crews could exchange insults.  Ramage jinked his boat around to starboard  to make an attack run on the freighter.   Parche was at this point still on  the surface and travelling at almost   20 knots. The balo class submarine began  the attack with torpedoes loaded into all   of its tubes- 6 forward and 4 aft.  This will be important as we go on.   Once the boat was in position Ramage fired two bow  torpedoes. It was 3.56 am. The rampage had begun.  It did not take long after firing for Parche  to observe that the target was taking avoiding   action, steering hard to port to successfully  dodge the track of the two mark 14 torpedoes.   Ramage held fire on his other forward  tubes and continued to steer northwards,   observing as the turning merchant vessel  managed to inadvertently block an escort ship   that was trying to make its way towards Parche. Now between the two lines of merchant ships,   at 4.02 Ramage fired one torpedo from the stern  tubes towards his initial prey. An explosion was   heard and a hit claimed, but the source of  the noise was never able to be confirmed.   It was very common in the chaos of a submarine  attack for targets and torpedo hits to be the   subject of dispute, particularly at  night- and particularly when you are   carrying out your attack from inside the convoy! Around the American boat, the Japanese ships were   firing flares and machine guns, while the escort  vessels tried desperately to redeploy to engage.   It was dark and visibility was bad, so many  of the Japanese crew could not see what they   were shooting at and plenty of gunfire  was hitting other ships in the convoy.  Meanwhile, a lookout on Parche spotted the  two oil tankers sailing line astern and   initially misidentified the long flat ships as  aircraft carriers. Ramage decided to attack them-   steaming over and firing four bow torpedoes at  Koei Maru at seven minutes past four. Four good   hits were confirmed and the tanker began to  sink quickly. With the bow tubes empty Parche   then quickly hauled round to starboard, lining up  its stern tubes on the second tanker. Three more   torpedoes were fired in quick succession, with  two hits and a miss Ogura Maru to 2kts at 4.10am.  In Parche’s torpedo room work was now going on  to frantically reload the empty torpedo tubes.   Normally the boat would submerge for this,  but both forward and aft torpedo rooms   were rapidly reloading despite the submarine  being buffeted by the sea on the surface. Two   forward tubes were ready again by 4.12 and  Ramage ordered an attack on the Dakar Maru   four minutes later, which was conveniently  sailing right across Parche’s bow at the time.   Two torpedoes slammed into the ship amidships,  blowing a massive hole and cutting its power.  Commander Ramage now circled back, bringing his  boats stern torpedoes to bear on the already   damaged Ogura maru. The Ogura was down by the  bow, so its 4-inch gun on the aft of the ship   could not depress itself low enough to hit  Parche as she steamed behind the stricken tanker.   Three torpedoes were fired at 4.21, smashing  into the tanker and causing it to finally sink.   Next on the hit list was the troop transport  Yoshino Maru. Ramage’s crew set about   calculating torpedo solutions while being raked  by machine gun fire from escort ships to its north   to the point where Ramage cleared the bridge  of all almost all personnel for their safety.  Suddenly the converted gunboat Kazan Maru appeared  on the starboard side, clearly intending to ram.   So focused on setting up the next attack Ramage  initially didn’t respond to the shouted warnings   of a ramming, before ordering full ahead just in  time. Parche swung round, missing the oncoming   Japanese escort ship by as little as 50 yards.  It would have been even closer had Chet Stanton,   the boats helmsman, not ordered full ahead a  few seconds before Ramage himself had done so.  After this emergency turn Yoshino Maru was now  dead ahead, coming straight toward Ramage’s boat.   On either side, escort vessels were circling,  and Parche’s room for manoeuvre was running out.   At 4.29 three torpedoes were fired down  the throat of the Japanese troop transport.   There were two hits, and the ship ground to  a halt. Parche then swerved to port, firing   its last loaded torpedoes from the stern tubes  at 4.33. There was a large explosion amidships   and Yoshino Maru began to sink. It took with it  2,442 soldiers – about half of those onboard.  With escort vessels closing in and the  remainder of the convoy moving off,   Ramage now disengaged, managing to make it  out of the area without further enemy contact.   It had been an extraordinary attack, with just  34 minutes passing between the first and last   torpedoes being fired. -  A couple of weeks later, Parche arrived at  Pearl Harbour to complete her second war patrol.   In that time the story of what Ramage and his crew  had got up to at the end of July was the talk of   the submarine force. Commander Ramage was greeted  on the quayside by Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood,   the commander of the pacific submarine force, who  credited Parche with 5 ships sunk for 34,300 tons,   and Steelhead with 2 ships sunk for 14,700.  After the war the Joint Army-Navy Assessment   Committee reduced these estimates to 2 ships  for each boat, and shared credit on Yoshino   Maru. Ramage felt this was harsh on Parche  and perhaps gave Steelhead too much credit.  As a result of what was becoming known as  ‘ramage’s rampage’, Commander Ramage was awarded   the medal of honor- the United States’ highest  military award for valor. He was the first living   submariner to do so- both of the previous awards  had been posthumous. Ramage dedicated the award to   his crew, and went so far as to issue a special  certificate to every crew member to commemorate   their own part in the events of July 31st. Ramage’s Rampage was a remarkable moment   in the submarine campaign against Japan,  but only one moment out of many. In 1944   American submarines would sink hundreds of  ships, in a battle which would ultimately   bring Japan to its knees, and which you  can learn about in another video of mine.
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Channel: Historigraph
Views: 2,343,409
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Keywords: historigraph, historiograph, histography, historiography
Id: ZnB82cT1LQI
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Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)
Published: Tue Dec 21 2021
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