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.
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- 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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