USS Bowfin Memorial - Pearl Harbor, HI

USS Bowfin Submarine Memorial - Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
On my last visit to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii as I had visited the USS Arizona Memorial on a previous trip, I decided to look more closely at the USS Bowfin submarine memorial on the waterfront at Pearl. I was totally amazed at what I found. I learned that 52 U.S. Submarines and 3,500 U.S. Submariners were lost during the war. Those incredible stats made me curious and I had to know more. To set the scene at the memorial, it is located on the North end of Pearl Harbor and when you look south across the bay you can see the gleaming white USS Arizona Memorial and the incredible Battleship USS Missouri behind it to the left. It was a bright sunny day, the type of day where you have to constantly shade your eyes or wear sunglasses. The sky and water were both incredible shades of blue – one light, one dark. The submarine memorial is a concentric ring of markers – 52 to be exact with an outer and inner ring of markers and raised circular step platforms to the flag pole in the center that flies old glory. Each marker is about 3 feet high and each one memorializes a U.S. submarine that was lost in WWII. Inscribed on each marker is the name of the ship and number, date of launch, a brief history of the ships exploits, heroism of its crew and their citations, and the tale of the loss of the ship along with all of the names of the crew who were lost at sea. The tales on these markers were so moving that I would like to list all of the valor and exploits. I can’t possibly do that in just a page so I picked out a few that struck me as incredible. USS Albacore SS-218 gained serious fame when she snuck in and sunk the largest and newest Japanese aircraft carrier Taiho. She also sank a light cruiser and 2 destroyers – 13 enemy ships in all. Albacore made 10 war patrols during her short 2 years of work before she disappeared off of Honshu, Japan where it is presumed she hit a mine. Albacore and her 86 man crew were never heard from again and as the plaque states, are on eternal patrol. USS Pickerel SS-177 topped off with fuel at Midway Island, sailed out to sea on a war patrol and was never heard from again. Ship and 74 crew vanished. Too many of the plaques read like this and it is a ghostly feeling to think that they were swallowed up by the sea, never to be heard from again. USS Tang SS 306 fired its last two torpedoes during a night time attack on an enemy ship. One of the torpedoes malfunctioned and turned around and struck Tang with a vicious explosion that sent her straight to the bottom. 9 Men on deck were catapulted into the air by this explosion. 78 men went to the bottom of the sea with the USS Tang. The USS Sculpin became engaged with some enemy ships on the surface with their guns. A round hit the Sculpin in its conning tower and blew it to pieces instantly killing the Captain and some other officers. The remaining officer in charge, Captain Cromwell had been thoroughly briefed on future U.S. Strategies and rather than fall into enemy hands and potentially divulge the information, Captain Cromwell choose to remain on board Sculpin as she slipped beneath the waves on her final dive into the dark ocean depths. Captain Cromwell’s selfless act of sacrifice for his nation earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. I took my time at the memorial. I read every single marker in the bright sun as the palm trees swayed in the trade winds over head. I looked out onto the Arizona Memorial and imagined the battleships all lined up there and what it must have been like on that fateful day – 07 December 1941. As I stood aboard the USS Missouri the next day I watched a modern submarine put out to sea through the harbor. I thought of my visit to the submarine memorial the day before. So many stories of incredible valor, sacrifice, service, mystery, loss and heartbreak are inscribed upon those 52 markers. This is the history of our Nation. These are the stories of the heroes who ensured that we would be able to continue to live in freedom and enjoy all of the blessings of liberty that we do today. If you ever go to Hawaii, make sure you visit Pearl Harbor. Go to the USS Arizona Memorial for sure but make sure you take some time to visit this monument to the incredible submariners who made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.


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