USS Besugo (SS-321, later AGSS-321), a Balao-class submarine, was a ship of the United States Navy in commission from 1944 to 1958. She was named for the besugo.
During World War II, Besugo made five war patrols between 26 September 1944 and 25 July 1945, operating in the Bungo Channel, Makassar Strait, Java Sea, and South China Sea. During these patrols, Besugo sank the German submarine , becoming one of a very few U.S. submarines to sink a German naval vessel during the war. She also sank the 10,020-gross register ton tanker Nichei Maru, one landing ship, one frigate, and a minesweeper.
After post-World War II Korean War and Cold War U.S. Navy service, Besugo was decommissioned. She was loaned to the Italian Navy in 1966, in which she served until 1973 as Francesco Morosini (S 508).
Construction and commissioning
Besugo′s keel was laid down on 27 May 1943 at Groton, Connecticut, by the Electric Boat Company. She was launched on 27 February 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Margaret Perry Homer, an employee in the Outside Machinist's Department of the Electric Boat Company and wife of Peter J. Homer, also an employee of the company. Besugo was commissioned at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton on 19 June 1944 with Commander Thomas L. Wogan in command.
Service history
United States Navy
World War II
June–September 1944
Besugo completed shakedown training in the waters off New London, Connecticut, before heading south on 25 July 1944. Arriving at Key West, Florida, on 1 August 1944, she conducted another two weeks of training with the Key West Sound School before setting out for the Pacific Ocean on 13 August. She transited the Panama Canal on 17 August and, after five days of repairs at Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone, continued on to Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii, arriving there on 7 September 1944. She spent the next two weeks training in the waters of the Hawaiian Islands.
First war patrol
Besugo put to sea from Pearl Harbor for her first war patrol on 26 September 1944, escorted until dark by the submarine chaser . In company with the submarine , Besugo headed west and stopped at Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to refuel on 30 September. Departing Midway the same day, the two submarines rendezvoused with the submarine before heading northwest to the Bungo Channel entrance to Japan's Seto Inland Sea.
While en route on 6 October 1944, the submarines spotted a picket boat — a small Japanese patrol boat — lying to northwest of Marcus Island. As Besugo closed to destroy the patrol boat, Gabilan and Ronquil continued on course. At 21:02, Besugo fired three torpedoes at the target. All missed, probably because of the shallow draft of the patrol boat. After waiting for night to fall, Besugo circled the target, surfaced, and closed for a gun attack at 22:28. Although the combination of light swells and insufficient moonlight made gunfire ineffective, the two 20-millimeter guns scored some hits. The Japanese patrol boat responded with sporadic bursts of light machine-gun fire. Just as the patrol boat closed the range, both of Besugo′s 20-millimeter guns jammed. The Japanese picket boat then opened fire with a heavy machine gun. Bullets began striking the water around Besugo, and several struck her conning tower and periscope shears. Splinters from these hits wounded the gunnery officer and a lookout. Unable to return fire effectively, Besugo withdrew, leading her commanding officer to remark, "Not an auspicious beginning to our fighting career."
On 8 October 1944, Besugo spotted an Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G4M Type 1 bomber (Allied reporting name "Betty") and submerged for the remainder of the day. On the morning of 9 October, a patrolling Japanese armed trawler forced her to submerge, further delaying her progress. Then, at 03:29 on 10 October, her radar indicated a Japanese patrol plane was pursuing her. As put by her war diarist, it took half an hour of "nerve-wracking" maneuvering to shake off the Japanese plane.
At dawn on 10 October 1944, Besugo reached her patrol station and began a submerged daylight patrol in the eastern approaches to the Bungo Channel. Owing to the upcoming U.S. landings on Leyte in the Philippine Islands, scheduled for 20 October, Besugo had orders to spot any Japanese heavy fleet units departing the Bungo Channel and to refrain from firing at any targets until after sending in a contact report. On the morning of 15 October 1944, she watched as five Japanese cruisers and a destroyer steamed by her position before she radioed in a contact report that evening.