Comments/Citation:
Submarine war patrols: USS Shark (SS-314) - 1st through 3rd
Steven Douglas Adams was born November 17, 1920 in Glendale, Los Angeles county, California, the oldest child of James Allen and Fannie Louise (Cullingworth) Adams. His family lived in Los Angeles county, where his father was employed as a shipping clerk for a printing company. Douglas had one brother and one sister. He graduated from Glendale High School and attended college.
He entered the US Naval Reserves as a midshipman on or about April 16, 1942 and attended Naval Reserve Midshipman School. He was commissioned as an Ensign on August 23, 1943, and reported aboard the submarine USS Shark (SS-314) shortly after her commissioning in February 1944.
Following shakedown off New London, Connecticut, Shark transited the Panama Canal and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 24 April 1944 for final training in the Hawaiian area. Her first war patrol commenced on 16 May 1944 and was conducted in waters west of the Mariana Islands as part of a coordinated attack group with submarines USS Pintado and USS Pilotfish. After successfully torpedoing at least four enemy cargo ships, she returned to Midway Island for refit on 17 June. Shark put to sea on 10 July for her second war patrol, this time in the waters off the Volcano Islands and Bonin Islands. Later she went to Iwo Jima where she took up lifeguard station in support of carrier airstrikes. On the afternoon of 4 August, Shark rescued two airmen from a crashed USS Lexington. She terminated her lifeguard duties on 19 August and touched at Midway Island before arriving at Pearl Harbor ten days later.
The Shark left Pearl Harbor on 23 September 1944, and proceeded to Saipan to begin her third war patrol with the Seadragon and Blackfish. The three vessels left Saipan on 3 October to conduct a coordinated patrol in the vicinity of Luzon Strait. On 22 October, SHARK reported having contacted four large enemy vessels in Latitude 20° 28'N, Longitude 117° 50'E. She still had her full load of torpedoes aboard, so had not made an attack. SHARK addressed no further messages to bases, but on 24 October, SEADRAGON received a message from her stating that she had made radar contact with a single freighter, and that she was going in to attack. This was the last message received from SHARK.
On 13 November 1944, a dispatch originated by Commander Naval Unit, Fourteenth Air Force, stated that a Japanese ship enroute from Manila to Japan, with 1,800 American prisoners of war had been sunk on 24 October by an American submarine in a torpedo attack. No other submarine reported the attack, and since SHARK had given SEADRAGON a contact report only a few hours before the sinking, and could not be raised by radio after it, it can only be assumed that SHARK made the attack described and perished during or after it. Five prisoners who survived and subsequently reached China stated that conditions on the prison ship were so intolerable that the prisoners prayed for deliverance from their misery by a torpedo or bomb. Because many prisoners of war had been rescued from the water by submarines after sinking vessels in which they were being transported, U.S. submarines had been instructed to search for Allied survivors in the vicinity of all sinkings of Empire-bound Japanese ships. SHARK may well have been sunk trying to rescue American prisoners of war. All attempts to contact SHARK by radio failed and on 27 November she was reported as presumed lost.
A report from the Japanese received after the close of the war on anti-submarine attacks records the attack made by SHARK on 24 October 1944, in Latitude 20° 41'N, Longitude 118° 27'E. Depth charges were dropped 17 times, and the enemy reports having seen "bubbles, and heavy oil, clothes, cork, etc." Several American submarines report having been attacked on this date near the position given, but in view of the fact that none reported the attack on the convoy cited above, this attack is considered the most probable cause of SHARK's loss.
The 87 crew members, missing since October 24, 1944, were officially declared dead November 8, 1945. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.
The remains of Ensign Steven D. Adams are unaccounted for. His name appears on the Tablets of the Missing, Manila American Cemetery, the Philippines.
Reference:
Ancestry.com. California Birth Index, 1905-1995
1930; Census Place: Glendale, Los Angeles, California; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 0978
1940; Census Place: Glendale, Los Angeles, California; Page: 9B; Enumeration District: 19-218
Ancestry.com. Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Naval and Reserve, July 1, 1944
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56754154/steven-douglas-adams
U.S. Submarine Losses World War II, NAVPERS 15,784, 1949 ISSUE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Shark_(SS-314)
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