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Julihn (S.S. x3), Lawrence, RADM.
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Contact Info
Home Town Virginia City
Last Address San Diego, CA 91941
Date of Passing Feb 20, 2001
Location of Interment Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery (VA) - San Diego, California
Date of birth: October 8, 1913 Place of Birth: Virginia, Virginia City. Home of record: Washington D.C.
Lawrence Julihn graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Class of 1937. He retired as a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral.
Last resided in La Mesa California, Date of death: February 20, 2001
Other Comments:
Awarded a Third Silver Star as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. SHAD (SS-235), during the SEVENTH War Patrol of that Submarine in enemy-controlled waters, from 12 August 1944 to 1 October 1944. Penetrating escort screens to launch aggressive and well planned torpedo attacks, Commander Julihn sank an enemy freighter of 5,500 tons, a 600-ton torpedo boat, and 800-ton patrol gunboat, and damaged an additional 4,000-ton enemy ship. Despite strong enemy countermeasures which included aerial bombs, and on one occasion torpedo attacks, he maneuvered evasively and escaped, bringing his ship to port undamaged.
Awarded a Second Silver Star while serving as Assistant Approach Officer of the U.S.S. THRESHER (SS-200), during a War Patrol of that Submarine in enemy-controlled waters during World War II. His aggressive spirit, excellent judgment and resourcefulness, and coolness under counter-attacks were outstanding and were of great assistance to the Commanding Officer during attacks which resulted in the sinking of 20,000 tons of enemy tankers and the damaging of 18,000 tons of shipping, including a destroyer.
Awarded a Silver Star while serving as Assistant Approach Officer of the U.S.S. THRESHER (SS-200), in action against enemy forces from 7 December 1941 to 10 March 1943. During this period of successful operations, Lieutenant Commander Julihn skillfully analyzed the torpedo problem while his ship, in constant danger of attack by hostile surface vessels and aircraft, was engaged in numerous actions against enemy shipping. Through his outstanding professional ability he rendered invaluable assistance to his Commanding Officer in sinking nine enemy vessels, totaling 54,000 tons, and in damaging another 41,000 tons. He performed additional duties as Torpedo Officer, operating the torpedo data computer thoroughly and accurately. His courageous and effective supervision of his depth charge station during twenty attacks by hostile forces greatly aided in the prevention and control of damage to his vessel.
Other Memories Departing Pearl Harbor on 30 December 1941, Thresher headed for the Marshall and Mariana Islands. Reconnoitering Majuro, Arno, and Mili atolls from 9 to 13 January 1942, she shifted to waters off Japanese-held Guam in the early morning darkness of 4 February. A little before daybreak, a small freighter was sighted 7 miles (11 km) north of Agana Harbor and Thresher closed for the attack. She loosed a three-torpedo spread, holing the ship and sending it down by the bow and dead in the water. Thresher then fired another spread of torpedoes, but all missed. Upon returning to the scene one-half-hour later the ship was gone and Thresher thought she had scored a kill; postwar accounting did not substantiate it.
While en route home to Pearl Harbor on 24 February, an overzealous Navy plane attacked Thresher but did no damage and the sub safely returned to port on 26 February.
Third and fourth war patrols. After refit, Thresher departed 23 March 1942 for a patrol area near the Japanese home islands. There, she was to gather weather data off Honshū for use by Admiral William Halsey's task force (the carriers Enterprise (CV-6) and Hornet (CV-8), then approaching Japan. Embarked in Hornet were 16 United States Army Air Forces B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, intended to attack Tokyo on 18 April.
Warned by ULTRA of four Japanese submarines operating off Tokyo Bay, Thresher was detected by one of them and fired on, without damage.
On the morning of 10 April, Thresher sighted a large Japanese freighter. A three-fish spread was fired and all missed as the target escaped in the mist. When the target emerged from the murk, Thresher was not in a position to launch another attack and proceeded on her way.
A second target was sighted later that day, and this time the hunting was better. One torpedo broke the back of freighter Sado Maru (3,000 tons) off Yokohama, sending it to the bottom in less than three minutes. The subsequent depth charge attack was delivered by three or four patrol vessels (one of the most severe of the war),[6] caused Thresher to lose depth control and she plunged to 400 feet (120 m)[7] before control was regained. She then disobeyed orders and remained to assist Halsey.
On 13 April, running on the surface to recharge her batteries, Thresher took a wave over her conning tower. Water cascaded down the open hatch and rushed into the boat, shorting many electrical circuits. For a short time, there was a significant danger that chlorine gas would be released, but quick thinking and damage control prevented any hazard. Eventually, all shorts were repaired and the boat pumped out.
The next day, Thresher departed her assigned patrol area and turned her attention to gathering weather data. She conducted periscope patrols in the advance screen of Halsey's task force, searching for any enemy craft that could warn the Japanese homeland. She was detached from this duty on 16 April and, after evading two Japanese patrol planes, returned to Pearl Harbor on 29 April.
On 26 June 1942, Thresher commenced her fourth war patrol heading for waters between the Palau and the Marshall Islands. On 6 July one torpedo struck home during an attack on a tanker off Enijun Pass. The two surface escorts were soon joined by aircraft and, after a three-hour depth charging, Thresher was able to resume her search for other targets.
Three days later, midway between Kwajalein and Wotje atolls, Thresher fired two topedoes at a 4,836 ton torpedo boat tender which caused tremendous explosions as the tender sank beneath the waves. Thresher withdrew from expected countermeasures. Within an hour, two depth charges shook the boat, and ten minutes later, a banging and clunking alerted her to the fact the Japanese were apparently bringing a large grapnel into play in an attempt to capture the boat.
Thresher was hooked and fought for her life. After applying full right rudder, she made a 10 minute high-speed run which shook her free from the giant hook. Then, as a depth charge exploded near her conning tower, the boat went into deeper water. Bending on rudder, Thresher left the enemy behind, with some 30-odd depth charges exploding in her wake. Shaken but not seriously damaged, Thresher made minor repairs as she headed for Truk to reconnoiter the passes leading into this enemy naval bastion.
Missing a freighter with torpedoes on the night of 20 July, Thresher surfaced in a rain squall before daybreak the next morning. The boat's sonar picked up the sound of screws, close and closing. Soon an enemy patrol craft came into view, on a collision course. Surprisingly, the Japanese chose not to ram, but instead put turned hard right, and came to a parallel course some 50 yards (46 m) away. Thresher went deep, while the enemy's guns fired close but ineffective salvoes into the water ahead of the disappearing boat.
After escaping to the Palaus, Thresher tangled with an enemy Q-ship off Ambon in the former Netherlands East Indies. The two torpedoes she fired at the enemy failed to explode, and the Q-ship subjected Thresher to an eight depth charge salvo before giving up the attack. Since she had been reassigned to the Southwest Pacific Submarine Force, Thresher sailed away from this encounter en route to Australian waters and terminated her fourth war patrol at Fremantle on 15 August.
Fifth and sixth war patrols After refit, Thresher loaded mines and departed Fremantle on 15 September 1942, bound for the Gulf of Siam. She fired torpedoes at two freighters north of Lombok Strait on 19 September but was unable to determine the results of her attacks. On the night of 25 September, luck again failed to smile on her as a single torpedo streaked beneath a large, high-speed target in the Sulu Sea.
Thresher later surfaced at 23:00 and proceeded on a course which took her north to Pearl Bank. There, in the northernmost reaches of the Gulf of Siam, she made one of the first mine plants by a submarine in the Pacific War. These strategic mine fields laid by Thresher and her sisters in subsequent patrols, covered Japanese shipping lanes in areas of the Southwest Pacific Command previously unpatrolled by submarines. Later, these minefields filled the gap between patrol zones along the coastal waters of Malaya, Siam, and Indochina, when many boats were diverted to participate in the Solomon Islands campaign.
While reconnoitering off Balikpapan, Borneo, and the Celebes coast, Thresher sighted a tanker aground on a reef off Kapoposang Island in the Java Sea. She soon surfaced for a deck gun attack and left the enemy ship with decks awash. The boat then returned to Fremantle on 12 November for refit.
