Anders, Floyd Roland, MM3

On 9 September 1943 the USS Wahoo (SS-238) left Pearl Harbor for a war patrol in the Sea of Japan. Between that date and 11 October Wahoo sank four Japanese ships. On the 11 October Japanese records indicate that they attacked a surfaced sub in the area assigned to Wahoo. Nothing further was heard from the ship and Wahoo was stricken from the Navy list 6 December 1943.

MM3 Anders was among the men listed as missing in action and later declared dead.

Floyd Roland Anders was born April 15, 1921 in Erwin, Unicoi county, Tennessee, son of Fred L. Anders and Minnie E. Chandler. In 1930 the family was living in Miami, Dade county, Florida, where his father worked delivering ice. He had two brothers and one sister. His younger brother, Roy, also served in the Navy during WWII.

In 1939 Floyd was living in Jewell Ridge, Tazewell county, Virginia, where he worked as a miner. On July 22, 1939 he married Reva Smith in Tazewell county. A son, David, was born in 1940 in Virginia. In 1941 they lived in Miami, where Floyd worked as a cabinet installer. By February 1942 they had moved to Dorton, Pike county, Kentucky where Floyd worked for the Consolidated Coal Company.

On May 19, 1942 he enlisted in the US Navy Reserves at Louisville, Kentucky and later reported aboard the submarine USS Wahoo (SS-238) on October 21, 1942 as a Seaman S econd Class, in time for her second war patrol, November and December 1942: On 8 November 1942, Wahoo got underway for her second war patrol, with Lieutenant Commander Dudley Walker "Mush" Morton also aboard for his prospective commanding officer (PCO) patrol. She arrived at her assigned area in the Solomon Islands, keeping Bougainville and Buka Islands in sight. On 26 December she went into Brisbane, Australia, where she commenced refit the following day. On 31 December 1942, Lt. Cmdr. Kennedy was relieved as commanding officer; and Cdr. Dudley Morton replaced him.

Wahoo’s third patrol, January and February 1943, was the first with Cdr. Dudley Morton.* *Her orders were to reconnoiter Wewak, a Japanese supply base on the north coast of New Guinea between Kairiru Island and Mushu Island  She destroyed 3 freighters and a tanker. On return to the Naval Base, she donned topside embellishments to celebrate her victory. A straw broom was lashed to her periscope shears to indicate a clean sweep. From the signal halyard fluttered eight tiny Japanese flags, one for each Japanese ship believed to have been sunk by Wahoo to that point in the war.

In March 1943 Floyd wrote to his parents about visiting Hawaii and Australia and also about the conquests of Wahoo. He told his parents “I’ve seen more country than I could ever hope to on my old job…and I’m enjoying every minute.”

Wahoo’s fourth patrol; was February to April 1943 For Wahoo's fourth patrol, Morton was assigned to the extreme northern reaches of the Yellow Sea, in the vicinity of the Yalu River and Dairen, an area never before patrolled by U.S. submarines… While en route to her patrol area, she conducted training dives, fire control drills, and battle surface drills. She had the unique experience of making the entire passage to the East China Sea without sighting a single aircraft, thus making most of the trip surfaced. On 11 March, Wahoo arrived in her assigned area along the Nagasaki-Formosa and Shimonoseki-Formosa shipping routes. On 19 March 1943, the shooting began with a freighter identified as Zogen Maru. A single torpedo hit broke the target in two; the aft end sank immediately, and the bow sank two minutes later. There were no survivors. Four hours later, Wahoo sighted another freighter, Kowa Maru, and launched two torpedoes. The first hit under the target's foremast with a terrific blast, leaving a tremendous hole in her side, but the bow remained intact. Wahoo then patrolled off the Korean coast, just south of Chinnampo. On 21 March, she sighted a large freighter identified as Hozen Maru. She launched three torpedoes; the third hit the target amidships. She went down by the bow, sinking in four minutes, leaving approximately 33 survivors clinging to the debris.

Four hours later, Wahoo sighted the freighter Nittsu Maru. The submarine fired a spread of three torpedoes; two hit, one under the bridge and the other under the mainmast. The ship went down in three minutes. Later she sank three freighters and a trawler. Wahoo headed home, concluding a war patrol which topped the record to date in number of ships sunk. On 6 April 1943, Wahoo arrived at Midway, and she commenced a refit on the following day. On 21–22 April, she conducted training underway and was declared ready for sea on 25 April.

Wahoo's fifth war patrol April – May 1943, was again considered outstanding in aggressiveness and efficiency. In ten action-packed days Wahoo delivered ten torpedo attacks on eight different targets. However, faulty torpedo performance cut positive results by as much as one-half.

On her sixth patrol in August 1943, within four days, twelve Japanese vessels were sighted; nine were hunted down and attacked to no avail. Ten torpedoes broached, made erratic runs, or were duds. In light of the poor torpedo performance, ComSubPac ordered Wahoo to return to base.

WAHOO returned to Pearl Harbor from her sixth war patrol on 29 August 1943 with the dejected air peculiar to a highly successful submarine which suddenly could not make her torpedoes run true… Her Commanding Officer, Commander D. W. Morton, returned to have the torpedoes changed or checked, and requested that WAHOO be sent back to the Japan Sea for her seventh patrol. In September 1943, the Wahoo returned to the Sea of Japan to begin her seventh war patrol in the Soya (La Perouse) Strait, between the Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin.

Beginning October 5th, 1943, the Wahoo sank 5 ships of about 13,000 tons. On October 11, 1943, the date the Wahoo was to leave the La Perouse Strait, a Japanese anti-submarine aircraft sited a wake and an oil slick from a submerged submarine. The Japanese Navy started a combined air and sea attack using depth charges throughout the day.

The Wahoo was mortally damaged and sank with all hands. She was declared overdue on December 2, 1943 and was stricken from the books on December 6, 1943. All further missions into the Sea of Japan were stopped and did not continue till June of 1945, when special mine detecting became available.

In October 2006, the U.S. Navy confirmed that the wreckage of Wahoo was lying intact in about 213 ft (65 m) of water in the La Pérouse (Soya) Strait..The submarine was sunk by a direct hit from an aerial bomb near the conning tower.

Machinist Mate Third Class Floyd R. Anders was one of 80 crew members who perished aboard USS Wahoo. He was declared dead January 7, 1946.

His name appears on the Tablets of the Missing, Honolulu Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii.

References:

1930; Census Place: Miami, Dade, Florida; Page: 22A; Enumeration District: 0017

Ancestry.com. Virginia, U.S., Marriage Records, 1936-2014

Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995

Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55904114/floyd-roland-anders

Ancestry.com. U.S., Navy Casualties Books, 1776-1941

The Miami Herald, Miami, FL: Mar. 14, 1943, p.18

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

Service number: 6342946