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Casualty Info
Home Town San Francisco, CA
Last Address San Francisco, CA
Casualty Date Jan 05, 1944
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location South China Sea
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Manila American Cemetery - Taguig City, Philippines
Wall/Plot Coordinates (cenotaph)
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
USS Scorpion (SS-278) began her last war patrol on 5 December 1943 and was last heard from on 5 January 1944. She was declared lost on 6 March 1944, presumed to have been sunk by Japanese mine. Chief Gunner's Matre Hund was listed as Missing in Action and later declared dead 11 January 1946.
a Gato-class submarine, was the fifth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the scorpion, an arachnid having an elongated body and a narrow segmented tail bearing a venomous sting at the tip. Her keel was laid down by Portsmouth Naval Shipyard of Kittery, Maine, on 20 March 1942. She was launched on 20 July 1942 sponsored by Miss Elizabeth T. Monagle, and commissioned on 1 October 1942 with Lieutenant Commander William N. Wylie in command.
Departing Pearl Harbor on 29 December 1943, Scorpion stopped at Midway Island to top off with fuel, and left that place on 3 January 1944, to conduct her fourth war patrol. Her assigned area was in the northern East China Sea and Yellow Sea.
On the morning of 5 January, Scorpion reported that one of her crew had sustained a fracture of the upper arm and requested a rendezvous with Herring (SS-233) which was returning from patrol and was near her. The rendezvous was accomplished on that afternoon but heavy seas prevented the transfer. "Scorpion reports case under control." Scorpion was never seen or heard from again after her departure from that rendezvous. On 16 February 1944, Steelhead (SS-280) and Scorpion were warned that they were close together, and that an enemy submarine was in the vicinity.
No Japanese information indicates that the loss of the Scorpion was the result of enemy anti-submarine tactics. There were, however, several naval mine lines across the entrance to the Yellow Sea. The presence of these mine lines and the "restricted area" bounding them was discovered from captured Japanese Notices to Mariners at a much later date. In the meantime several submarines had made patrols in this area, crossing and recrossing the mine lines without incident, and coming safely home. It is probable that these mine lines were very thin, offering only about a 10 percent threat to submarines at maximum, and steadily decreasing in effectiveness with the passage of time. Scorpion was lost soon after these mines were laid, at a time when they were the greatest threat. She could have been an operational casualty, but her area consisted of water shallow enough so that it might be expected that some men would have survived. Since there are no known survivors, the most reasonable assumption is that she hit a mine.
