USS Grenadier (SS-210)

History
United States
Builder	Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine[1]
Laid down	2 April 1940[1]
Launched	29 November 1940[1]
Commissioned	1 May 1941[1]
Honors and awards	battle stars
Fate	Scuttled off Phuket, 22 April 1943, after being damaged by Japanese aircraft[2]
General characteristics
Class and type	diesel-electric submarine[2]
Displacement	1,475 long tons (1,499 t) standard, surfaced[3] 2,370 long tons (2,410 t) submerged[3]
Length	307 ft 2 in (93.62 m)[3]
Beam	27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)[3]
Draft	14 ft 7+1⁄2 in (4.458 m)[3]
Propulsion	4 × electrical generators[4][5] 2 × 126- batteries[6] 4 × high-speed General Electric electric motors with reduction gears[4] two propellers[4] 5,400 shp (4.0 MW) surfaced[4] 2,740 shp (2.0 MW) submerged[4]
Speed	20.4 knots (38 km/h) surfaced[3] 8.75 knots (16 km/h) submerged[3]
Range	11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)[3]
Endurance	48 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged[3]
Test depth	250 ft (76 m)[3]
Complement	6 officers, 54 enlisted[3]
Armament	10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 6 forward, 4 aft 24 torpedoes[6] 1 × 3-inch (76 mm) / 50 caliber deck gun[6] Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon

USS Grenadier (SS-210), a

On 20 June 1941 Grenadier participated in the search for USS O-9, which had failed to surface after a deep test dive, and was present two days later as memorial exercises were conducted over the spot where O-9 and her crew lay. After shakedown in the Caribbean Sea, Grenadier returned to Portsmouth on 5 November for refit. Less than three weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she sailed for the Pacific to join the submarine fleet.

COMSUBPAC patrols, 1942

Grenadier's first war patrol from 4 February to 23 March 1942 took her near the Japanese home islands, off the coast of

On 1 May 1942, Grenadier mistakenly sank the Soviet merchant ship Angarstroi in the East China Sea about 90 nautical miles (170 km; 100 mi) west-southwest of Nagasaki, Japan.^[8]

On 25 May 1942, Grenadier was diverted from her patrol area to

Deployment to Australia

The

Grenadier's fifth war patrol, under the command of Lieutenant Commander John Allison Fitzgerald, between 1 January and 20 February 1943, brought her considerably better fortune than earlier patrols. A 75-ton schooner fell victim to her deck guns 10 January, and two days later Grenadier sighted a small tanker with a barge in tow. Judging the target not worth a torpedo, she slipped silently into the column behind the two Japanese ships. At dusk she battle surfaced. With binoculars lashed to the deck guns as sights, she raked the tanker and barge, sinking them immediately. The remainder of her patrol, along the Borneo coast through shallow and treacherous waters, was hampered by fathometer failures. She conducted an aggressive attack on two cargo ships 22 January but did not sink them.

The submarine departed Australia on 20 March on her last war patrol and headed for the

Loss

Grenadier remained in the area and late on the night of 20 April 1943 sighted two merchant ships and closed in for the attack. Running on the surface at dawn on 21 April, Grenadier spotted, and was simultaneously spotted by, a Japanese plane. The submarine dived, and as she passed 130 feet (40 m) her executive officer commented, "We ought to be safe now." Just then, explosions rocked Grenadier and heeled her over 15 to 20 degrees. Power and lights failed completely and the fatally wounded ship settled to the bottom at 270 feet (82 m). She tried to make repairs while a fierce fire blazed in the maneuvering room.^[11]

After 13 hours of sweating it out on the bottom, Grenadier managed to surface after dark to clear the submarine of smoke and inspect damage. The damage to her propulsion system was irreparable. Attempting to bring his ship closer to shore so that the crew could

• 
  Memorial to USS Grenadier at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park in Buffalo, New York
• 
• 

Discovery of wreck

A sunken wreck identified as the Grenadier was found by a team of four divers—Jean Luc Rivoire, Lance Horowitz, Benoit Laborie and Ben Reymenants—sitting upright under about 260 feet (79 m) of water and partly covered in fishing nets.^[13] Announced in 2020, the discovery of the wreck came in a series of dives as part of a six-month, $110,000 expedition beginning in October 2019.^[13] The divers sent their findings to the Naval History and Heritage Command for verification; confirmation will place the wreck under the protections of the Sunken Military Craft Act.^[13]

References

Citations

•  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

Bibliography

• Hinman, Charles R., and Douglas E. Campbell. The Submarine Has No Friends: Friendly Fire Incidents Involving U.S. Submarines During World War II. Syneca Research Group, Inc., 2019.
  ISBN 978-0-359-76906-3
  .

Further reading

• Bureau of Ships (1 January 1949). Submarine Report: Depth Charge, Bomb, Mine, Torpedo and Gunfire Damage Including Losses in Action 7 December, 1941 to 15 August, 1945. Vol. 1. US Navy. War Damage Report No. 58.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to USS Grenadier (SS-210).

• On Eternal Patrol: USS Grenadier
• Combined Fleet entry for Taiyo Maru

6°30′N 97°40′E / 6.500°N 97.667°E / 6.500; 97.667