USS HARDER FOUND

USS Harder as she appears today (digital recreation by The Lost 52 Project)

Those of you who watched the episode of “Silent Service” about the submarine USS Harder rescuing the downed Naval Aviator by jamming herself against the reef were disappointed when I told you that four months later, Harder was lost to enemy action.

Well, this morning the U.S. Navy History & Heritage Command announced the discovery of Harder’s resting place. The submarine is upright on the floor of the South China Sea, 3,000 feet down, off the coast of Luzon where she fought her last battle. If you look at the photo, you can see an area that is “bashed in” just aft of the conning tower. That’s how she and her 79-man crew died - a direct hit by a depth charge carrying 500 pounds of explosive. She was probably at her maximum depth of 300 feet, maneuvering to get away when the depth charge found her. Death for the crew would have taken less than a minute as the pressure hull flooded.

In her two year life (commissioned August 21, 1942 - sunk August 24, 1944) Harder sank more Japanese warships than any other American submarine. Skipper Sam Dealey developed the “down the throat” shot against attacking destroyers. In early June 1944, in four days of battle off the Imperial Navy anchorage of Tawi-Tawi, he sank four destroyers and damaged two more so badly they were abandoned after being towed into the anchorage. The Japanese thought they were fighting a submarine wolfpack, and the result was that the commander of the Mobile Fleet ordered his ships to sea prematurely. This led to the loss of the carriers Taiho and Shokaku - fifth of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor - to submarine attacks, which had a major effect on the outcome of the Battle of the Philippine Sea (one of the next topics in the 1944 series), the greatest naval battle in history to that time.

Arriving in Pearl Harbor in June 1943, Harder made six war patrols over the 14 months she had left (which included time out for an overhaul at Mare Island in the spring of 1944).

In August 1944, for her sixth patrol, Harder joined two other submarines, the Haddo and the Hake, in the South China Sea near Luzon. At around 0730 on August 24, the crew aboard Hake reported hearing 15 rapid depth charges explode in the distance.

Hake searched for Harder in the area, but only found a ring of marker buoys that spanned a half-mile radius. Later, Japanese records filled in the missing details of what happened..

Harder had fired three torpedoes at the Japanese escort ship CD-22 (Ironically, she was the former USS Pope, an American destroyer damaged during the invasion of the Philippines in 1942 and abandoned in the drydock at Cavite Naval Station, later repaired and turned into a convoy escort by the Japanese). CD-22 evaded Harder’s attack, then began firing depth charges at the submarine. The fifth depth charge made contact and sank Harder.

During the war, Harder was credited with sinking six Japanese destroyers, two frigates and 20 freighters/tankers. After the war, the score was revised to four destroyers and two frigates, “which is still the most warships sunk by a single submarine commander/submarine in U.S. Navy history, and quite likely the most of any submarine commander in any nation,” History and Heritage commander retired Rear Admiral Sam Cox recently wrote.

Harder received six battle stars for service during WWII, as well as the Presidential Unit Citation for her first five patrols. Sam Dealey, Harder’s captain, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and a Silver Star. He was known for making “particularly audacious attacks,” but also for using “astute judgment in being cautious depending on the tactical situation.”

Harder is one of several American submarines lost in World War II that have been located by The Lost 52 Project since 2010. They include USS R-12, USS Grayback, USS Stickleback, USS Grunion, USS S-26 and USS S-28.

Tim Taylor, founder of the Lost 52 project, was awarded the Navy’s highest civilian honor, the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award in 2021, for his work locating missing submarines and, perhaps more importantly, bringing closure to the surviving family members of the men killed onboard.

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