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Each weapon was found to be in perfect working condition. Undaunted, the skipper ordered that every remaining torpedo be inspected before he continued. At impact, the skipper saw only a disappointing splash alongside the vessel. The soundman reported a straight and normal run. Repositioning to correct the poor firing angle, Daspit placed Tinosa in a textbook attack position, approximately 875 yards off the tanker’s beam, and launched one torpedo. Although fire from Tonan Maru No.3‘s deck guns forced Tinosa to remain submerged, the Japanese could do nothing to prevent the next salvo of torpedoes. Although dead in the water, the well-compartmented tanker was in no immediate danger of sinking. Both weapons struck the ship aft at obtuse angles and exploded, causing the ship to stop and begin to settle slightly by the stern. Tonan Maru No.3‘s abrupt course change left the submarine in a poor firing position, but Daspit fired the remaining two torpedoes from his forward tubes by instinct. To Daspit’s dismay, the tanker did not explode or begin to list, but rather turned away and put on speed. Only two small geysers of water erupted alongside the vessel, however. After taking up a position from which her torpedo tracks would be nearly perpendicular to the target’s course, Tinosa launched a spread of four torpedoes.
Curiously, the heavily loaded tanker had no surface or air escort and was not zigzagging as an anti-submarine measure. They were two of the largest vessels in Japan’s precious merchant marine fleet.Īs he manuevered his submarine into a favorable attack position, Daspit calculated Tonan Maru No.3‘s speed to be 13 knots. She and her sister ship, Tonan Maru No.2, were originally built as whale factory ships but had been converted to oil tankers for wartime use. Alerted by cryptanalysts in Hawaii that the 19,000-ton Tonan Maru No.3 was cruising on an easterly course from Palau to Truk, Daspit set a course to intercept the enemy vessel. Daspit and the submarine Tinosa launched what may have been the most frustrating attack of the United States’ World War II submarine campaign against Japan.
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On the morning of July 24, 1943, Lieutenant Commander L.R.