USS Bowfin (SS-287) - Patrol 8

Hell's Bells
23 April 1945 to 15 May 1945

USS Bowfin traveled from Guam to northern Honshu/Hokkaido, and then back to Guam for refit by Fulton. Prior to Bowfin’s departure for her eighth patrol, VADM Charles Andrews Lockwood, Jr., USN, ComSubPac, rode on board to observe training. Original patrol orders were to proceed alone and without a coding machine, via the heavily mined Tsushima Straits, to the Sea of Japan and, upon successful arrival there, to radio ComSubPac to report the track they had followed through the mined area, mines detected, etc., and then to patrol the Sea of Japan. However, two days out of Guam, Bowfin received a message canceling those orders and instead, instructing her to rendezvous with returning USS Sea Dog (SS-401) to get her coding machine and publications for a brief patrol off the east-north-east coast of Honshu before returning to Guam in preparation for her ninth patrol. Bowfin did sink an enemy merchant ship on 1 May, after which its escorts dropped 22 depth charges over several nerve-wracking hours and drove Bowfin dangerously deep. Using her special FM sonar, called "Hell's Bells" by the crew because of the chilling gongs it gave off when a mine was detected, Bowfin conducted investigations of minefields near the eastern entrance to Tsugaru Strait, where several U.S. submarines had been lost. On 7 May, Bowfin sank another merchant ship and damaged another following an end-around run which skirted the charted mine fields.

USS Bowfin was underway for 5,649 miles during her eighth patrol. Commanding Officer Tyree and higher authorities believed Bowfin sank 9,300 tons (two large vessels) and damaged 4,000 tons (one large vessel). The post-war Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) credited USS Bowfin with sinking only 3,399 tons (two large vessels). CDR Tyree was awarded the Legion of Merit with combat "V".