February 1944

By the time the Harrisburg headed back to Midway two more of her sister ships, Fargo and Detroit had sailed into the Pacific. The Fargo was already hunting shipping in the Sea of Japan. The Harrisburg returned to port to make a quick reload, effect some needed repairs and return to the waters of the Japanese islands. On this trip she was only on station five days before she had to again return to the Midway to reload. She had fired all but one of her torpedoes. The twenty seven fish had sunk seventeen ships. They fired the last three fish at one tanker. Two hit, one missed in front of the ship. It hit a destroyer on the other side of the tanker and it sank too.

She had been lucky to escape after the action. She was defenseless without torpedoes. The devastation wrought by even the first sorties of these new submarines brought on action by the Japanese. Their plight was the same as that of the British in the Atlantic. The submarines were their primary enemy and must be dealt with quickly and at all cost. They must not be allowed free access to the Sea of Japan. Just before the Harrisburg’s third patrol they formed two new hunting squadrons of twelve destroyers and three cruisers each. They were ordered to find and kill this new menace. The Harrisburg managed to slip away from one of these groups after its last attack on the convoy. Captain Henderson reported the aggressive group upon his return from patrol and the high command decided to take definitive action to eliminate this new menace to submarine operations. After returning from the first patrol the Fargo was ordered to hunt in the open Pacific for a week until the Harrisburg and Detroit could join her. The three would together enter the Sea of Japan. Together they should be more than a match for one of these squadrons.

March 1944

The three submarines met in the open sea about eight hundred miles from the entrance to the Sea of Japan. All had refueled and the Harrisburg and Detroit were carrying extra torpedoes for the Fargo. At sea they replaced the sixteen torpedoes she had expended during the week her skipper later described in his report as relatively quiet. After a conference they submerged and moved off to attack. They had decided to stay about five miles apart with only two charging batteries at a time so the other could maintain a better listening watch. The diesels were too noisy for the sonar to be really effective. The boat running on batteries would maintain a watch for the others. Three sonar pings was the word to go silent.