U.S Corvina Sunk
USS Corvina (SS-226) sailed out of Pearl Harbor on 4 November 1943 for her first combat patrol. Her mission was to operate in the dangerous waters around Truk, the heavily defended Japanese naval base in the central Pacific, and attack forces that threatened the American offensive in the Gilbert Islands. She stopped only briefly at Johnston Island on 6 November to top off fuel. After that, she disappeared.
The only solid account of what happened comes from Japanese wartime reports discovered after the war ended. On the night of 16 November 1943, not far south of Truk Island, the Japanese submarine I-176 reported sighting an enemy submarine on the surface. The Japanese captain fired three torpedoes. Two explosions were heard. The target submarine was destroyed. Corvina was the only American submarine operating in that specific location that failed to return. Because of that match of time, place, and events, the U.S. Navy later concluded that Corvina was the submarine that I-176 sank.
Corvina had 82 officers and enlisted aboard. Commander Roderick S. Rooney, an experienced submariner and Annapolis graduate, was in command. All 82 men were lost. There were no survivors. No debris or bodies were ever recovered, which was common in deep Pacific sinkings.
The sinking took place in the waters just south of Truk on 16 November 1943. Most latitude and longitude estimates place the location near 5 degrees north latitude and around 151 degrees east longitude. Slight variations in different sources exist because of differences in time zones and later interpretation, but all agree: south of Truk, mid-November 1943.
Corvina holds a grim distinction: she was the only U.S. submarine in the Pacific to be sunk by another submarine.
On the Japanese side, I-176 at that time was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Yamaguchi KozaburĊ. I-176 survived for a few more months. But in May 1944, near the northern Solomons, three American destroyers hunted her down. They sank her with all hands. Yamaguchi and his crew did not survive the war.
So the tragedy came full circle. Corvina and her entire crew were lost in November 1943. And within six months, the submarine that killed her was itself destroyed with no survivors.
