TYLER-RALPH

The USS WAHOO gained fame as one of the most successful American submarines of World War II because of her aggressive and highly successful war patrols.  She successfully completed six war patrols and reportedly sank twenty Japanese ships.

TM3 Ralph Oley Tyler was a WAHOO crewmember and although the date he was assigned to the ship has not been recorded, it is known that he was aboard WAHOO on January 26, 1943, during WAHOO’s third war patrol when a convoy of several Japanese ships near Palau was discovered and attacked with torpedoes.  The attack was very successful and when one of the Japanese troop ships commenced to sink the survivors took to lifeboats.  Seeking to recharge the batteries, WAHOO surfaced as they had expended all their torpedoes as a couple of Japanese ships rapidly left the scent.  As WAHOO approached the lifeboats the Japanese commenced firing on the submarine.  WAHOO crewmen reported that pure bedlam developed as they then fired machine guns, hand guns, BARs and the 4” deck gun in response.  During the battle their 20mm jammed and the crew couldn’t get it cleared so the barrel was removed and a fresh barrel installed.  During the exchange the hot barrel was inadvertently dropped and exploded when it hit the deck, sending shrapnel flying.  Two nearby crewmembers, including TM3 Tyler, were injured.  He received a shrapnel wound in his shoulder but his injury was successfully treated and he remained on duty with the submarine although the other injured crewmember had to be replaced.

WAHOO left Pearl Harbor on her seventh war patrol on September 9, 1943, topping off at Midway and returning to the Sea of Japan.  She did not return from this patrol and analysis of Japanese records following the war revealed that an aerial attack on a surfaced submarine in the La Perouse Strait on October 11, 1943, resulted in the submarine being sunk.  WAHOO was the only American submarine in the area at the time of the attack and in October 2006 the U.S. Navy confirmed that WAHOO is lying intact in about 213 feet of water in La Perouse Strait.  Examination of the wreckage revealed the submarine was sunk by a direct hit from an aerial bomb in the middle of the conning tower.  TM3 Tyler died in the sinking and his name is inscribed at the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)