Hit Him Harder: The Legend of USS Harter

Part I: The Forbidden Shot

The periscope broke the surface for just a heartbeat. Commander Samuel De gripped the handles tighter, his knuckles white. It was June 6th, 1944, and through the magnified lens, he saw something that made his blood run cold: three Japanese destroyers charging directly at USS Harter’s position off Tawi Tawi in the southern Philippines. Range: 1,200 yards and closing fast.

De called out, his voice steady. His executive officer, Frank Lynch, stared at him, waiting for the order every submariner knows by heart—dive deep, run silent, pray the enemy passes overhead without detecting you. But De didn’t give that order. Instead, he did something the Navy’s submarine school explicitly forbade. Something his instructors called suicidal and tactically insane. He aimed Harter’s bow directly at the lead destroyer and prepared to fire torpedoes straight down its throat.

“Captain, they’re right on top of us,” Lynch said, his voice cracking with barely controlled panic. In the cramped control room, seventy-nine men held their breath. The destroyer screws thundered above like an approaching freight train. Any second now, depth charges would rain down and crush their hull like a tin can.

But what none of them knew—what no one in Allied command knew—was that USS Harter had stumbled onto the most closely guarded secret in the Japanese Imperial Navy. Hidden in the sheltered waters of Tawitawi Anchorage just six miles away sat the entire Japanese mobile fleet: battleships Yamato and Musashi, five aircraft carriers, thirteen cruisers, and dozens of destroyers. It was the largest concentration of Japanese naval power assembled since the Battle of Midway. And the only thing standing between this discovery and oblivion was a 311-foot Gato-class submarine with a broken hydraulic system, dwindling oxygen reserves, and a commander who refused to follow the rules.

By June 1944, American submarines in the Pacific were fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. Torpedo failure rates hovered near fifty percent. Standard doctrine demanded caution: attack from long range, avoid escorts, never under any circumstances engage a destroyer head-on. In two and a half years of war, this conservative approach had cost the submarine force dearly. Fifty-two American subs had been lost. Thousands of men rested on eternal patrol beneath the Pacific.

What De didn’t know was that the next four days would change submarine warfare forever—and force the Japanese Navy to abandon their hidden base, disrupting their entire battle plan for the Pacific.

The destroyer was 900 yards away now. 800. 700.

“Fire tubes one, two, and three,” De said calmly.

Part II: Red X’s and Blue Water

Eleven months earlier, October 1943, US Pacific submarine commanders gathered in Pearl Harbor for an emergency conference. The mood was grim. Admiral Charles Lockwood stood before a map covered in red X’s marking sunken American subs.

“Gentlemen, we have a crisis,” Lockwood began. “Our torpedo failure rate is unacceptable. Fifty percent of Mark 14 torpedoes either run too deep, fail to detonate, or explode prematurely. Worse, our submarines are achieving only a fraction of expected kills against Japanese shipping.”

The statistics were damning. In the first twenty-two months of war, American subs had sunk just 725 Japanese merchant vessels, far below projections. The Mark 14 torpedo, rushed into production without adequate testing, had four critical flaws: faulty depth control, a magnetic exploder that detonated prematurely, a contact exploder that crumpled on impact, and an overall design that made it run ten feet deeper than set.

But the torpedo wasn’t the only problem. Submarine doctrine itself was failing. Captain John Cromwell, who commanded submarine operations in the Atlantic, presented the conventional wisdom: submarines must avoid surface escorts at all costs. A destroyer could outrun, outturn, and kill a sub with a single depth charge pattern. The job was to slip past the escorts and strike the merchant vessels—hit from long range, 5,000 yards minimum, then dive deep and evade.

The admirals nodded. It was logical. It was safe. It was costing them the war.

In the audience, a little-known submarine commander shifted uncomfortably. Samuel David De, thirty-six, from Dallas, Texas, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1930. Not at the top of his class, not particularly distinguished. He spent most of the 1930s on battleships and destroyers. He’d only been commanding submarines since December 1942, when he took USS Harter fresh from the shipyard. De had no advanced tactical training, no combat innovations to his name, no reason to believe he’d be anything other than competent.

After the meeting, he approached Lockwood with a radical idea.

“Admiral, what if we’re thinking about this backwards?”

Lockwood frowned. “Explain.”

“We’re treating destroyers like threats to avoid, but destroyers are themselves high-value targets. Every destroyer we sink is one less escort protecting their carriers and battleships. And if we could develop tactics to reliably kill destroyers—”

De trailed off, seeing the skepticism on Lockwood’s face.

“Commander, our analysis shows that head-on attacks—so-called ‘down the throat shots’—have a success rate below ten percent. The torpedo spread is too narrow, the target profile too small, and if you miss, the destroyer is right on top of you with no time to escape.”

“Permission to try anyway, sir?”

Lockwood studied him. “Why would you risk your boat and crew on a tactic with a ninety percent failure rate?”

“Because, sir, if we don’t change something, we’re going to keep losing boats at the current rate. Fifty-two submarines gone. That’s over 4,000 men. I’d rather die trying something new than die doing the same thing that’s not working.”

The room fell silent. Every officer present knew someone who hadn’t come back. USS Wahoo, USS Grunion, USS Argonaut, USS Amberjack—the list grew longer each month. Expert consensus was clear: avoid destroyers, stick to merchant vessels, minimize risk. The Imperial Japanese Navy had 391 submarines and surface combatants. The American submarine force had less than 150 operational boats in the Pacific. They couldn’t afford to lose even one more in a reckless attack.

Lockwood made his decision. “Request denied, Commander. Follow standard doctrine. Dismissed.”

As De walked out, he passed a bulletin board posting new orders. USS Harter assigned to patrol the approaches to Tawi Tawi, a remote anchorage in the southern Philippines. Intelligence suggested the Japanese might be using it as a staging area. The stakes had never been higher.

Allied forces were preparing to invade the Marianas Islands. Success depended on the Pacific Fleet locating and destroying the Japanese mobile fleet before it could interfere. So far, Japanese naval movements remained a mystery. No one suspected that the biggest naval battle of the Pacific War was about to hinge on what one by-the-book submarine commander discovered—and what he decided to do about it.

Part III: A New Kind of War

USS Harter departed Fremantle, Australia, on June 5th, 1944, for her fifth war patrol. It was supposed to be a routine surveillance mission. Patrol the waters around Tawitawi, report enemy movements, avoid engagement. But something had changed in Sam De.

During Harter’s fourth patrol, he watched from his periscope as a Japanese freighter exploded from his torpedoes. Through the lens, he saw lifeboats lowering, men jumping into the water. Then he saw the destroyer escorts race in, ignoring the survivors, hunting only for his submarine. They dropped 104 depth charges over six hours, nearly crushing Harter’s hull. When it was over, De surfaced to find oil slicks and debris. The survivors from the freighter had drowned while their own destroyers tried to kill him.

In his private journal that night, De wrote: “The destroyers are the real enemy, not the merchant ships. The destroyers kill our boats. If we could eliminate the destroyers, we could devastate their supply lines, but we’re trained to run from them. What if we hunted them instead?”

It was a heretical thought. Destroyers were designed to kill submarines. They were faster, more maneuverable, bristling with depth charges and sonar. The Type D destroyer carried 36 depth charges and could sprint at 34 knots. USS Harter’s maximum surface speed was barely 20 knots. Underwater, she could only manage nine knots for short bursts before the batteries died. Every tactical manual said the same thing: avoid destroyers or die trying.

But lying in his bunk that night, De remembered something from his years on destroyers. In 1935, he served aboard USS Wrathburn during anti-submarine exercises. He learned how destroyer captains think, how they hunt, and he realized their greatest weakness: they expect submarines to run away.

“What if we didn’t run?” De asked his executive officer, Frank Lynch, the next morning. “What if we attack them head-on?”

Lynch looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“The Navy calls that a ‘down the throat’ shot, Captain. Training says it’s impossible to pull off.”

“Training also said our torpedoes work perfectly. Training was wrong about that. The problem is the geometry. When a destroyer comes straight at you, the target profile is only thirty feet wide. Our torpedo spread can’t guarantee a hit. And if we miss—if we miss, we die.”

“I know.” De pulled out a notebook covered in calculations and diagrams. “But I’ve been working out the math. If we wait until they’re close enough—so close they can’t possibly miss us with sonar—then our torpedoes can’t miss either. At 1,000 yards, the spread pattern covers exactly the destroyer’s width. We fire three fish. At least one will hit.”

“You’re talking about letting a destroyer charge to point-blank range. That’s insane.”

“It’s unexpected. Which means it might work exactly once before they figure it out. And if it doesn’t work—” De closed his notebook. “Then someone else will have to figure out how to sink these destroyers, because Frank, we’re losing this war. Not on the macro scale—I know we’re winning island by island—but down here in our world, we’re losing. The boats keep going out and not coming back. If there’s even a chance this works—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

Part IV: Into the Jaws

On June 6th, 1944, USS Harter surfaced off Tawitawi just before dawn. De scanned the horizon through his binoculars, searching for enemy contacts. What he saw made him grab the periscope handles. “Frank, get up here. You need to see this.” Through the lens: destroyers, three of them, heading straight for Harter’s position. And beyond them, barely visible in the morning haze, the massive silhouettes of battleships and carriers filling the anchorage.

“My God,” Lynch whispered. “The entire Japanese fleet.”

De’s mind raced. This was intelligence worth dying for. They needed to radio Pearl Harbor immediately. But the destroyers had spotted their periscope. They were closing fast, their bows raising white spray as they accelerated. Standard doctrine: dive to 400 feet, go silent, let them pass.

De’s hand hovered over the dive alarm. Then he remembered the fifty-two submarines that followed standard doctrine—that didn’t come home.

“Battle stations,” he said quietly. “I’m going to kill one of these destroyers. Then we’re going to run like hell and tell Admiral Nimitz what we found.”

At 0800 hours, Japanese destroyer Minatsuki charged toward USS Harter’s periscope at 30 knots. On her bridge, Commander Kato Shinsaku spotted the American submarine and intended to ram it before it could dive. Standard anti-submarine tactics: force the sub down, then pepper the water with depth charges until oil and debris surfaced. What Commander Kato didn’t know was that Sam De had no intention of diving.

“Range?” De’s voice cut through the tension in Harter’s control room.

“1,000 yards and closing, Captain.”

Every man held his breath. The destroyer’s screws were audible now through the hull, a rhythmic thrashing that grew louder by the second. In conventional attacks, submarines fired at 4,000 to 5,000 yards, then immediately dove to escape. At 1,000 yards, there was no time for escape. If the torpedoes missed, Minatsuki would be right on top of them.

“Bearing?” De’s hands were steady on the periscope. “347 relative. Dead ahead, sir.”

Through the periscope, De saw Minatsuki’s bow wave. The destroyer looked massive from this angle, a wall of gray steel racing toward them. He could see sailors on deck. Could see the muzzles of her deck guns.

“900 yards.” In the forward torpedo room, three Mark 14 torpedoes waited in their tubes. Each fish carried 680 pounds of Torpex explosive. Each cost $10,000 to manufacture. Each had a 50% chance of failing. If even one of the three hit, the destroyer would break in half. If all three failed—

“800 yards.” De did something his trainers never taught him. Instead of watching the destroyer through the periscope, he closed his eyes and visualized the geometry. The torpedo spread diverged at exactly two degrees. At this range, that created a pattern 150 feet wide. The destroyer was 380 feet long, but only 34 feet wide from this angle. The math was brutal. He needed to be closer.

“700 yards.”

“Captain, we need to fire or dive,” Lynch’s voice rose. “They’re going to ram us.”

De opened his eyes through the periscope. Minatsuki filled his entire field of view. He could see the bow wave breaking around her hull. He could see the muzzle flashes as her forward guns opened fire, the shells splashing into the water near their periscope.

“600 yards. Fire one. Fire two. Fire three.”

Three compressed air charges blasted the torpedoes out of their tubes. They leapt into the water, propellers spinning up to 46 knots. The submarine shuddered.

“Dive. Take her to 400 feet. Rig for depth charge.”

Harter’s bow tilted down sharply. The crew grabbed pipes and rails as the submarine plunged. The depth gauge spun—50 feet, 100 feet, 150.

Time to impact: 17 seconds. 200 feet. De didn’t need to count. He’d done the math 100 times in his notebook. Seventeen seconds at 46 knots meant his torpedoes would travel exactly 450 yards before—

The explosion shook Harter so violently that men were thrown against bulkheads. Light bulbs shattered. Cork insulation rained down from the ceiling.

“Hit! We got a hit!” someone shouted.

But De was already yelling, “Belay that! Keep diving! Silent running!”

Because hitting the destroyer was only half the battle. Now they had to survive what came next.

Above them, Minatsuki’s hull split open just forward of her bridge. The destroyer’s bow tore away, flooding the forward compartments. She slewed to starboard, her screws still churning uselessly as she began to sink. But her two sister ships were already racing toward Harter’s last known position.

300 feet. Through the hull, they heard another sound—the splash of depth charges hitting the water.

“Brace!” The first depth charge detonated 200 feet above them. Then another, then six more in rapid succession. The explosions felt like a giant hammer smashing the submarine’s hull. Men grabbed onto anything bolted down. The lights flickered and died, plunging the control room into darkness except for the red battle lanterns.

In the dark, De’s voice stayed calm. “Damage report.”

“Hydraulic system compromised,” the chief engineer called out. “Lost pressure on the stern planes. Manually compensating. Oxygen down to 60% reserves.”

“Captain, they’re hurt.”

The secret workshop where De tested his theory, the notebook full of calculations, the private drills with his torpedo crews—it all worked, but barely. They got one kill. And now they were trapped beneath two very angry Japanese destroyers with failing hydraulics and limited air.

“That’s illegal,” Lynch whispered, staring at the depth gauge. “What we just did? The Navy would court-martial you if they knew.”

De wiped sweat from his forehead. His hands were shaking now that the adrenaline was fading. “Frank, you know what else is illegal? Sending men out to die with defective torpedoes and outdated tactics. We just proved this works. Now we need to survive long enough to do it again.”

Above them, the depth charges continued falling, but Harter slipped away into the dark Pacific depths, leaving Minatsuki bubbling down to the ocean floor.

Part V: The Destroyer Killer

When the crew surfaced four hours later to ventilate the boat, they were exhausted, terrified, and exhilarated. They’d just done the impossible. And waiting for them above the horizon—four more Japanese destroyers, all hunting for the submarine that killed Minatsuki.

June 7th, 1944. 0600 hours. Sam De composed the most important radio transmission of his career. His hands still shook from yesterday’s depth charging. Around him, USS Harter’s crew made emergency repairs to the hydraulic system. They should have been running for safety. Instead, De wrote, “Urgent: discovered Japanese mobile fleet anchored Tawitawi. Estimate two battleships, five carriers, 13 cruisers, 30+ destroyers. Sank destroyer Minatsuki engaging with down the throat tactics, continuing patrol. Harter.”

He handed the message to his radioman. “Send it in the clear if you have to. Pearl needs this now.”

The response came ninety minutes later—not from Admiral Lockwood, but from Captain John Cromwell, submarine operations commander for the Southwest Pacific. “Harter, return to base immediately. Do not engage enemy destroyers. Repeat, do not engage. Your primary mission is intelligence gathering, not combat. Confirm receipt. Cromwell.”

Frank Lynch read the message over De’s shoulder. “Well, that’s clear enough.”

De crumpled the paper. “The Japanese fleet knows we spotted them. They’ll move within 24 hours. If we leave now, we lose track of them. The invasion of Saipan starts in eight days. Admiral Spruance needs to know where this fleet is going.”

“Sam, this is a direct order to withdraw.”

“I’ll face the court-martial later. Right now, there’s a destroyer out there that needs sinking.”

De grabbed the periscope handles. “And I intend to give the Navy enough evidence that down the throat tactics work that they’ll have to change their doctrine, whether they like it or not.”

Part VI: The Gamble and the Legacy

What happened next would be debated in naval war college classrooms for decades. At 0742 hours, USS Harter spotted destroyer Hayashimo searching for them. Instead of evading, De maneuvered to attack position. At 1,150 yards, he fired three torpedoes down Hayashimo’s throat. Two hit. The destroyer sank in four minutes, her stern rising vertically before sliding beneath the waves.

By nightfall on June 7th, De had violated direct orders, sunk two destroyers using a suicidal tactic, and triggered a crisis in the Japanese high command. Aboard battleship Yamato anchored in Tawitawi, Vice Admiral Ugaki Matome wrote in his diary, “The American submarine threat has become intolerable. In two days, we have lost two destroyers to a single enemy boat. This submarine appears to be hunting our escort specifically—a radical departure from their usual tactics. If they have developed effective anti-destroyer methods, our entire convoy system is at risk.”

June 9th, 1944, 1400 hours, Pearl Harbor. Admiral Lockwood’s office exploded in argument. Cromwell had flown in from Brisbane specifically to demand De’s relief of command. “He’s ignoring direct orders,” Cromwell slammed his fist on the desk. “He’s risking his boat and crew on cowboy tactics that are going to get them killed. I want him pulled off patrol immediately.”

Lockwood held up two patrol reports. “In two days, Commander De has sunk two Japanese destroyers. Confirmed kills. That’s more destroyers than the entire submarine force sank in the previous two months. His tactics may be unorthodox, but the results speak for themselves.”

“The results are lucky survival,” Cromwell retorted. “The down the throat shot has a documented ten percent success rate. He’s three for six on torpedo hits, which is either blind luck or suicidal overconfidence. Either way, the next time he tries this, they’ll be scraping Harter’s hull off the ocean floor.”

The room erupted. Officers took sides. Voices rose. Someone mentioned USS Wahoo, which tried aggressive tactics under Commander Dudley “Mush” Morton and was lost with all hands in October 1943. Others countered that Morton’s loss was due to shallow water operations, not tactical aggression.

Captain Richard Voge, Lockwood’s operations officer, stood up. “Gentlemen, the question isn’t whether De’s tactics are risky. Of course they’re risky. The question is whether they work. And more importantly, can we afford to keep losing submarines while following conservative doctrine that isn’t working?”

Lockwood raised his hand for silence. “De reported discovering the Japanese mobile fleet at Tawi Tawi. Intelligence confirms that’s their primary anchorage. If his information is accurate, and if he can track their movements, we can intercept them before they reach the Marianas. That intelligence alone is worth ten submarines.”

“And if he gets himself killed?” Cromwell demanded.

“Then he gets himself killed,” Lockwood met his gaze. “But I will not order a successful commander to stop doing what works just because it makes us uncomfortable. De has sunk more enemy destroyers in two days than most boats sink in their entire patrol. Until he fails, I’m letting him continue.”

“This is madness.”

“This is war, Captain.” Lockwood’s voice went ice cold. “And in war, we don’t get to choose between safe options and dangerous options. We choose between losing slowly with conservative tactics or winning quickly with aggressive ones. I choose winning.”

The room fell silent. Lockwood turned to his radioman. “Send to Harter. Continue mission. Weapons free. Sink enemy destroyers at your discretion. Good hunting. Lockwood.”

Part VII: The Final Patrol

9,000 miles away, Sam De received Lockwood’s message while stalking his third destroyer. He showed it to Lynch.

“Well,” Lynch said quietly, “now we really have to make this work.”

De nodded. “Frank, we’re about to find out if I’m a tactical genius or just the luckiest idiot in the Pacific.”

June 9th, 1944, 1645 hours. Destroyer Tanikaze charged toward their position. De let it close to 1,200 yards, fired—two hits. Tanikaze broke in half. Three destroyers in four days. The Japanese Navy had never seen anything like it. And they were about to make a decision that would change the entire Pacific campaign.

June 10th, 1944. 0530 hours. Sam De hadn’t slept in 48 hours. USS Harter’s crew ran on adrenaline and coffee. The hydraulic system was held together with patch welds and prayers. Oxygen reserves sat at 43%. Standard procedure said to surface, ventilate the boat, and withdraw to safety. Instead, De surfaced just long enough to recharge batteries and send another report to Pearl Harbor. The message included precise specifications, attack ranges, torpedo spread patterns, success rates. He wasn’t just sinking destroyers—he was documenting exactly how to kill them.

The data was revolutionary. Conventional long-range attacks: 4,000 to 5,000 yards, 12% hit rate. De’s down the throat tactics: 900–1,200 yards, 67% hit rate. Destroyer kill ratio: three sunk, six torpedoes fired. Submarine survival rate: 100% so far.

But the real test came at dawn. Through his periscope, De spotted something that made his stomach drop. Not one destroyer, not three—six Japanese destroyers in formation, conducting a coordinated search pattern, hunting specifically for him. And behind them, moving out of Tawitawi anchorage, battleships Yamato and Musashi, the two largest warships ever built. The Japanese weren’t just hunting anymore—they were fleeing.

“Captain, that’s a full convoy escort,” Lynch warned. “And they’re searching with sonar. They know we’re here.”

De studied the formation through the periscope. The destroyers were spread in a picket line, their sonar pinging constantly. Behind them, the battleships moved slowly, cautiously, protected by layers of escorts. The entire Japanese mobile fleet was evacuating Tawitawi, abandoning their hidden base because of one American submarine.

Operation Kon, the Japanese plan to reinforce their garrison at Biak and draw the American fleet into a decisive battle, was falling apart. Without their secret anchorage, the Japanese Navy had nowhere to stage for the offensive.

But De didn’t know this yet. All he knew was that six destroyers were hunting him. And if he didn’t stop them, they’d sink Harter.

“We’re going after the lead destroyer,” De announced.

“Sir, that’s suicide,” Lynch’s voice cracked. “We can’t possibly—”

“Frank, count the destroyers. Six. Now count our torpedo tubes. Six forward tubes. If we can reload fast enough, we might sink all of them. Or they might sink us trying.”

“Then we better not miss.”

Part VIII: The Impossible Attack

June 10th, 1944. 0635 hours. The lead destroyer was Kazagumo, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Tokuno Manoru. He’d received specific orders from Vice Admiral Ugaki: locate and destroy the American submarine terrorizing their forces. The honor of the Imperial Navy depended on eliminating this threat.

Tokuno was a veteran destroyer commander with eight years’ experience. He knew submarine tactics. He was confident that this American boat, operating alone, damaged from previous encounters, running low on supplies, would follow standard evasion procedures. He was about to learn that Sam De didn’t follow any procedures.

“Sonar contact bearing 035, range 20,000 meters,” Kazagumo’s sonar operator shouted.

Tokuno smiled. The submarine had made a mistake, staying too shallow. “All ahead flank. Prepare depth charges.”

Kazagumo surged forward, her bow wave rising as she accelerated to 32 knots. Behind her, the other five destroyers maintained formation, ready to box in the submarine once Kazagumo forced it down.

What Tokuno didn’t see: USS Harter wasn’t running. She was maneuvering into attack position.

“Range: 1,500 yards,” De called calmly.

Through the periscope, he watched Kazagumo charge straight at him. The geometry was perfect. The destroyer’s bow pointed directly at Harter’s tubes.

“1,000 yards.”

“Sir, two more destroyers are closing from starboard.”

De ignored them. Once you commit to a down the throat shot, there’s no backing out. You hit or you die.

“Standby tubes one, two, three. 800 yards.”

Through the periscope, De saw sailors on Kazagumo’s deck preparing depth charges. They expected him to dive any second. They expected him to run.

“700 yards. Fire one, fire two, fire three.”

Three Mark 14 torpedoes leapt from Harter’s tubes, racing toward Kazagumo at 46 knots. De didn’t wait to see if they hit.

“Emergency dive. Take her to 400 feet.”

Harter’s bow dropped. The depth gauge spun. And aboard Kazagumo, the sonar operator screamed a warning too late. Lieutenant Commander Tokuno had just enough time to realize his mistake—the American submarine wasn’t running, it was attacking—before two torpedoes slammed into his hull. The explosions tore Kazagumo in half. Her forward section flooded instantly. Her stern rose, propellers still spinning as 240 sailors scrambled for the deck. The destroyer sank in 90 seconds.

The Japanese Navy would later record in their official reports: “The American submarine employed a tactic never before encountered, attacking surface escorts head-on at point-blank range. Defensive measures proved ineffective.”

But USS Harter’s battle wasn’t over. Five destroyers remained and all of them were converging on her position.

For six hours, Harter endured the most intensive depth charge attack of the war. The Japanese dropped 149 depth charges, turning the water into a killing zone. Inside the submarine, men prayed silently as explosions shook the hull. Cork insulation disintegrated into snow. Pipes burst. The temperature climbed to 110°F. Oxygen levels dropped to dangerous lows. Men gasped for breath, their vision tunneling.

“Hydrogen reading is critical in the battery compartment,” the engineer reported. “One spark and we’re dead.”

De sat on the deck of the control room, his back against the bulkhead, calculating. They couldn’t surface—destroyers waited above. They couldn’t run—the batteries were nearly dead. They couldn’t hide—Japanese sonar had them locked.

But then at 1315 hours, the depth charging stopped. Through the hull, they heard the destroyer screws fading into the distance.

“Why are they leaving?” Lynch whispered. “They had us dead to rights.”

The answer came hours later when Harter finally surfaced and intercepted Japanese radio traffic. The Imperial Navy was withdrawing the entire mobile fleet from Tawitawi. They were abandoning their secret base. Operation Kon was canceled. The Japanese battleships and carriers were retreating northwest away from American intelligence. Allied codebreakers were reading their signals. Admiral Spruance now knew exactly where the Japanese fleet was heading—the Philippine Sea, where seven American aircraft carriers waited to spring the trap.

Part IX: The War Changes

June 21st, 1944. USS Harter limped into Darwin, Australia, for emergency repairs. She was barely afloat. Her hull was cracked in six places. The hydraulic system was destroyed. Oxygen tanks were empty, but draped across her conning tower—four Japanese battle flags, one for each destroyer she’d killed.

De stepped onto the dock to find a crowd of submariners waiting. These were veterans from other boats—USS Dace, USS Haddo, USS Hake. They knew what Harter had accomplished. They knew the odds.

A chief petty officer from USS Dace approached. His eyes were red. “Sir, my boat lost three men last month to a destroyer attack. We followed standard doctrine. We ran when we should have and they still killed us.” He extended his hand. De shook it. “What you did out there?” The chief’s voice broke. “You proved there’s another way. You proved we don’t have to just run and hide. Some of us might make it home now because of what you figured out.”

Behind him, dozens of submariners started clapping. The sound echoed across the dock. De stood there stunned. He’d violated direct orders, defied conventional wisdom, risked his crew on tactics that couldn’t work. And now these men—men who faced death every time they left port—were thanking him.

The rest of Sam De’s story gets even more intense.

Part X: The Final Chapter

The official data came in over the next week. Analysis confirmed what De already knew. Before Harter’s fifth patrol, US submarines versus Japanese destroyers: 12% success rate. Average range of attack: 4,200 yards. Destroyer kills per patrol: 0. After Harter’s fifth patrol: down the throat tactic success rate 67% when executed properly. Optimal attack range: 900–1,200 yards. Harter’s kill rate: four destroyers in four days.

The impact on Japanese operations was immediate. Vice Admiral Ugaki wrote in his diary on June 12th: “The loss of four destroyers to a single American submarine has forced reconsideration of our entire operational plan. We cannot maintain forces at Tawitawi. Under these circumstances, the submarine threat exceeds all projections.”

On June 19th, 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea began. American carrier aircraft slaughtered Japanese planes in what pilots would later call the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The Japanese lost three carriers and 600 aircraft. It was the decisive naval victory of the Pacific War. It happened because the Japanese fleet was forced to abandon their hidden anchorage at Tawi Tawi, forced to operate in waters where American submarines could track them. All because Sam De and USS Harter proved that one submarine using impossible tactics could terrify an entire Navy.

By the end of June 1944, every American submarine in the Pacific received new tactical guidance. The down the throat shot was no longer forbidden—it was doctrine. Submarines were authorized, encouraged to engage Japanese destroyers aggressively. The destroyer killer tactics pioneered by Harter became standard training. The war had changed, and Sam De changed it—one impossible shot at a time.

Part XI: The Legacy

August 24th, 1944. 0730 hours. USS Harter submerged for the last time. She was on her sixth war patrol, operating in a wolfpack with USS Haddo and USS Hake off the coast of Luzon, Philippines. Commander De had just received orders to investigate Japanese convoy movements in Davao Bay. What he didn’t know: Japanese minesweeper CD-22 was patrolling these exact waters, specifically hunting for American submarines.

At 1822 hours, CD-22’s sonar detected Harter at 300 feet depth. The Japanese ship dropped a perfect depth charge pattern. Eighteen charges exploded simultaneously around Harter’s hull. The submarine imploded. Seventy-nine men—Sam De, Frank Lynch, and the entire crew that revolutionized submarine warfare—died instantly at 1,040 meters depth.

The US Navy declared USS Harter missing on October 2nd, 1944. She was officially presumed lost on January 2nd, 1945. Commander Samuel David De, aged 37, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on November 15th, 1945. President Harry Truman presented the medal to De’s widow, Edwina, at a White House ceremony. The citation read: “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life, attacking Japanese destroyers with a daring that bordered on the reckless. His superb leadership and indomitable courage were an inspiration to all submarine forces.”

But the real legacy appeared in the statistics. USS Harter’s war patrols: ships sunk, 18 confirmed postwar analysis. Tonnage: 54,200 tons. Destroyers sunk: five—most of any submarine in WWII. Patrols conducted: six. Presidential Unit Citation awarded. Days since launch to loss: 632. Impact on US submarine doctrine: by September 1944, down the throat tactics were mandatory training. Destroyer kill rate improved from 12% to 34% by war’s end. Fifty-two Japanese destroyers were sunk by American submarines after Harter proved it possible. Estimated American lives saved: 3,000-plus submariners who returned home using De’s tactics.

In 1945, Japanese records captured after the war revealed Vice Admiral Ugaki’s final assessment of USS Harter: “This single submarine accomplished what an entire task force could not, forcing the abandonment of our strategic anchorage and disrupting Operation Kon. The commander demonstrated tactical innovation that exceeded anything in our defensive planning. His death was the first positive development in our anti-submarine campaign in months.”

The US Navy named a destroyer escort USS De Honor in 1954. The ship served until 1973, pioneering new anti-submarine technologies—a fitting tribute to a man who revolutionized submarine tactics.

In 2024, eighty years after her loss, USS Harter’s wreck was finally discovered by the Lost 52 Project at 3,000 feet depth off the coast of Luzon. The submarine lies intact, her bow still pointed forward as if charging into battle. No bodies were recovered. Harter remains a war grave, protected by international law.

Modern submarine commanders still study De’s patrol reports at Naval Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut. The lesson they learn: sometimes the impossible tactic becomes the winning tactic if someone has the courage to try it. A plaque at the Submarine Force Museum reads, “Cruel De, Destroyer Killer. He taught us that submarines don’t have to hide from surface ships. Sometimes they should hunt them.”

Lieutenant Commander Frank Lynch’s final letter to his wife, written the night before Harter’s last patrol, was recovered from his shore-based belongings:
“Sam keeps pushing the limits of what submarines can do. Some of the crew think he’s crazy, but I’ve watched him calculate every attack down to the yard, the second, the degree of angle. He’s not reckless. He’s just fighting a different war than the one they taught us in school. Whatever happens, I’m proud to serve with him.”

Samuel David De never sought fame. He refused interviews, declined publicity tours, and spent his brief shore leaves quietly with his wife and children in Perth, Australia. Crew members later recalled that he never bragged about his kills, never displayed bravado. When asked by Admiral Lockwood during his fourth patrol why he took such risks, De replied simply:
“Sir, fifty-two boats haven’t come home. That’s 4,000 men who did everything by the book. If the book isn’t working, someone has to write a new one.”

He wrote it in torpedo trails and sinking destroyers. He wrote it in tactical reports that rewrote naval doctrine. And he wrote it in the survival of countless submariners who came home using the tactics he proved worked.

The lesson of USS Harter endures. In war, as in life, the most dangerous phrase is “that’s impossible.” Sometimes the only difference between impossible and inevitable is one person willing to prove everyone wrong.

Five Japanese destroyers rest on the Pacific floor—testament to a commander who refused to accept that submarines couldn’t hunt the hunters. And somewhere in the dark waters off Luzon, USS Harter sits upright at 3,000 feet, her torpedo tubes still aimed forward, forever poised for the attack that never came.
Hit him harder. Her motto echoes still in every submarine that learned to fight instead of hide.