USS Escolar (SS-294)

Career
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Ordered:
Laid down:	10 June 1942
Launched:	18 April 1943
Commissioned:	2 June 1944
Fate:	sunk, probably by Japanese mine
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1870 tons surfaced, 2391 tons submerged
Length:	311 feet 8 inches
Beam:	27 feet 3 inches
Draft:	15 feet 3 inches
Speed:	20.25 knots surfaced, 8.75 knots submerged
Depth:	400 feet
Complement:	six officers and 60 men
Armament:	one five-inch/25-caliber gun, six 21-inch torpedo tubes forward, four aft

USS Escolar (SS-294), a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the escolar, a predatory fish of the open ocean related to the mackerels and tunnies. Her keel was laid down by Cramp Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was launched on 18 April 1943 sponsored by Mrs. J. Bilisoly Hudgins. She was transferred to Boston Navy Yard after launch and thence to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard prior to her commissioning on 2 June 1944 with Commander W. J. Millican in command.

Escolar had her final training for combat at Pearl Harbor, from which she put out for her first war patrol 18 September 1944. After topping off fuel at Midway Island, she joined Croaker (SS-246) and Perch (SS-313) for a coordinated wolfpack patrol in the Yellow Sea. Commander Millican led this coordinated attack group, which was designated "Millican's Marauders."

On 30 September, when Escolar was estimated to be about north of the Bonin Islands, a listening post received a partial message from her:

THIS FROM ESCOLAR X ATTACKED WITH DECK GUN BOAT SIMILAR TO EX-ITALIAN PETER GEORGE FIVE OTYI

Escolar was then forced to break off the transmission and the engagement with the gunboat.

No further transmissions were received by bases from Escolar, but Perch and Croaker recorded intra-ship communications with her until 17 October, when Perch received a routine message from Escolar giving her position and course. She was never heard from again.

Had Escolar ended her patrol on the scheduled date, she would have arrived at Midway Island about 13 November 1944. All attempts to contact Escolar failed and she was reported on 27 November 1944 as presumed lost.

Information supplied by the Japanese on anti-submarine attacks gives no clue as to the cause of her loss, but the Yellow Sea area is thought to have been mined. Her course as transmitted to Perch does not cross any known Japanese mine fields, but positions of mines laid before April 1945 are not precisely known. However, the most likely explanation for her end remains that she detonated a mine.

References

This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.