**THE DESTROYER KILLER:

I. “DOWN THE THROAT”

At 0647 on June 6, 1944, Commander Samuel David Dealey stood inside the cramped conning tower of USS Harder, peering through his periscope at three Japanese destroyers slicing across the moonlit waters near Tawi-Tawi. The destroyers—Minazuki, Hayanami, and Tanikaze—were not on routine patrol. They had been dispatched with a single mission:

Destroy the American submarine that had been haunting Japan’s supply lanes for weeks.

Dealey, 37 years old, on his fifth war patrol, had already sunk 18 enemy ships. He was a Texas-born officer with a calm drawl and a reputation for astonishing aggressiveness—especially in situations where most submarine commanders prudently chose to flee.

But this morning, he was being hunted.

American submarines, burdened with slow submerged speeds—barely 8 or 9 knots—traditionally avoided destroyers, which could sprint at 35. In the first years of the Pacific War, Japanese destroyers had sunk 14 U.S. subs, while no American submarine had ever sunk a destroyer in a face-to-face tactical engagement.

Dealey had changed that equation.

On April 13, less than two months earlier, the Japanese destroyer Ikazuchi had charged straight at Harder. Every officer in Dealey’s control room expected the captain to dive for safety.

Instead, Dealey ordered flank speed—directly at the destroyer.

At 900 yards, he fired a four-torpedo spread. Two struck Ikazuchi midships. The destroyer exploded and sank in minutes.

Dealey’s radio message summarizing the event would become the most famous four words in U.S. submarine history:

“Expended four torpedoes, one destroyer.”

To the U.S. Navy’s Silent Service, it was a line worthy of John Paul Jones.

To the Japanese, it was an embarrassment—and a problem.

II. A NAVY UNDER PRESSURE

By spring 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy was hemorrhaging destroyers. Between January and May alone, 23 had been lost. Destroyers were the backbone of Japan’s fleet defense—escorting carriers, hunting submarines, screening battleships, and delivering troops. They were also indispensable for Operation A-Go, Admiral Soemu Toyoda’s plan to destroy the American fleet at the Marianas.

Losing destroyers to submarines disrupted everything.

So when Dealey sank Ikazuchi, Toyoda took notice. He ordered destroyers concentrated around Tawi-Tawi, a major anchorage 300 miles southwest of the Philippines. There, by early June, Japan had assembled the greatest concentration of its naval power since Midway: four battleships including Yamato, nine carriers, 15 cruisers, 28 destroyers.

American codebreakers knew exactly where they were gathering. Admiral Charles Lockwood—commander of U.S. submarines in the Pacific—sent Harder to the waters north of Tawi-Tawi.

Dealey did not disappoint.

For nine days, Harder prowled undetected, picking off targets. Then, just before 0300 on June 6, a Japanese patrol plane caught a glint of her periscope wake. Three destroyers pounced.

The hunter had become the hunted.

III. THE FIRST KILL: MINAZUKI

From the conning tower, Dealey watched the lead destroyer, Minazuki, zigzag toward him at high speed.

Range: 1,100 yards.
Closing fast.
Time to impact: under two minutes.

Dealey ordered Harder’s bow pointed directly at her.

This was the maneuver now legendary in submarine lore: the “down-the-throat” shot—torpedoes fired straight into the bow of an onrushing destroyer. It was a duel in which the first miscalculation would be fatal.

At 750 yards, Dealey fired three torpedoes.

Then he ordered Harder down—300 feet, steep angle. Forty seconds later, two explosions ripped through the water. A third blast followed, so violent that Harder’s stern lifted six feet.

Dealey rose to periscope depth.

Where Minazuki had been, there was now only oil and debris. The destroyer had cracked in half.

The two surviving destroyers panicked, racing away and dropping depth charges blindly.

One battle won. The war for Harder’s survival had only begun.

IV. NIGHT OF THE DESTROYER HUNTER

The next night would bring one of the most daring surface attacks of the Pacific submarine war.

At 0312 on June 7, while Harder was recharging batteries under a moonless sky, radar detected a fast-approaching contact. A destroyer.

It was Hayanami—700 tons, and returning to base after a fruitless hunt.

Dealey ordered flank speed, racing toward the destroyer on the surface. He meant to get inside the Japanese radar detection envelope before they could identify him.

At 4,000 yards, Hayanami’s radar watch stander misidentified Harder as a friendly ship. At 3,000 yards, the mistake became clear. The Japanese captain turned to ram at flank speed.

Dealey had anticipated exactly this.

At 2,300 yards, he fired four torpedoes.

Two struck Hayanami near the aft magazine. The stern tore away. The destroyer rolled, propellers thrashing the air, and sank with 148 men, including her captain.

Dealey immediately dove. Patrol planes converged minutes later, but Harder had vanished beneath the black South China Sea.

Two destroyers in 24 hours.

Admiral Toyoda was enraged.

He pulled eight destroyers off carrier escort duty and ordered them into hunter-killer groups. Their mission: find and destroy USS Harder.

V. THE THIRD DESTROYER: TANIKAZE

On June 8, Harder moved south toward the Sibutu Passage—narrow waters ideal for ambushing Japanese anti-submarine patrols.

At 1400, two destroyers appeared on the horizon, steaming in a methodical zigzag pattern. Dealey studied their movements for an hour and a half. He noticed their turns followed a pattern: a steady eight-minute cycle.

He positioned Harder directly in their projected path.

At 1630, the lead destroyer, Tanikaze, swung toward Harder.

Dealey waited.

Range dropped:
3,000 yards.
2,500.
2,000.
1,500.

At 1,200 yards, Dealey fired four torpedoes.

One missed. The second struck Tanikaze near the bridge. The third detonated in the forward magazine.

The explosion was colossal. Harder’s crew heard it underwater even with all hatches sealed. Tanikaze broke apart and went down in less than three minutes.

The escort destroyer charged Harder’s position, but Dealey was already diving—400 feet, silent running. Forty minutes later, the Japanese destroyer gave up the chase.

Three destroyers in three days. No American submarine had ever achieved anything like it.

And Dealey was not finished.

VI. JUNE 9: FOUR DESTROYERS BEARING DOWN

Before dawn on June 9, Dealey raised periscope depth just southwest of Tawi-Tawi. What he saw froze the control room.

Four Japanese destroyers, line-abreast, sweeping the area with sonar so loud the pings vibrated in Harder’s hull.

Dealey had eight torpedoes left.

He selected the second destroyer in the formation—the only one holding a predictable course. At 4,000 yards she swung directly toward him.

Dealey held steady.

3,000 yards.
2,500.
2,000.
1,800.

He fired three torpedoes.

All three hit within five seconds.

The destroyer erupted in a geyser of flame and water. Debris shot 300 feet into the air. She rolled over and sank in 90 seconds.

The other three destroyers converged immediately.

Dealey took Harder down—500 feet, far below safe operating depth. Depth charges burst above them with frightening intensity: 23 detonations in ten minutes. Lights blew out, pipes ruptured, insulation rained down. Then came another wave, and another.

For two hours the destroyers hunted violently, dropping 40 charges. Harder held, battered but alive.

By midmorning, the Japanese withdrew.

Dealey surfaced cautiously. The sea was empty.

Four destroyers in four days.

American submarine history had never seen anything like it.

VII. THE CONSEQUENCE: A FLEET SET IN MOTION

At 1400 hours on June 9, Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa—the commander of Japan’s Mobile Fleet—received the latest situation report.

Four destroyers lost. All to the same submarine.

Ozawa was responsible for the force gathered at Tawi-Tawi, and the losses alarmed him. Destroyers were essential to carrier defense, anti-submarine screens, and fleet maneuver. Without them, his carriers were vulnerable.

Ozawa did the math.

If a single American submarine could penetrate the destroyer screen so easily, the anchorage itself was compromised.

He sent an urgent message to Admiral Toyoda:

The Mobile Fleet must depart Tawi-Tawi immediately.
Remaining here is suicidal.

Toyoda agreed.

Operation A-Go—Japan’s plan to smash the American invasion of the Marianas—was supposed to launch June 15. Ozawa now chose to depart six days early, on June 10, without proper reconnaissance, without supply ships in position, and with escort destroyers scattered across anti-sub patrol zones.

American codebreakers intercepted the departure orders within hours. Admiral Raymond Spruance adjusted his own fleet’s movements accordingly.

What followed, on June 19–20, would become the greatest carrier battle in naval history.

But before the battle could be fought, Harder had one more kill to attempt.

VIII. HARDER’S LAST TORPEDOES

On the evening of June 10, with fuel dwindling, Harder spotted two more destroyers north of Sibutu Passage.

Dealey had five torpedoes left.

At 1715 he fired three at the lead destroyer. One hit, damaging the bow but not sinking her. The second destroyer charged immediately, dropping depth charges as she came at 32 knots.

Dealey fired his last two torpedoes.

They missed.

Now Harder was defenseless.

Dealey ordered emergency deep. The submarine plunged to 500 feet. The destroyer dropped 42 depth charges over 90 minutes. Several rocked the hull violently, cracking gauges and causing minor leaks.

But Harder survived.

She surfaced after dark and crept away at eight knots toward Fremantle, Australia. After a 17-day journey, she reached port battered, leaking—but undefeated.

On the pier, Admiral Lockwood was waiting.

Four destroyers sunk. One damaged. The most successful anti-destroyer patrol in U.S. Navy history.

Lockwood awarded Dealey the Navy Cross on the spot.

Then he asked the question every submarine commander dreaded:

“Can you do it again?”

Dealey didn’t hesitate.

“Give me torpedoes, Admiral,” he said,
“and I’ll sink ten.”

IX. SIXTH PATROL: THE LAST HUNT

In August 1944, Harder returned to sea as part of a three-submarine wolfpack with USS Haddo and USS Hake. Dealey was the senior officer.

On August 21, the wolfpack crushed a 16-ship convoy off Palawan Bay, sinking four ships. The next day, Harder and Haddo sank three coastal defense vessels.

But Japanese intelligence had been listening. They intercepted the wolfpack’s radio traffic and sent two escort ships—CD-22 and patrol vessel PB-102—to hunt them.

At 0453 on August 24, Hake was submerged, watching Harder through the periscope. Two Japanese escorts were closing fast. Commander Dealey crash-dived at the last possible moment.

CD-22 acquired sonar contact immediately.

At 0547, the escort dropped a perfectly placed salvo of depth charges at 250 feet.

Three detonated within 50 feet of Harder.

Her stern flooded in seconds.

Dealey ordered emergency blow, fighting to bring the submarine back toward the surface.

It was too late.

The second depth charge run at 0552 broke the pressure hull.

Compartment by compartment, Harder collapsed under the ocean’s weight. At 600 feet—100 feet below her crush depth—she imploded.

Seventy-nine men died.

No survivors. No last transmission. Only an oil slick on the surface.

The destroyer killer was gone.

X. THE LEGACY OF A FOUR-DAY PATROL

The loss of Harder was devastating—but her impact had already changed the course of the war.

Nine days after her fourth destroyer kill, the Battle of the Philippine Sea began. Ozawa’s fleet—forced to leave Tawi-Tawi early and in disarray—met Spruance’s Fifth Fleet without proper reconnaissance, without anti-submarine screens, and without coordinated air groups.

The result was catastrophic for Japan.

American pilots shot down 376 Japanese aircraft while losing just 30. Three carriers sank. Japan’s remaining naval air power was destroyed almost entirely in two days of combat.

Historians have long argued that Harder’s actions were decisive in forcing the early departure that crippled Japan’s battle plan.

Admiral Lockwood said it plainly in his memoirs:

“Harder’s fifth patrol was the most important submarine operation of the Pacific War.”

XI. CHANGING SUBMARINE WARFARE

Before Dealey, submarine doctrine focused on stealth and evasion. Submarines were prey when destroyers appeared.

Dealey flipped the script.

He discovered that when a submarine charged instead of running, destroyer captains froze for a critical moment—long enough for torpedoes to find their mark.

His “down-the-throat” attacks became the basis for new aggressive doctrines. Between June and December 1944, twelve American submarines adopted similar tactics:

USS Tang sank two destroyers.

USS Trigger sank one.

USS Barb sank or damaged two.

USS Flasher sank three escorts.

By war’s end, U.S. submarines had sunk:

38 Japanese destroyers,

nine cruisers,

four carriers,

one battleship,

and 214 total warships.

Japanese destroyer commanders adapted, but the damage was irreversible.

XII. AFTERMATH AND MEMORY

After the war, President Harry Truman awarded Commander Samuel Dealey the Medal of Honor—posthumously—to his widow, Edwina Dealey, on March 27, 1946.

A destroyer escort was later commissioned in his name: USS Dealey (DE-1006). Harder received the Presidential Unit Citation and six battle stars.

For decades, the location of Harder’s wreck remained unknown.

Then, in May 2024, the Lost 52 Project located her hull upright on the seafloor, 3,750 feet down off the west coast of Luzon. She is now recognized as a war grave.

Seventy-nine men rest inside.

They came from 38 states—farm boys from Iowa, mechanics from Michigan, college graduates from California. Some were 19. Dealey was 37. They had volunteered for submarine duty knowing the odds: 22% of submariners would die in the war, the highest casualty rate of any branch.

They served anyway.

Commander Dealey’s grave lies in Arlington National Cemetery, Section 59, Grave 874. His headstone bears a simple inscription:

“Medal of Honor. Destroyer Killer.”

XIII. WHY THEIR STORY MATTERS

No autobiography, patrol report, or medal citation can convey the lived experience aboard Harder—the trembling hull under depth charges, the moments before firing torpedoes at a charging destroyer, the heavy air in the conning tower when silence might mean death.

The official records tell us what they accomplished.

They do not tell us how it felt.

That is why their story deserves telling—not because of the ships they sank, but because of the courage they embodied. Because of the 79 families who waited months for news that never came. Because history remembers fleets and admirals, but wars are won by men whose names rarely appear in textbooks.

USS Harder, the “Destroyer Killer,” changed the course of the Pacific War in four extraordinary days.

The men aboard her—now resting in the deep—earned more than medals or citations.

They earned remembrance.

And this story is part of keeping it.