USS Bonefish (SS-223) Ship's Log 



Report a Historic Event
YearDateHistorical Events
1942Jun 25Keel laid down by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, CT.
1943May 7Launched by Electric Boat Co., Groton,CT.
 May 31Commissioned with CDR. T. W. Rogan in command.
 Jul 23Bonefish departed New London, CT. for the Pacific.
 Aug 4Bonefish transited the Panama Canal.
 Aug 30Bonefish arrived at Brisbane, Australia.
 Sep 16Bonefish departed Moreton Bay, Australia on her 1st war patrol.
 Sep 22After transiting Balabac Strait, Bonefish continued on to her patrol area in the central part of the South China Sea.
 Sep 25Bonefish attacked a convoy of eight ships, scoring three hits on a freighter before the escorts forced her to go deep to avoid a depth charge attack.
 Sep 27Bonefish encountered another convoy and fired 4 torpedoes at the lead ship, the largest of the five, and sank the 9,908 ton transport Kashima Maru.
 Oct 6Bonefish approached a third convoy and scored hits on two heavily laden cargo vessels. Again forced to go deep to avoid the counterattack, she failed to evaluate the damage that her torpedoes had done to the targets.
 Oct 10Bonefish fired a spread of four torpedoes at two ships of a convoy off Indochina, sending both the 4,212 ton cargo ship Isuzugawa and the 10,086 ton transport Teibi Maru to the bottom.
 Oct 21Bonefish concluded her first war patrol back at Fremantle, Western Australia.
 Nov 22After refit and training, Bonefish got underway for the South China Sea and her 2nd war patrol.
 Nov 28Bonefish entered the Flores Sea.
 Nov 29Bonefish intercepted two enemy ships. She made a submerged approach and fired 4 torpedoes. 2 of the 4 hit amidships and another struck the freighter under her mainmast and sent the 4,646 ton cargo ship Suez Maru down rapidly by the stern.
 Nov 29(Cont'd.) Unknown to Bonefish, Suez Maru was carrying 546 British POWs. Minesweeper W.12 picked up the Japanese survivors although recently released documents state that W12 machine-gunned the surviving POWs (a minimum of 250) in the water.
 Dec 1Bonefish sighted a convoy of 3 ships with two escorts hugging the Celebes coast. In 2 separate attacks, the submarine scored a hit on a large passenger/cargo ship Nichiryo Maru which later sank and another on a destroyer escort which apparently survived.
 Dec 19Bonefish arrived at Fremantle, Australia.
1944Jan 12Following refit and training, Bonefish sailed from Fremantle, Australia to conduct her 3rd war patrol.
 Jan 22While operating in the vicinity of Makassar Strait, Bonefish encountered a large sailing vessel. The stranger's crew of 7 acted suspiciously as the submarine approached, and despite repeated orders to do so, the crew refused to abandon ship.
 Jan 22(Cont'd.) When Bonefish opened fire with her machine guns, the natives leaped overboard. As the vessel began to sink, Japanese troops emerged from below decks; Bonefish counted 39 men going over the side.
 Feb 6Bonefish sighted a convoy composed of at least 17 ships. As she maneuvered into attack position, Bonefish selected a large oiler as her primary target and launched four bow "fish" at it.
 Feb 6(Cont'd.) She fired the other two bow tubes at a cargo ship and then tried to swing her stern into position to fire her after tubes. With escorts charging her, the boat suddenly lost depth control and ducked her periscope below the water.
 Feb 6(Cont'd.) Bonefish managed to evade the escorts, and her crew heard explosions which they interpreted as at least two hits on the oiler and one on the cargo ship. Nevertheless, it seems that neither target sank.
 Feb 9Bonefish next trained her torpedo tubes on a convoy of 13 ships in Camranh Bay. Although detected by a Japanese destroyer, Bonefish succeeded in firing 5 torpedoes at a tanker before making an emergency dive in shallow water.
 Mar 15Bonefish returned to Fremntle, Australia.
 Apr 13Underway again, Bonefish headed for the Celebes Sea and her 4th war patrol.
 Apr 26Bonefih intercepted a convoy of 4 ships steaming along the Mindanao coast. She fired 4 torpedoes at the Tokiwa Maru and then turned to evade the escorts. Two torpedoes struck the 806 ton passenger/cargo ship amidships and aft, sinking her.
 Apr 27Bonefish fired a spread of 4 torpedoes at a cargo ship headed for Davao Gulf but, in spite of three hits, failed to sink the target.
 May 7Bonefish attacked a convoy in Bailan Strait, firing four torpedoes at an escort vessel, but could not observe the results.
 May 14Bonefish approached a convoy of 3 tankers and 3 escorting destroyers, steaming off Tawitawi in the Philippines and headed for Sibutu Passage. The submarine fired 5 torpedoes. One hit under the bridge of a tanker and another struck under the stack.
 May 14(Cont'd.) The destroyers converged on Bonefish for counterattack, but she escaped into the depths. Postwar records show that, while her torpedoes only damaged the tanker, they sank one of the escorting destroyers, Inazuma.
 May 30Bonefish arrived at Fremantrle, Australia.
 Jun 25Under the command of LCDR. Lawrence L. Edge, Bonefish began her 5th war patrol and headed again for the Celebes Sea.
 Jul 6Bonefish surfaced to destroy a wooden hulled schooner by gunfire.
 Jul 7Bonefish engaged and destroyed another small ship with gunfire. Later that same day, the boat fired 8 torpedoes at a small cargo ship, scoring several hits.
 Jul 8Bonefish used her guns to touch off a blazing fire in a small, inter island steamer.
 Jul 10Bonefish sank a sampan with gunfire.
 Jul 29Bonefish commenced tracking a large, but empty, tanker with escorts.
 Jul 30Bonefish fired 6 torpedoes and scored 4 hits. The target, Kokuyo Maru, immediately settled by the stern, and Bonefish headed for the traffic lanes north of Sibutu and Tawitawi.
 Aug 3Bonefish damaged a tanker with one torpedo hit.
 Aug 13Bonefish arrived at Fremantle, Australia.
 Sep 5Bonefish got underway for her 6th war patrol and headed for the Sibuyan Sea.
 Sep 28While patrolling off Mindoro, Bonefish sighted a large, heavily laden tanker escorted by two destroyers. She fired all of her bow torpedoes and heard and felt the hits on the 2,068 ton Japanese ship Anjo Maru.
 Sep 28(Cont'd.) A postwar examination of Japanese records confirmed that Anio Maru sank later that day.
 Oct 1Bonefish joined Flasher (SS-249) and Lapon (SS-260) in forming a coordinated attack group.
 Oct 10Patrolling in the vicinity of Cape Bolinao, the boats attacked a convoy of cargo ships, and Bonefish scored 3 hits for undetermined damage.
 Oct 14While enroute to a lifeguard station, Bonefish sank the cargo ship Fushimi Maru.
 Oct 18Bonefish rescued 2 naval aviators.
 Oct 19Bonefish departed her lifeguard station.
 Oct 27Bonefish stopped at Saipan, Marianas Island for fuel.
 Nov 8Bonefish arrived at Pearl Harbor, HI.
 Nov 18Bonefish continued on to San Francisco, CA., where she underwent overhaul at the Bethlehem Steel Submarine Repair Basin from 18 November 1944 to 13 February 1945.
1945Mar 20After refresher training off Monterey, Calif.,Bonefish returned to Pearl Harbor, HI. where she conducted exercises.
 Mar 21Bonefish then set sail via Guam for the East China Sea and her 7th war patrol. Despite thorough coverage of the waters assigned her, she made few contacts and each of these was a small anti-submarine vessel.
 Apr 13Bonefish attempted to sink a patrol vessel, but the target's radical maneuvers enabled it to escape.
 Apr 16While on lifeguard duty off Korea's southern coast, Bonefish rescued two Japanese aviators who had been shot down by a Navy plane.
 May 7Bonefish returned to Apra Harbor, Guam, ending a short and unsuccessful patrol.
 May 28Bonefish departed Guam for her 8th war patrol as part of a submarine group for operations in the Sea of Japan. On the morning of 18 June Bonefish received permission to conduct a patrol of Toyama Wan, Honshu. She was never heard from again.
 Jun 18Boneflsh was probably the submarine attacked by the Japanese 18 June 1945.