USS Paddle and the Tragedy of Shinyo Maru

Welcome to another episode of Patrol Reports, where we bring you the stories of the Silent Service in World War II. Today we follow the USS Paddle on patrol during the first week of September 1944, a mission that would become one of the most tragic chapters of the submarine war in the Pacific.

For the crew of Paddle, it was another dangerous assignment. They spent days dodging aircraft, slipping through narrow passages, and stalking Japanese shipping along the Mindanao coast. On September 7 they attacked a convoy, putting torpedoes into what appeared to be a freighter. The boat went deep under a storm of depth charges, and the men listened to the sounds of a ship breaking apart.

What they did not know was that their target, Shinyo Maru, was packed with hundreds of Allied prisoners of war. This is the story of victory, tragedy, and the cruel ironies of war..