USS Perch (SS-176)

USS Perch (SS-176) - a Porpoise-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the perch.

Construction and commissioning
Perch′s keel was laid down on 25 February 1935 by the Electric Boat Company, in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 9 May 1936, sponsored by Mrs. Helen Lorena Withers (née LaBar), wife of Captain (later Admiral) Thomas Withers, Jr., then assigned to Naval Submarine Base New London at Groton, She was commissioned on 19 November 1936.

Inter-war period
After shakedown in the North Atlantic Ocean, Perch became a unit of the United States Pacific Fleet when she joined Submarine Squadron 6 (SubRon 6) in November 1937. The following spring she was engaged in the annual fleet problem and did some work on a survey of the Aleutian Islands, entering the Bering Sea on 28 February. In the spring of 1939, Perch operated with the fleet on its cruise to the United States East Coast.

In October 1939, Perch departed San Diego, California, for Manila where she became a division flagship and made a summer cruise in 1940 to Tsingtao and Shanghai. She spent the year preceding World War II in operations around the Philippines. A week before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Perch rendezvoused with two transports off Shanghai and escorted the 4th Marine Regiment from China to the Philippines.

World War II
At the outbreak of hostilities on 8 December 1941 (which was 7 December 1941 on the other side of the International Date Line in Hawaii where the war began with the Pearl Harbor attack), Perch, commanded by David A. Hurt, was in Cavite Navy Yard. She took part in the rush to clear the navy yard on 10 December and watched, at close range, the destruction of Cavite by Japanese bombers. That night, Perch slipped through the Corregidor minefields and scouted between Luzon and Formosa (now Taiwan) in search of targets. Failing to detect any, she shifted to an area off Hong Kong, and on the evening of 25 December 1941 launched four torpedoes at a large merchant ship, all missing. A few days later, she torpedoed a merchant ship, probably SS Nojima Maru (1919). Japanese escorts prevented Perch from observing the kill.

Perch proceeded south to Darwin, Australia, to repair damage, making several unsuccessful attacks en route. She next made a patrol to Kendari, Celebes (now Sulawesi), where she scouted the harbor and made several attempts to get through the narrow entrance to an attack position.

After a week of close contact with the Japanese while obtaining information, Perch headed south, searching for targets. In a night attack on a large merchant ship off the eastern coast of Celebes, Perch was hit in the superstructure, forward of the pressure hull of the conning tower, by a high-explosive round which blew away the bridge deck, punctured the antenna trunk and temporarily put her radio out of commission. Her crew made repairs on deck at night in waters heavily patrolled by the Japanese, and Perch headed for the Java Sea.

On the evening of 1 March 1942, Perch surfaced 30 nmi northwest of Surabaya, Java, and started in for an attack on a Japanese convoy landing troops to the west of Surabaya. Two Japanese destroyers, JAPANESE DESTROYER Amatsukaze and JAPANESE DESTROYER Hatsukaze, attacked and drove her down with a string of depth charges which caused her to bottom at 135 ft. Several more depth-charge attacks caused extensive damage, putting the starboard motors out of commission and causing extensive flooding throughout the boat. After repairs, Perch surfaced at 02:00 on 2 March, only to be again driven down by destroyers. Her loss of oil, as well as air from her damaged ballast tanks, convinced the Japanese that Perch was breaking up and they went on to look for other kills, allowing her to escape.

With Perch′s decks awash and only one diesel engine in commission, the crew made all possible repairs. During the early morning of 3 March, Perch made a test dive with almost fatal results. Expert handling and good luck enabled her to surface, and she began making further repairs. Then two Imperial Japanese Navy cruisers and three destroyers hove into view and began firing at Perch. As shells straddled Perch, her commanding officer ordered "Abandon ship, scuttle the boat." With all hull openings open, Perch made her last dive. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 24 June 1942.

The Japanese destroyer JAPANESE DESTROYER Ushio captured Perch′s entire crew. Of Perch′s 54 enlisted men and five officers, all but five — who died of malnutrition in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps — were able to return to the United States after V-J Day in August 1945.

Wreck
On 23 November 2006, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, the wreck of Perch was unexpectedly located by an international team of divers aboard MV Empress while searching for the wreck of the British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter (68) northwest of Bawean Island in the Java Sea. The expedition had hoped to locate and photograph the wreck of Exeter, sunk in the same area on 1 March 1942. The wreck of Perch was illegally salvaged sometime between 2006 and 2016 and no longer exists. Unlike the Dutch and British ships near her, which also were scavenged illegally, Perch was not a war grave, as she had been abandoned by her crew without fatalities.

Awards

 * Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one battle star for World War II service

Lieutenant Kenneth G. Schacht was awarded a Navy Cross for assisting in the scuttling of Perch and therefore preventing the Japanese from capturing classified code books, materials, and equipment.

In media
Perch is the subject of an episode of the syndicated television anthology series The Silent Service, which aired in the United States during the 1957–1958 television season.