SUBMARINES VISIT AUCKLAND

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 11 September 1945, Page 6

SUBMARINES VISIT AUCKLAND

IMPRESSIVE RECORDS IN PACIFIC * Auckland. Sept. 9. Three submarines arrived this afternoon from Perth. They are the United States Navy’s 1500-ton vessels Cod, Cabrilla and Bluefish, which are returning via Panama td an Atlantic Coast port after impressive records in the Pacific war. The senior captain is Lieutenant-Commander Westbrook, of California. The submarines will refuel here. The length of their stay i is indefinite. Lieutenant-Commander | Deloach, of Georgia, is of the* Cabrilla and Lieutenant-Commander Forbes, of the Bluefish. Each of the submarines, which are 300 ft long were commissioned in 1943, and have completed seven or eight long patrols, ranging from 45 to 50 days each. Manned by young officers and crews, each has a complement of 88, but they normally carry only 69. Twenty-two large Japanese ships have been sunk by torpedoes from the Cod which, in surface action, also sank 25 junks with its 5-inch guns. On its last wartime patrol the Ccd rescued the crew of a Netherlands submarine which had run aground on a reef in the South China Sea. Five warships sunk by the Cod included a cruiser, two destroyers. a minesweeper and a landing, ship (tanks). ‘We played pirate with the junks and put landing-parties on to them to see if they carried contraband,” said Commander Westbrook, a short, tough, humourless officer, who has served in smaller submarines in the Aleutians. “Some of our crew were on a junk when Japanese aircraft strafed us,” said Commodore Westbrook. “We had to dive and leave our men, but they were picked up two days later by •another submarine.” The unusual and difficult feat of sinking an enemy submarine with the torpedo was performed by the Bluefish on her last patrol. She has 23 ships to her credit. The gorilla in the insignia of the Cabrilla marked the time when the submarine landed guerrilla troops in enemy-oc-cupied territory. She has sunk a seaplane tender, a converted aircraft-car-rier, and two sailing vessels. The Cabrilla also rescued six of the crew of a Liberator forced down two miles off shore. “We were all interned when the surrender was announced,” said Commander Westbrook. "We could not have been further from our present destination—l2,ooo miles.”