It was January 1984, and I had just relieved CDR Ken Lee as Com- manding Officer of USS Gato (SSN 615). Tradition held that each Com- manding Officer of Gato passed on to his relief a small 5 x 7 green wheel book that was kept in the CO’s stateroom safe, along with the classified material also held there. It looked just like any common green ledger ordered from the Navy supply system, but it was much more than that. It happened to be the Captain’s Night Order Book written during one of LCDR Robert Foley’s six war patrols in the Pacific aboard USS Gato (SS 212). Although separated by 27 years in commissioning dates, my SSN was somehow tied to SS 212 more closely in tradition, operations success, and meaning than I knew at the time I relieved but came to real- ize more fully just how much over my four years in command.
The United States Ship Gato (SS 212), the first ship to bear that name, was designed and built by the Electric Boat Company, Groton, CT. Commissioned in Groton on 31 December 1941, Gato was the first ship of her class and prototype for the major portion of the submarines constructed by the United States for service in World War II. Once the Gato Class submarines began to arrive in theater in large numbers in mid-to-late 19D2, they were in the thick of the fight against the Japanese. Many of these boats racked up impressive war records: Flasher, Asher, and Barb were the top three boats based on tonnage sunk by US subma- rines. Silversides, Flasher, and Wahoo were 3rd, 4th, and 7th place on the list for the number of ships sunk. GATO Class boats also sank four Japanese submarines: I-29, I-168, I-351, and I-42, while only losing one in exchange, CORVINA to I-176.1
From 1942 until September 1945, USS Gato (SS 212) saw nearly continuous service in the Pacific; operations were interrupted twice for overhaul periods at Mare Island in 1943 and 1944. During this period, she conducted 13 war patrols ranging in operations from the Kurile and Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific to patrols around Truk and Sol-omon Islands in the Southern Pacific to the Western Pacific for patrols in the Yellow Sea off the coast of Japan. On 15 August 1945 while on her last war patrol, she received word of “Cease Fire” while making an attack approach on a Japanese sea truck. Gato steamed into Tokyo Bay on the 31st; remained for the signing of surrender documents on board USS Missouri on 2 September; and then departed the following day via Pearl Harbor and the Panama Canal to the New York Naval Shipyard, where she was decommissioned 16 March 1946.
RADM Robert Joseph Foley (Ret), Gato’s CO for patrols four through eight, grew up in Long Island and was appointed to the Na- val Academy from New York, graduating in 1927. He was a nephew of John Holland, inventor of the modern submarine. While a midshipman at Navy, he was a member of the varsity boxing and track teams and set a college record for the high jump. He reported for duty on the battleship Florida before being assigned submarine duty. He was Flag Secretary for RADM D.W. Bagley, Commander Battleship Division 2 on USS Tennessee when the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
After Pearl Harbor, he served briefly on the Submarine SBuadron D staff before reporting to USS Greenling (SS 213), which earned the Pres- idential Unit Commendation for the ship’s performance during three war patrols early in the war. In the fall of 1942, Foley took command of USS Gato (SS 212), which he led on war patrols three through eight from 1942 to 1944. Foley continued to serve in the Navy following command; his post war assignments included Commander Submarine Squadron 1 and command of USS Wisconsin. He left the service as a Rear Admiral, worked for Raytheon for several years, and moved to Richmond, VA in 1970 when he retired.
For his performance during operations in the Pacific, LCDR Foley was awarded the Navy Cross three times. Foley was cited for extraordi- nary heroism on multiple occasions. Portions of his citations read:
“…with bold skill and daring, maneuvered his ship into position to strike the enemy and launched a vigorous attack.” …”Encountering strong hostile opposition and repeated depth charge attacks throughout this hazardous period, … daringly and aggressively fought his ship at every opportunity, … skillfully evading the enemy and returning safe to base. When his craft was severely depth charged during one action resulting in extensive hull damage and loss of power, he valiantly kept his crippled ship under control and brought her back for repairs without loss of personnel,… delivered smashing torpedo attacks against escorted hostile shipping and, …[made] bold and effective use of his deck guns,
… Employing skillful evasive maneuvers while under depth charge and aerial bombing attacks, he brought his ship through the furious engage- ment without damage and returned his ship safely to port.”2
On her fifth war patrol (19 March-6 June 19D3), Gato landed Aus- tralian commando coast watchers at Bougainville in the Solomon Is- lands on several occasions. In one special operation, the crew evacuated 27 children, 9 mothers, and 3 Nuns. During a submerged radar attack approach 4 April 1943, in the same area of operations, she was shaken so violently by exploding depth charges that she returned to Brisbane for temporary repairs until she could return to Mare Island for overhaul via Pearl Harbor late that year. The depth charges were so strong that the torpedo tubes were bent.3
Gato’s seventh war patrol (18 November 1943 10 January 1944) took her north of the Bismarck Archipelago. She rescued a Japanese soldier from a life-raft on 16 December; then attacked a convoy in the Saipan-Massau traffic lanes four days later to sink a cargo ship and scored damaging hits on another freighter. After two hours of dodging depth charges, she finally evaded her attackers; surfaced at dusk in a heavy rain squall and while headed in the most likely direction of the damaged freighter, recharged batteries and reloaded torpedoes.
Upon surfacing Foley discovered two escort vessels at close range and an unexploded depth charge lodged on his ship’s topside. The two enemy escorts headed in her direction. Gato turned away at flank speed as the escorts opened fire. Afraid to submerge with the depth charge topside, nonetheless, Foley attempted simultaneously to find and reen- gage the freighter, reload his torpedo tubes, and escape the escorts firing shells at him. Having put sufficient distance between himself and the enemy escorts, Foley put the Japanese prisoner, picked up two weeks earlier, and the ship’s Gunnery Officer on deck where they dislodged
2 Navy Cross citations. The Hall of Valor Project. Accessed 16 Nov 2018. https://valor.militarytimes.com/ hero/20419#17701
3 Mr. Tim Milas, crewmember USS Gato SS 212. Interview by Samuel A Mead. Democratic. Portsmouth, NH 23 Jan 1988.
the depth charge and loaded it on a rubber raft while the ship submerged from under it, all the while escaping the charging surface ships.4 This unbelievable interaction in Gato’s history became an episode on the Ripley’s Believe It or Not radio show.5
Seven days later, Gato established another first by conducting a sur- face battle with an enemy float plane called a JAKE, which attempted four bombing runs against the ship while on the surface. Gato’s crew manned her two 20mm’s and single 50-caliber gun to force the plane to abort each bombing run. This disturbed Vice Admiral Lockwood, com- mander of submarines in the Pacific fleet, because he didn’t want his submarines engaging in air battles with planes.6
Gato’s vigilance in patrolling the north entrance to Bougainville Sound and her aggressive at- tacks during her Fourth through Eighth Patrols in the Solomon Islands, Bismarck, New Guinea and Truk areas earned the ship the sobriquet “the indestructible Gato” and the nickname “The Goalkeeper” from Admiral Wil- liam F. Halsey, the area com- mander.7 Gato earned 13 Battle Stars during WW II and a Presi- dential Unit Citation for Patrols 4-8, during which she was cred- ited with the destruction or sink-ing of seven enemy ships totaling 22,960 tons.8
The nickname “The Goal Keeper” stuck and was used by the only other ship to bear the name Gato, my ship the nuclear submarine USS Gato (SSN615). But this name was not the only one to stick. As the old Navy SS 212 logo would indicate, the nickname “Black Cat” (“gato” is
4 Lockwood, Charles A. (1951). Sink’Em All: Submarine Warfare in the Pacific. E.P Dutton & Company. pp 134
5 “The Bomb That bounced Back”. Ripley’s Believe it or Not. Vol 1. Sept 1953. http://www.ussgato.org. USS
Gato (SS 212)
6 Lockwood (1951) pp 135 7 Roscoe (1949). pp. 203. 8 Roscoe (1949) pp. 535
cat in Spanish) and the submarines Gato have been linked together since WW II. But it was not until recent history on the eve of a departure to a Mediterranean deployment did the names Gato and Black Cat become synonymous. “Med rats beware! The Black Cat is on the Prow!” became a permanent part of the ship’s history.9
SSN 615 maintained the tradition of exceptional service established by SS 212 and was as tough as her WW II diesel submarine sister ship. In 1969, Gato collided with the Hotel Class Soviet submarine K-19 in the Barents Sea at a depth of some 200 feet. The impact completely destroyed the K-19’s bow sonar systems and mangled the covers of its forward torpedo tubes. K-19 returned to port for repair but the Gato was relatively undamaged and continued her patrol.10
The Black Cat was the first nuclear-powered submarine to com- pletely circumnavigate South America and the first nuclear-powered submarine to navigate the Strait of Magellan during its 1976 Unitas run. It was on this voyage that Gato became the first nuclear submarine to travel through the Panama Canal. The Black Cat and her crews complet- ed numerous successful special operations in the Atlantic, Mediterra- nean, Caribbean, and South Atlantic, which I am unable to detail here, and earned many awards during more than 28 years of service, including five Meritorious Unit Commendations and multiple department efficien- cy and personnel awards.11
In 1986 after participation in two highly successful Fleetex’s in the Atlantic, COMSECONDFLT commended Gato’s performance and en- dorsed Gato’s QUICKLOOK analysis of the ASW portion and the ship’s recommendations. Following the first exercise, he cited the ship’s rec- ommendations as the “Most significant submarine force contributions to Battle Group ASW readiness in recent history.” 12 After the second FLEETEX, COMSECONDFLT concluded a message by saying, “When Gato speaks, I listen.”13
In May 1986, USS Gato crewmembers and families celebrated the
9 Decommissioning Departure Ceremony Pamphlet (April 1995). Accessed 16 Nov 2018. http://www.ussgato. org. pp. 8-9.
10 Drew, Christopher and Sontag, Sherry (1998). Blind Man’s Bluff: the Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage. New York, NY: PublicAffairs. pp. 140, 281. ISBN 1-891620-08-8
11 Decommissioning Departure Ceremony Pamphlet (April 1995). pp. 16-17. 12 Decommissioning Departure Ceremony Pamphlet (April 1995). pp. 18-19. 13 COMSECDFLT 291944Z.
fortieth anniversary of the commissioning of their namesake submarine with an awards ceremony at the Nautilus Memorial in Groton, CT. In co- ordination with the unveiling of a new 52-foot-long scale class model of the diesel submarine Gato on display at the Naval Submarine Museum, I broke with the tradition of the previous Gato skippers and presented Foley’s Night Order Book to the curator of the museum to complement other vintage displays there. Before the SSN 615 was decommissioned, USS Gato (SS 212)’s battle flag was also presented to the Museum.
Similar to today’s submarines, the WW II Night Order Book was used by the ship’s Captain to give instructions for operating the ship while he slept or was otherwise not present. The SS 212’s Night Order Book was written by Captain Foley during the height of the submarine war against Japan in the Pacific and conseBuently contained many inter- esting accounts of Gato’s war time operating procedures, precautions, and adventures during wartime patrol. This book covered just a small portion of the six war patrols under command of then LCDR Robert Foley.
In January 1988, Gato (SSN 615) held a 20 year since commission- ing birthday celebration for the crew and ship’s friends. Invited and at- tending their second reunion since the war were 17 WW II veteran crew members from SS 212. For two eventful nights, the officers and enlist- ed men from the old and new Gato crews congregated in a celebration of submarine operations and traditions. The words on the pages of the Night Order Book became real as the crew traded sea stories with those sailors and officers who had experienced wartime submarine fighting.
The original plan was to have RADM Foley present his Night Or- der Book to the museum but Alzheimer’s disease had taken its toll, and his wife Louise Foley sadly reported he had passed away shortly be- fore the ceremony was to have taken place. But RADM Foley’s grand- son, Charles Foley of Washington Grove, MD made the trip to receive the Night Order Book from me on the pier at the Memorial. He in turn passed his grandfather’s war time Night Order Book on to Senior Chief Zollars, the Museum curator and former Gato crewmember.
Eventually, USS Gato (SSN615) followed SS 212’s path and was decommissioned and stricken from the fleet on 25 April 1996. But the stories of both submarines live on in the traditions of the submarine force and in men like RADM Robert Foley and the crews of both Black Cats. I have always felt blessed to have commanded a ship with a great reputation like Gato, to have had the privilege of leading a very compe- tent group of Gato officers, chiefs, and crew, and to have followed in the footsteps and traditions of men like Commanding Officer Robert Foley, USS Gato (SS 212).
Allen Lawver
Captain, USN (Retired) CO, USS Gato (SSN 615)
January 1984 – February 1988
