was a Hospital Corpsman and for most of my time in the Navy was a Deep Sea diver as well. My limited affiliation with submarines was as an instructor at the Escape Tank in New London. As far as commands go my strongest affiliation was with the Seabee diving community. In the process of trying to nail down the history of this small community I had the good fortune to talk with a fellow who was the first Master Diver in the Seabee Diving community
Dale Vinette served mostly with the 301 Naval Construction Battalion and in the capacity of Diving Officer for that command. In our recent conversation Dale mentioned that one of the last bits of diving duty he had was in July of 1945. He and another diver reported aboard a sub in Guam for a trip that took them to the island of Paramushiro which is in the Kuriles group north of Japan. Dale mentioned that the unique thing about the sub is that it had no armaments at all on the sub. Once on board and underway the divers were told that they would be part of a landing party on Paramushiro. Their job was to inspect any in water obstructions that the landing party may encounter and to disable or remove any obstructions. None were found. From what Dale told me the landing party also included one radioman, two Navajo code talkers, 6 Marines and five others in khakis, but with no insignia or markings. Dale surmised that the operation was to make contact with the Japanese government to try to work out a surrender. But this is only his guess as the five men in khakis kept to themselves and didn’t talk to anyone but the code talkers. They were on the island for few days billeted in a hay barn and received two hot meals a day from the Japanese. The mission lasted about five days and they went back out to sea (in rubber boats) and were picked up by the sub. When Dale asked one of the crew the name of the boat he was told, Sub. Before they returned to Guam all in the party had to sign documents that they would not divulge any information about the mission for 50 years.
Dale will be 91 in the spring and since more than 50 years have passed asked if I might be able to find out something about the submarine that took them to Paramushiro and returned them to Guam. Do you have any ideas? Or perhaps know of someone I might contact regarding this submarine and the mission it was on? Thanks for your consideration. And even for a non-boat guy I’ve gotta say your site is great.
Erik Gilliam.
JOINT 598 CLASS REUNION
JOINT USS GEORGE WASHINGTON CLASS REUNION
USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (SSBN 598)
USS PATRICK HENRY (SSBN 599)
USS THEODOR ROSEVEL T (SSBN 600)
USS ROBERT E. LEE (SSBN 601)
USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (SSBN 602)
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