USS Flier (SS-250)

Flier (SS-250) was launched 11 July 1943 by Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn.; sponsored by Mrs. A. S. Pierce; and commissioned 18 October 1943, Lieutenant Commander J. W. Crowley in command.

Flier reached Pearl Harbor from New London, on 20 December 1943. After working up, she departed for her first war patrol on 12 January 1944. However, while entering the harbor at Midway Island during a storm on 16 January, she went aground and was seriously damaged. The submarine rescue vessel Macaw (ASR-11), which attempted to pull Flier free, also went aground and ultimately sank.

The damaged submarine was towed back to Pearl Harbor by USS Florikan (ASR-9), again with difficulties caused by weather, and finally reached the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, where she was repaired. Flier made another start on her first war patrol on 21 May 1944, heading from Pearl Harbor to the waters off Luzon.

She made her first contact on 4 June, attacking a well-escorted convoy for five merchantmen. Firing three torpedoes at each of two ships, she sent a large transport to the bottom (Hakusan Maru) and scored a hit on another ship, before clearing the area to evade counter-measures.

On 13 June 1944, Flier attacked a convoy of 11 ships, cargo carriers and tankers, guarded by at least six escorts. The alert behavior of the escorts resulted in severe attack on Flier before she could observe what damage she had done to the convoy. On 22 June, she began a long chase after another large convoy, scoring four hits for six torpedoes fired at two cargo ships that day, and three hits for four torpedoes launched against another cargo ship of the same convoy the next day.
Flier put in to Fremantle, Australia, to refit between 5 July 1944 and 2 August, then sailed on her second war patrol, bound for the coast of Indochina. On the evening of 13 August, as she transited Balabac Strait on the surface, she was rocked by a great explosion. She sank in 1 minute after striking the mine, but 13 officers and men got out of her. Eight of them reached the beach of Mantangula Island after 15 hours in the water. Friendly natives guided them to a coast-watcher, who arranged for them to be picked up by submarine, and on the night of 30-31 August, they were taken on board by Redfin (SS-272).

Flier’s story does not end here. On February 1, 2010, Commander, Submarine Forces Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC), Rear Adm. Douglas McAneny announced that a sunken vessel located in the Balabac Strait area of the Philippines is in fact the World War II submarine USS Flier (SS 250).

The last surviving crew member of Flier, Ens. Al Jacobson, had never given up the search for his lost shipmates.  Sadly, Jacobson passed away in 2008, but his family was determined to continue the search.  The family provided notes and research to the production company YAP Films, which investigates nautical mysteries, and Jacobson’s son Steve and grandson Nelson participated in the search.  Led by the father and son team of divers, Mike and Warren Fletcher, their efforts paid off in the discovery of the vessel in 330 feet of water, at approximately the same locaton that Al Jacobson had believed the boat was sunk.

A memorial ceremony for the men of USS Flier is scheduled to take place on August 12-13, 2010, at the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum (GLNMM), located in Muskegon, Michigan. GLNMM is the home of the historic submarine USS Silversides, which is of the same class and general appearance as USS Flier.  An exhibit dedicated to Flier is also under development at the Museum.