�� USS�Trout (SS-202)

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Trout coming alongside Detroit at Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, to unload a cargo of gold that she had evacuated from the Philippines. The gold had been loaded aboard Trout at Corregidor on 4 February 1942.

USS Trout (SS-202) was a United States Navy Tambor-class submarine, serving in the Pacific from 1941 to 1944. She received 11 battle stars for World War II service and three Presidential Unit Citations, for her second, third, and fifth patrols.

Trout is credited with sinking 23 enemy ships, giving her 87,000�tons sunk, and damaging 6 ships, for 75,000�tons. During her first ten patrols she made 32 torpedo attacks, firing 85 torpedoes, including 34 hits, 5 confirmed premature detonations, 5 confirmed duds, and 25 suspected duds. She was also involved in six battle surface actions and was attacked with depth charges eight times.

She was reported overdue on 17 April 1944 and presumed lost on her eleventh war patrol.

The last patrol

On 8 February 1944, the submarine began her 11th and final war patrol. Trout topped off with fuel at Midway Island and, on 16 February, headed via a great circle route toward the East China Sea.

Japanese records examined after the war indicate that one of their convoys, Matsu No. 1, was attacked by a submarine on 29 February 1944 in the patrol area assigned to Trout. Carrying the 29th Infantry Division of the Kwantung Army from Manchuria to Guam, Matsu No. 1 consisted of four large transports escorted by three Yugumo-class destroyers of Destroyer Division 31: Asashimo, Kishinami, and Okinami. The submarine badly damaged one large passenger-cargo ship and sank the 7,126-ton transport Sakito Maru. Asashimo detected the submarine and dropped 19 depth charges. Oil and debris came to the surface and the destroyer dropped a final depth charge on that spot. The submarine was using Mk. XVIII electric torpedoes, and it was also possible that one of those had made a circular run and sunk the boat, as happened with Tang.

On 17 April 1944, Trout was declared presumed lost with all 81 hands, including Commander Clark and his executive officer, Lt. Harry Eades Woodworth, both of whom had made all 11 war patrols.

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Crain, Elmer Franklin, Jr., ENS