Fifth, Sixth and Seventh War Patrols
Skate departed Midway on 23 June on her fifth war patrol, conducted off the Kuril Islands. On 7 July, she intercepted a convoy of five ships and escorting destroyers, fired three torpedoes, and sank the trailing destroyer, Usugumo. The submarine was then forced deep by the other escorts and depth charged for over two hours before escaping. On 15 July, the submarine sank a cargo ship taking two prisoners and, on the following day, another cargo ship was also sent to the bottom. Skate terminated her fifth patrol at Pearl Harbor on 7 August.
Departing Pearl Harbor on 9 September, Skate sailed for the Ryukyu Islands and her sixth war patrol, during which she performed photographic reconnaissance of Okinawa and, on 29 September, sank a small patrol craft and a cargo ship. Following her return to Pearl Harbor, she got underway for overhaul at Hunters Point Navy Yard, San Francisco, California.
Skate got underway from Pearl Harbor for her seventh war patrol on 11 April 1945, to form a coordinated attack group with other submarines and patrol in the Sea of Japan. On the morning of 10 June, she encountered a Japanese submarine on the surface returning to port. As the enemy crossed her bow, Skate launched two torpedoes with two hits, sinking the target. Two days later, while off the Nanto Peninsula, she evaded gunfire of enemy ships and an attack by an enemy escort to sink three cargo ships. Skate terminated her seventh war patrol at Pearl Harbor on 4 July.
Read more about this topic: USS Skate (SS-305)
Famous quotes containing the words sixth, seventh and/or war:
“All my life long I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me. I cannot forget, for injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“My bangles left.
My best friends, tears,
went on forever.
My self-control
wouldn’t sit still for a minute.
My mind made itself up
to go on ahead.
When my man
made up his mind to go,
everything else went,
just like him.
Life,
if you must go, too,
then don’t forsake
your entourage of friends.”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“A nice war is a war where everybody who is heroic is a hero, and everybody more or less is a hero in a nice war. Now this war is not at all a nice war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)