USS Tullibee (SS-284) - Second War Patrol

Second War Patrol

On September 28, Tullibee began her second war patrol. Her assigned area was in the East China Sea between the Ryukyu Islands and the China coast. On October 4, she sighted a convoy of nine passenger-cargo ships with three destroyer escorts. The submarine pulled well ahead of the convoy and tracked them until the next morning. At 00:58, she fired a spread of three torpedoes at a large freighter, with one hitting the target a minute later. Another spread of three from the bow tubes produced two hits on a heavily-laden cargo ship. Minor explosions and breaking up noises began immediately as Chicago Maru sank. Twelve days later, Tullibee contacted a convoy of seven ships with three escorts that later separated into two groups; one hugging the China coast and the other heading for Pescadores Channel. She attacked the largest ship in the latter group with six torpedoes; one hit the target. The submarine began an end-around run and launched four torpedoes at another ship. Two torpedoes soon broached, and Tullibee broke off the attack. She went deep and rigged for silent running to evade the escorts. On November 5, the submarine was running submerged near Okinoyerabu Shima when she sighted a large, three-story building on the island. She surfaced and fired 55 shells into the barracks before retiring at full speed. She began the voyage back to Hawaii the next day and reached Pearl Harbor, via Midway Island, on November 16. Her official score for this patrol was one passenger-cargo ship sunk, a tanker damaged, and a passenger-cargo ship damaged.