The First USS Sealion (SS-195)-- Part 2: Struck By Bombs in the Japanese Attack on the Philippines

In the spring of 1940, the Sealion (SS-195) and the rest of her  division sailed for the Philippines.  Arriving there in the fall, she commenced activities as a unit of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet  Into October 1941, she ranged from Luzon to the  Sulu Archipelago.

Then with her sister ship, the USS Seadragon (SS-194), she returned to Cavite Navy Yard for a regular overhaul.  Unfortunately, the Sealion was there when the Japanese attacked at the beginning of the war.  She took two direct hits as the Japanese destroyed the base.

She was tied up next to the Seadragon.  The first bomb struck the aft end of her  conning tower and exploded  outside the hull over the control room.  The second smashed through a main ballast tank and caused the pressure hull to explode in the aft engine room, killing four men:  Sterling Cecil Foster, Melvin Donald O'Connell, Ernest Ephrom Ogilvie and Vallentyne Lester Paul, then working there.  In addition, one seaman, Howard Firth, died while a POW.

--GreGen