My father, Lieutenant Commander Robert T. Stagner was a submariner during WW II. He was a mustang, having enlisted in 1933 and served on a 4 Piper (Clemson class DD) during the 30's in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War. In Wang Poo harbor He returned from that assignment to attend submarine school in New London, Ct. and was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. On 7 Dec 41 his submarine the S-46 was one of a squadron of submarines was on maneuvers off of the Bahamas. My mother, whom he had married 18 months earlier, was pregnant with me in New London,CT. His sub squadron was ordered to defend the Pacific approaches to the Panama Canal. He completed three war patrols on the S-46. The sub squadron was subsequently ordered to Brisbane Australia where he was transferred off of the S-46 and commissioned. In January my mother had returned from New London to her parents home in Vallejo, CA. My maternal grandfather was also a retired Chief Petty Officer who was working at the naval shipyard at Mare Island. My mother heard a bit of static garbled information on the radio that the S-(static)6 had been lost in a collision at sea with all hands. Apparently at this point censorship shut down the news story and she could get no further information until my grandfather, taking advantage of the naval "old boy" network went to the base commandant, a rear admiral whom he had served with years before and explained the situation. The admiral said he couldn't promise anything but he would see what he could turn up. Two weeks later the base executive officer advised my grandfather that his daughter was not a widow. The lost submarine was the S-26 which collided with a patrol boat in the Gulf of Panama. It was probably mistaken for a U-boat and rammed by the USS Sturdy (PC-460.) In Brisbane, my father was commissioned 15 June 42 and assigned shore duty at the Brisbane sub base. He was project officer for the job of grafting a temporary bow on the USS Growler (SS-215) after it returned to port following a collision with a Japanese patrol boat. This was the action in which Commander Howard Gilmore received the Medal of Honor for famously ordering his executive officer to submerge while he was wounded and unable to get off the bridge. In 1944 he returned to the states to meet his two year old son for the first time: His last wartime assignment was to the USS Croaker. He met the Croaker at Midway while she was refitting and accompanied her on her second and third war patrols. On the first war patrol the Croaker sank the Japanese cruiser Nagano and two merchant vessels. She followed this with the sinking of three merchant vessels and damaging a fourth on her second war partrol (my father's first aboard the vessel.) On the third war patrol the Croaker was assigned to life guard duty off of Luzon during the Lingayen Gulf landings.and then patrolled the straits of Luzon. Dad was transferred off the Croaker and assigned to the base at Fremantle until the end of the war. He would serve until 1956 including duty in Guam and a stint in on a destroyer the USS Robert K. Huntingdon in the early 1950's followed by duty as a recruiting officer and final assignment to a mothball fleet in Texas. He retired in June 1956with 23 years in the US Navy. He passed away in 1984.
Welcome to the Forums Tinn! Thank you for sharing that story about your Father, sorry to hear about his passing. Were you in the service as well?
If you have any of his war stories, I am all ears. Not often sub stories are told here. If you have not found them already, here are the war patrol reports. SS-157_S-46 SS-246_CROAKER
thanks JJ, Was a long time ago. I served in the USAF 1964-68, nothing spectacular particularly in the Vietnam era... I was a Radar Electronics Repairman assigned to long range search radars. All on stateside radar sites on the Pine Tree Line, Duty stations in Biloxi, MS following basic training, two years at Almaden AFStation, a radar site on a mountain top between San Jose and Santa Cruz,CA. Not bad duty particularly since I had attended San Jose State College before enlisting and the base operated a bus to downtown San Jose every shift. The last year I spent as a ski bum while stationed at St. Albans AFS in St Albans Vermont. All in all I skated through four years.... Two sons, both Jarheads, one in Desert Storm the second was in Operation Just Cause in Panama and then did a float to Somalia and back through the Pacific.
Thank you Takao. I did not have them, Don't know why I didn't look them up myself. My father actually was fairly close mouthed about his experiences during the war. I gathered the S-boat experience was quite a trip to Brisbane with frequent mechanical problems. One of my earliest memories is being on Guam (probably 1948-49) and being on a beach party around the island on a PT boat with families. On the beach on the far side of the island while the coxwain stood guard with a submachine gun. Also rows of B-29 rudders at Anderson AFB. As my father was morale officer as a "second hat" I enjoyed the attentions of many Filipino countermen at the enlisted mens "slop chute" with hamburgers and milkshakes. ( my memory may be inflated a lot by a small boy's fantasies. Also remember riding out a typhoon in a quonset hut... just bits and pieces.
