76 years after her final war patrol, the final resting place of the Robalo submarine has been confirmed.
We reached out to Cathy Green, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum who told us a little about the sub.
“The USS Robalo, SS 273, was the 9th submarine built here in Manitowoc,” she explained. “It was the 2nd to last in the original Navy contract for 10 submarines to be built. She was commissioned in 1943, that September, and she went out to the Pacific Ocean, serving on two war patrols.”
The Robalo is the same class and style of sub as the Cobia, who is at the Museum, even though they were built at different shipyards.
After her completion at the Manitowoc shipyard the Robalo was transported down to Louisiana through the Mississippi River, before making her way to her duty station in Australia. She was a part of two successful war patrols, but her luck changed on her third patrol.
Green told SeehaferNews.com that “She left Fremantle Australia on June 22nd, 1944, and it turns out it was likely
that she was sunk on July 26th, 1944 off the coast of Balabac Island in the Philippines. The reason we know this is because four of her crewmen were able to swim to shore to escape the sinking vessel, but they were captured by the Japanese, and were in a prisoner of war camp. They were able to able to slip a message out, which is how we eventually heard she was sunk by a mine, and her general location.”
Those prisoners of war were never heard from again.
Thanks to the note written by these brave submariners, a team was able to go out and find the Robalo off the Pilipino coast. “The Navy went out and confirmed that just this February,” Green explained. “The team was set to go out and revisit the site this July on the anniversary of her sinking on July 26th. With COVID, that didn’t happen, but we’re hopping eventually, maybe next year, the Museum could take part in that expedition, even just remotely, just to visit that site.”
The Robalo will remain at her final resting place as a tribute to the men who died on board, and to help preserve the sub.
A video was made in tribute to the Robalo and her crew and can be seen below.
