On Darter's 4th and final war patrol, one notable incident in the first week of October was on 10/3/44 around 1500 hours when several friendly aircraft almost strafed the boat.
The book "Cruisers For Breakfast" (written by John G Mansfield, 1981) elaborates on the incident from veteran interviews and was mentioned in my 2014 story "Miracle in the Pacific"...
"On the 3rd of October '44, the Darter and Dace were to cover the Western approach to Balabac Strait. They patrolled submerged at almost all times, due to an incident where the Darter was surfaced and a passing American plane almost bombed them. The men saw a plane with US markings, they hoped it would keep going but it turned around and came back at them. The men panicked and scrambled to get below deck as they heard the engines whine, it was diving. Someone got the bright idea of signaling with the emergency flares, using the launch tubes at the tip and the stern of the boat. But the flares were faulty and did not launch.
One of them exploded in the tube when the cord was pulled, this blew Capt McClintock off his feet and knocked him on his rear end, almost deafening another crew member standing by. The brass signal letters meant to be laid on the decks to spell messages to aircraft also pitched off the deck and were lost overboard in the rough sea. Attempts to hail the plane by radio and code were unsuccessful, and finally the American flag was brought out on deck attached to a length of pipe and waved around. The bomber was waved off at last. The radio op said the planes were talking on 2716 kilocycles. He heard them say ““...It may be an American sub...” Skipper said “You tell them you're damn right it's an American sub, and to go away, they make us nervous.”
The Seawolf, SS-197 was not so lucky. It was sunk in the same passage by an American destroyer, the USS Rowell earlier that day and went down with all hands aboard.
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