Sunk by Potato! The Odd Story of the USS O'bannon the American Destroyer that Sunk a Japanese Submarine with Produce in 1943

 

         In the middle of the night during April of 1943, while cruising off the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean, lookouts aboard the heavily armed destroyer USS O’bannon spot an unusual silhouette in the distance.

The O’bannon is attempting to return to its home port after having engaged in shelling of Japanese positions in support of the American amphibious invasion of New Georgia Island, and all hands are on edge, and on the lookout, for signs of enemy naval activity.

In the darkness members of the ship’s crew notice that the odd silhouette is creeping closer and closer until it’s nearly astride their ship itself.

What the crew is seeing is the silhouette of the Japanese submarine RO-34.  The RO-34 is a small submarine by the standards of the Second World War, one of a fleet of tiny “midget” submarines that the Japanese Navy uses to infiltrate and wreak havoc on unsuspecting American shipping convoys, but when it is first sighted by the Americans the crew  of the RO-34 has no idea that the heavily armed American destroyer is anywhere in its vicinity.  Thinking it is safe and in unpatrolled waters the RO-34 has chosen this very moment in the middle of the night to surface.

The American destroyer USS O’bannon and the midget Japanese sub RO-34 are careening towards one another on a collision course for disaster.  

As the Japanese submarine RO-34 draws closer, and its silhouette grows larger on the moonlit horizon, the crew of the O’bannon is confident that their much larger and heavily armed and armored ship can withstand any collision with the tiny Japanese sub and force its eventual surrender, but then word spreads through members of the crew that it may, in fact, be a minelayer and not a submarine that is bearing down on the O’bannon.

Fearing that his ship may be vulnerable to enemy mines the O’bannon’s Commander Donald MacDonald orders the ship to turn hard on its rudder narrowly avoiding the imminent collision.

Once the O’bannon turns, the U.S. destroyer and the surfaced Japanese submarine, float within inches of one another on the still surface of the Pacific for several eerie moments on that April night.

American sailors standing against the rail and looking down on the deck of RO-34 lock eyes with Japanese submariners gazing upwards in sleepy eyed amazement at the enormous ship.

Realizing that they are now close enough to almost reach out and touch the American ship the Japanese submariners frantically scramble on the deck of RO-34 in an effort to reach their deck cannons which are the perfect weapon for sinking the larger American ship.

For a split second, as it dawns on them that this is a Japanese submarine and not a minelayer which has pulled up astern their destroyer, the Americans stare down in disbelief fearful that they might have just steered themselves into a deadly trap.

Needing to buy themselves time to prevent the Japanese crew members from reaching their deck guns the American sailors begin tossing potatoes from the O’bannon’s kitchen supply room onto the deck of RO-34.

Thinking that these incoming potatoes are hand grenades, the Japanese crew aboard RO-34 scrambles for cover and never reach their gun positions on the deck.

As the potatoes thrown from the American ship hit the metal deck of RO-34 the deep resonant thudding sound they make against the steel surface causes the Japanese sailors to momentarily panic and throws the crew of RO-34, who only moments before had surfaced in the middle of the night thinking they were safe from any American ships, into disarray.  The Japanese submariners scramble belowdecks for cover from what they take to be American small arms fire.

This moment of panic and fear on the part of the crew of RO-34 buys the USS O’bannon enough time to change course and increase the distance between itself and Japanese submarine.

        Once the O’bannon pulls far enough away from RO-34 it is able to engage the submarine with its much heavier guns.  The O’bannon lands a direct hit on the Japanese sub.  In response to the damage that it has sustained from the O’bannon, RO-34 dives deep below the surface in an effort to escape.  But with the enemy sub now severely damaged, the USS O’bannon is once again able to draw near the submarine and finally finish it off using depth charges.

This is the story of how the United States Navy destroyer USS O’bannon sank the Japanese midget submarine RO-34 using potatoes in April 1943 as reported by the media back home in the United States at the height of World War Two.

Relying on the testimony of those who served aboard the O’bannon Reader’s Digest ran a full blown cover story on the sinking of the Japanese submarine by potato in the summer of 1943.

In that article veteran Ernest A. Herr wrote, “As the Japanese sailors ran towards their guns, our deck parties reached into storage bins that were located nearby, picked out some potatoes and threw them at the sailors on the deck of the sub.”  The same article then goes on to report that a full-blown “potato battle” then ensued.

But did it actually happen?

The USS O’bannon was one of the most highly decorated ships in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War.  The O’bannon served for almost the entire course of the war in the Pacific and received 17 battle stars along with a Presidential Unit Citation for meritorious service in helping to defeat the Japanese Empire.

In addition to its exploits during World War Two the USS O’bannon would go on to see tours of duty during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars and would not be decommissioned by the Navy until 1970.  In recognition of the O’bannon’s brave service over the course of three wars and nearly three decades the O’bannon would finally be retired in a special ceremony performed by the United States Navy with Second World War veterans in attendance at Pearl Harbor on January 30, 1970.

Despite all of the accolades, however, to this very day the USS O’bannon is best remembered as the American ship that sank an enemy submarine with potatoes, but unlike the ship’s citations for bravery, the entire potato story could simply be imaginary.

It is true that just off the Solomon Island chain in April of 1943 the USS O’bannon did engage, and sink the Japanese submarine RO-34 in the middle of the night while it was on its way back to its home port after having supported an amphibious operation against the enemy held island of New Georgia.

And though many veterans who served aboard the O’bannon at the time claim to have distinct memories of the potato throwing incident, the ship’s own Commanding Officer Donald MacDonald is quoted as saying, “I’ve been trying to drive a stake through this story for years.”

MacDonald claims that at the time the O’bannon first sighted the Japanese submarine the ship’s cook said, “That Jap sub is so close to us we could throw potatoes at it.”  He then says that the cook’s off hand remark was misreported at the time and that when the story reached the newspapers back home in the United States it was incorrectly reported that sailors aboard the USS O’bannon had sunk a Japanese submarine by throwing potatoes at it.

Apparently, the story spread like wildfire across the United States and became so ingrained in both Naval and Second World War lore that even upon their return back home many sailors who had served aboard the O’bannon claimed to vividly recall throwing potatoes at the Japanese submarine in the middle of the night, but the ship’s Commander always steadfastly stood by his assertion that no such potato throwing incident ever occured.

The ship’s own war diary entry of the sinking of Japanese submarine RO-34 reports simply that the O’bannon came close enough to engage the enemy submarine with its 20mm cannon, inflicting damage on the Japanese craft, before finishing it off by using depth charges on two successive passes.

Still, it is possible that in all the confusion and commotion of having nearly collided with a Japanese submarine in the dark of night,  Commander MacDonald may simply have been unaware of any potato throwing that may have occurred, or that he simply might have been unwilling to include any mention of it in his after action reports out of a sense of embarrassment.

Many of those who served aboard the O’bannon would go on years later to reminisce about the event in retrospective articles that ran in many local papers on the fortieth and fiftieth anniversary of the sinking RO-34.

The whole truth behind the potato throwing incident aboard the USS O’bannon in April of 1943 may never be known, but the story does have one more mysterious twist.

When the Potato Growers of Maine Association heard about the exploits of the USS O’bannon they commissioned the creation of a plaque to commemorate the momentous American triumph.  Apparently, from 1945 onwards that plaque was mounted right outside the mess hall aboard the USS O’bannon for all to see.

When the ship was finally decommissioned in 1970 the plaque commemorating the potato battle was moved to the Maine Maritime Museum where it was put on display for public viewing, but after being on display for only a few years the plaque mysteriously went missing, either having fallen victim to theft or negligence, and it hasn’t been seen in over forty years.

It has been over seventy years since that fateful night in 1943 and over fifty years now since the USS O’bannon was retired from active service and sold for scrap.  It has been nearly forty years since anyone has seen the plaque that was commissioned in its own honor by the Potato Growers of the state of Maine, but despite the passage of time the memory of the USS O’bannon as the American ship that sank a Japanese submarine with produce during World War Two is sure to live on forever.