The story of the WWII loss of USS S-27, a US Navy submarine grounded in Alaska’s Aleutians, one of the few wartime sinkings without enemy attack.
Lost 6 of 52
In the early morning darkness of June 19, 1942, a heavy fog smothered the rocky coast of Amchitka Island in the far Aleutians. USS S-27 crept along the surface, her crew unaware that strong currents had pushed their submarine perilously off course. Suddenly, breakers appeared dead ahead – surf crashing on unseen.
“Back emergency!” came the cry, as engines roared into reverse. But it was too late. A shuddering jolt ran through the hull as S-27 ground to a halt on the rocks. As waves pummeled the stranded boat, rolling her side to side, the men aboard knew their first war patrol had become a battle for survival.
Chapter 1: The Pacific War in Mid-1942
By the summer of 1942, the Pacific War had reached a turning point. The US Navy had just dealt Japan a decisive blow at Midway in early June, but far to the north, a new crisis was unfolding. In a diversionary thrust, Japanese forces attacked the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.
On June 6–7, 1942, the enemy seized the remote islands of Kiska and Attu, marking the first occupation of American soil in World War II. Though sparsely populated, the Aleutians suddenly became a battleground. American leadership, shocked at this incursion, scrambled to respond – they would not allow the Japanese to dig in unopposed on US territory.
Reinforcements were rushed to Alaska, and the Navy sent any available submarines to patrol the frigid northern waters. Among them were elderly S-class boats like S-27, dragged out of quieter duties to face a harsh new front. The Aleutian theater itself proved as formidable as any foe: fog, gale-force winds, and treacherous rocky coasts routinely wrecked ships and planes. In this “forgotten” corner of the Pacific, conditions were merciless – cold spray froze on decks, compasses spun in magnetic anomalies, and navigation was a deadly guessing game in uncharted waters. It was into these perilous seas that S-27 sailed on her first war patrol, just as the Aleutian campaign was entering its darkest hour.
Plot Points
Chapter 2: Commissioning of USS S-27
USS S-27 was a product of an earlier era, born from the Navy’s post-World War I submarine program. Authorized in 1917 and laid down in April 1919 at Bethlehem Shipbuilding’s Fore River yard in Quincy, Massachusetts, she took shape slowly in peacetime. Launched on October 18, 1922 and commissioned on January 22, 1924, S-27 was an S-1-class submarine – one of the last of the “S-boats.” At roughly 219 feet long and 900 tons surfaced displacement, she was small by World War II standards.
Her diesel-electric drive could propel her at about 14 knots on the surface and 11 knots submerged, with a range of roughly 5,000 nautical miles at 10 knots. She carried four 21-inch torpedo tubes in the bow (and had a deck gun mounted topside), with a typical load of a dozen Mark 10 torpedoes – reliable weapons from the previous war.
USS S-27, an older S-class submarine, on exercise in the 1930s. These boats had relatively small size and limited range (around 900 tons and 219 ft), and lacked modern technologies like radar. Their narrow hulls and vertical sides made them notoriously “wet boats,” easily swamped by waves on the surface.Notably, the S-class subs were technologically primitive by WWII. S-27 had no radar and, in her original fit, not even a fathometer (sonar) for measuring depth. Habitability was spartan; the diesel engines shook the boat and the lack of refrigeration and proper heating made Arctic operations especially grueling. Still, in the 1920s these submarines were cutting-edge – and S-27 proudly took her place in the fleet as one of the Navy’s workhorse undersea craft.
Chapter 3: Early Service
Through the interwar decades, S-27 led a quiet but active career. Initially based at New London, Connecticut in 1924, she soon transited to the Pacific, joining the submarine division in the Panama Canal Zone and later operating out of California. In the 1930s, S-27 was stationed in Hawaiian waters, honing her crew’s skills in fleet exercises around Oahu.
When the U.S. entered World War II after Pearl Harbor (December 1941), S-27 was considered obsolete, but the Navy could ill afford to sideline any asset. Initially, she performed training duties on the West Coast. However, Japan’s Aleutian invasion in mid-1942 suddenly put even old S-boats on the front lines.
In May 1942, S-27 was ordered north. She departed San Diego on May 20, 1942 under the command of Lieutenant Herbert L. Jukes, bound for the new war zone at Dutch Harbor, Alaska. It was a long, surface voyage for the submarine’s crew, plowing through rough Pacific seas to reach the Aleutians.
On June 12, 1942, S-27 arrived at Dutch Harbor and immediately set out on her first war patrol. Her mission orders were to reconnoiter the Japanese-held areas and patrol off Kiska Island, site of the recent enemy landing. For the first week, S-27 prowled around Adak and Amchitka, unglamorous but critical work in the outer Aleutians. These islands were desolate and windswept, but U.S. commanders suspected they might be the enemy’s next targets – or potential sites for American outposts to counterattack Kiska. S-27’s specific task was to check Constantine Harbor on Amchitka for any Japanese presence, then proceed west toward Kiska.
Dutifully, the submarine slipped into Constantine Harbor on June 18. The village there had been evacuated and bombed – a few buildings and a small church stood damaged and empty, with bomb craters pocking the ground. Jukes and his officers found no sign of Japanese occupation. With the reconnaissance complete and Amchitka still unoccupied by the enemy, S-27 turned south around the island’s tip, preparing to head for Kiska as ordered. Unbeknownst to the crew, fate was about to intervene on this otherwise uneventful patrol.
Chapter 4: Grounding at Amchitka
On the evening of June 18, 1942, S-27’s situation began to unravel. The summer days were extraordinarily long that far north – about 18 hours of daylight – forcing the submarine to remain submerged most of the day to avoid air patrols.
By 22:00 that night, after hours underwater, her batteries were drained and urgently needed recharging. Lieutenant Jukes brought S-27 to the surface off Amchitka’s southeastern coast, into a soup of dense Aleutian fog. For safety, Jukes believed they were well offshore, beyond the reach of any hazards. With lookouts peering into the mist and charts on the plotting table, S-27 stopped in the open sea to charge her batteries, running one diesel engine to put power back into the cells.
Unknown to the crew, powerful currents were at work. As the submarine lay dead in the water, the tide quietly dragged her off her estimated position by about five miles, a drift completely masked by the thick fog. Around midnight, the charging was sufficiently advanced that Jukes ordered the submarine underway again. Standard procedure in S-boats was to run on one engine while the other continued charging, as these old boats could not use both screws and charge efficiently at the same time. So, at approximately 00:30 on June 19, S-27 chugged ahead slowly on a single propeller, creaking along in the inky darkness – blind in the fog, trusting their navigation.
Minutes later, a lookout suddenly spotted breaking waves directly in front of the bow. Out of the gray void loomed a line of white surf–land. Jukes reacted with an order of “Back emergency!” Engines struggled to reverse the sub’s momentum. But scarcely had the propeller churned backwards when S-27 slammed aground. The submarine lurched and then fell into a helpless position, lodged on an uncharted reef only 400 yards from Amchitka’s shore.
Ballast tanks were blown and engines reversed, attempting to drag the hull off the rocks. S-27 shuddered but stuck fast. Almost immediately, the surf began to batter her. Waves violently bumped the submarine, lifting and dropping her on the jagged reef. The pounding opened seams in the hull, and seawater gushed into forward compartments. Within minutes, the forward torpedo room started flooding, and the boat took on a pronounced bow-down angle of 8 to 12 degrees. As water reached the battery well in the aft section, chlorine gas hissed into the air – a fate similar to her sister, S-36.
Under this onslaught, the crew fought to save their ship. They dumped fuel ballast to lighten the submarine, hoping she might float free. Gallons of diesel poured into the sea, but instead of freeing S-27, it only made her ride more unstable – lightening the boat caused the waves to throw her about even more. One of the propellers struck a submerged rock, bending and jamming itself useless.
In a last attempt, Jukes ordered all engines full ahead to drive forward off the reef. S-27 managed to surge maybe 20 feet further into the shoals before grinding to a halt again on another. The sub was firmly impaled on the Aleutian rocks.
Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the captain sent out distress calls. Over the next hours S-27’s radio operator transmitted at least six emergency messages detailing their plight. But reception in these lonely waters was poor – only one signal was picked up by friendly forces, and that lone message lacked any location info.
In effect, no one knew where S-27 was. The crew was on their own, shipwrecked behind enemy lines. As the sub’s internal conditions worsened, Jukes faced the agonizing decision no skipper wants to make: abandon ship.
Chapter 5: Castaways of the S-27
With S-27 mortally wounded on the reef, Lieutenant Jukes ordered his crew to prepare to abandon ship at first light. In the pre-dawn hours of June 19, the men gathered essential provisions and carefully rigged a system to reach shore. They found a small rubber life raft and set up a makeshift pulley line from the sub to the beach. The submarine lay only a few hundred yards from land, but between her and the shore raged a frigid surf zone. In groups of two and three, crewmen climbed into the bobbing raft and were hauled along the line. It was a perilous ferry operation, but by mid-morning, almost the entire complement had made it safely ashore.
Six volunteers, including Jukes, remained aboard S-27 for several more hours, ensuring nothing of value would fall into enemy hands. They smashed sensitive equipment, drenched the code books and confidential papers in fuel and set them alight, and removed or destroyed the deck guns. Water continued to flood in below; by 15:30 that afternoon, the forward compartments were untenable, and three of the last six men left the sub for the raft as the bow sank deeper. Finally, at 1600 hours, Lieutenant Jukes and the remaining two sailors stepped off her battered hull. S-27 was left to the sea, becoming one more hidden reef in the Aleutians.
Forty-two exhausted officers and men found themselves marooned on Amchitka. They had come ashore on a desolate stretch of coast near St. Makarius Point, with no shelter in sight beyond a driftwood fire. Fortunately, the crew had managed to salvage firearms, some rations, medical kits, and other supplies. That first night, they huddled around beach fires under the open sky, grateful to be alive but exposed to the elements. Despite the summer season, the Aleutian weather was brutally cold and wet.
For nearly five days, no outside help arrived. The crew’s distress signals had seemingly vanished into the ether, and the Aleutian fog hid them from any passing planes or ships. Still, the survivors did not lose hope. Unbeknownst to them, their lone incomplete radio message had been heard, triggering a search, but the vastness of the Aleutians made rescue difficult.
Then, on June 24, the waiting was broken by the distant drone of an aircraft engine. Out of the clouds swept a US Navy PBY Catalina flying boat, on a routine patrol, which spotted the makeshift camp. Jukes and some men rushed to the water’s edge, waving improvised signal flags.
The Catalina’s pilot, Lt. Julius A. Raven, daringly landed his plane on the choppy harbor waters to effect a rescue. It was a risky move. As he taxied close to shore, a few men rowed out in an old wooden rowboat. Raven took the first 14 survivors aboard his aircraft (as many as he safely could) and then throttled up, heading for Dutch Harbor. Before departing, he promised to return with help for the rest.
True to his word, the very next day, Raven and two other PBYs returned. The remaining S-27 crew were flown to safety. By that afternoon, all 42 officers and men of S-27 had been rescued, not a single life lost to the ordeal.
Cold, hungry, and unshaven, the submariners of S-27 returned as minor celebrities – they had survived an incredible six-day castaway adventure in enemy waters. Lieutenant Jukes would later commend his crew’s fortitude and credit their training for the flawless evacuation. The men, for their part, praised Lt. Raven and his aircrew for their bravery.
Tragically, Lt. Julius Raven would lose his life in action only weeks later, killed on August 9, 1942, during a rescue mission, for which he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. S-27’s crew had beaten the odds: they endured nature’s fury and escaped the enemy’s grasp, writing one of the war’s most remarkable survival stories.
Chapter 6: Legacy and Remembrance
The loss of USS S-27 resonated as both a cautionary tale and a stroke of providence. In July 1942, the Navy convened a board of inquiry, standard procedure whenever a ship was lost. Lieutenant Herbert Jukes faced a court-martial for the grounding of S-27, since commanders are accountable for their vessels. But upon reviewing the circumstances, Navy officials recognized that Jukes had been placed in an impossible situation.
As Seaman 1/c George Herold, an S-27 survivor, bluntly put it: “It was so foolish [to blame Jukes]. It was an old boat…built in 1924. It had no radar, no fathometer – no anything, really. If we didn’t see the sun or the stars, we were lost.”
Poor weather had hidden the coastline for days, and S-27’s primitive equipment left her virtually blind. The inquiry cleared Jukes of negligence; in fact, he went on to command another submarine, USS Kingfish, conducting several successful war patrols later in the war. The Navy quietly chalked up S-27’s loss to the brutal realities of war in the Aleutians.
S-27’s wreck was left where she grounded, at St. Makarius Point on Amchitka. The crew had scuttled and stripped the boat, and the pounding surf did the rest. Today, the submarine’s remains lie in the cold, shallow waters off Amchitka.
In the decades after the war, Amchitka Island itself became infamous as a nuclear test site, limiting any exploration of the wreck. Unlike some lost subs, S-27 was never a “mystery” to be solved – her resting place was always known, a testament to the hazards of that theater.
In U.S. Navy history, S-27 holds a unique place. She was one of 52 American submarines lost during World War II, and notably one of the very few that suffered no fatalities in the incident. This fact is often remembered with a mixture of relief and pride. The Submarine Veterans of WWII later assigned S-27 as the memorial boat for the state of Idaho, ensuring that the crew’s story would be honored in annual remembrances. At naval memorials and “Tolling of the Boats” ceremonies each year, S-27’s name is read aloud with the date of her los, June 19, 1942, followed by the solemn note “no lives lost,” a bright spot in an otherwise tragic roll.
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