When A Navy Destroyer Fought A Submarine Using Potatoes

Written By Southpoint Collective

War often calls for quick thinking and unconventional tactics, but few battles have ever been won with… potatoes. But, during World War II, the USS O’Bannon, a U.S. Navy destroyer, found itself in a tense standoff with a Japanese submarine. With the enemy dangerously close, too near in fact for their deck guns to be effective, the crew resorted to a rather unexpected weapon. 

This is the incredible tale of how the USS O’Bannon used quick thinking, and a well-stocked pantry, to help sink a Japanese submarine.

The USS O’Bannon was a naval destroyer that served in the US Navy and supported operations during World War II as well as the Korean War.

Built at the Bath Iron Works in Maine in 1941, it was named after the legendary marine lieutenant Presley O’Bannon who had famously led a ragtag group of marines and mercenaries in a daring overland expedition to surprise the enemy during a conflict in Tripoli. The vessel, also known as The Lucky O, was launched just a year later in 1942 and by the end of its career,  it would go on to be the most decorated American Destroyer of the entire Second World War.

And with the kind of ingenuity we’re about to learn about today, maybe that’s no surprise!

Now being that the O’Bannon was a destroyer, it wasn’t by any means lacking in real weaponry. On the contrary, it did, in fact, boast 17 anti-aircraft guns, multiple torpedo tubes, depth charges as well as a host of .38 caliber deck guns. It was essentially the US Navy’s version of the Death Star.

Since it’s launch, it had been supporting the war effort in the Pacific theater, and as we join the story, the vessel was on its way back to their naval base in Tulagi,, after a devastating shelling delivered upon enemy forces from the nearby Solomon Islands. The date was the 5th of April 1943, and tensions in the region were at an all time high.

It was just after 3 o'clock in the morning when suddenly the vessel's radar began pinging wildly. A surface contact had been picked up in the distance somewhere off the coast of Santa Isabela Island in the Central Solomons.

The sea itself was especially calm that morning, and as luck would have it, the night itself was especially dark and overcast, with any light from the moon being obscured by clouds. Every so often a small cloudburst would drop a shower of rain before just as quickly disappearing again.

The radar was showing that whatever it was picking up was by now just over 7000 yards ahead of them. The O’Bannon’s Combat Information Center immediately began tracking the target.

Whatever it was appeared to be moving at around 10 or 11 knots, but was not seen to be turning or diverting from its course. The officers on board the O’Bannon figured that somehow they had not been detected, and made the decision to use this to their advantage.

The crew were ordered to their stations both below and above decks but warned not to fire until instructed. The destroyer with it’s enormous engine capacity quickly ate up the distance between themselves and their still unknown target. As they drew closer the officers peered through binoculars, struggling to see without any assistance from the moon, to make out exactly what it was. As they reached just shy of 1000 yards of the targets portside they finally made out enough distinguishing features to recognise it as a Japanese RO-34 submarine.

As silently as an enormous floating battleship could, they crossed the wake of the still unaware submarine, lining themselves up perfectly for the right moment to open fire. 

As they reached a distance of roughly 800 yards between them the ships captain Commander Macdonald decided that the swiftest solution to this particular skirmish, and one that would save their ammunition, would be to simply ram the unsuspecting sub, tearing a giant hole in the side of it, and sending it spiralling to the sea floor below.

The order was given and the engines roared into life as the destroyer sped towards to their target. One of the officers suddenly realised that these particular submarines were sometimes used to lay mines in the area, and that if this was one of those subs, then ramming it would set off an almighty explosion, one which could even threaten to sink the O’Bannon as well.

The captain, not wanting to take that unnecessary risk, ordered the rudder turned hard to starboard immediately. The giant destroyer, designed to engage other vessels from a few thousand yards apart, now found itself skidding sideways towards their target. In fact, the order to turn had come so late that they were now almost bumping up against the submarine. This was somewhat of a problem, as their guns weren’t designed to fire downwards meaning they were now too close to use their weapons at all. The only thing they could do was to fire off a few depth charges towards the small tubular sub alongside them.

As the depth charges exploded, rocking the submarine violently, it was as if they had just kicked a hornets nest. All of a sudden, the Japanese sailors, who had been peacefully sleeping up until that point, erupted from below decks, quite possibly praying that they were still dreaming as the hulking figure of the O’Bannon loomed over them.

We’re going to take a short break, and when we return, we’ll find out exactly what the Japanese submariners did once the initial shock wore off, and how the crew of the O’Bannon came up with a creative idea to buy themselves some time.

The Japanese submarine didn’t have quite the same problem as the US Naval vessel, in that their guns would work just perfectly against the looming hull of the O’Bannon.

As more and more of the Japanese sailors emerged it was evident to all of the O’Bannons crew that they were racing to their onboard guns and if they got there it could spell disaster. 

They needed to buy themselves enough time to create some more distance between them so that they could once again use their own guns, while simultaneously keeping the enemy away from their own weapons.

One of the crew aboard the O’Bannon, spotting a figure darting towards a deck mounted gun threw a loose bolt down at the man. Even though he missed, it clanged loudly off the metal of the submarine and the sailor, thinking it was the sound of bullet ricocheting right next to him swiftly dove for cover.

Seeing this the other crew members of the O’Bannon followed suit and began pelting the poor Japanese sailors below them with anything they could find. Nuts, bolts, spanners and more all got tossed over the side. But soon, these small projectiles began to run out, and the only thing left just happened to be loads and loads of potato barrels all stacked nearby. They would have to do.

Quickly the crew above decks began raining potatoes down at the submarine below, intending to do as much harm as a flying potato could possibly inflict. What they didn’t immediately realise was that, owing to just how dark it was at that very moment, the Japanese couldn’t clearly make out what exactly it was that was being thrown at them. They could hear that the thudding sound as they struck the metal of the submarine sounding different from what had come before, when all of a sudden one soldier was struck by a potato missile right in his chest. Sure it hurt, but what he had felt was a large, hard, somewhat round object strike him and bounce away. It could only have been one thing.

“Grenades!’ he shouted to his fellow Japanese crewmen who now ran in panic to find some sort of cover as the clanging and thudding continued all around them.

Now, before we judge them too harshly for this assessment, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out a few mitigating factors in their defence.

Firstly, up until about 5 minutes ago, all of them had been fast asleep and were probably still fully waking up, despite the adrenaline coursing through their veins.

Secondly, they hadn’t been woken up normally at all, in fact, instead of the expected alarm clock, they had instead been awoken by a depth charge and the sight of a tower destroyer  basically bumping up against their vessel, it was a very confusing situation to begin with.

And thirdly, the confusion wouldn’t stop there as no-one in their right mind would assume an enormous destroyer would pull up alongside them only to pelt them with some starchy vegetables.

Needless to say however, it had caught them just enough off guard, to work!

By the time any one of them could have realised the truth of the situation the O’Bannon had backed up enough to now unleash the full and terrifying power of their mounted guns.

They wasted no time in obliterating the submarine's conning tower with rounds from their twin 5 inch guns.

Three more depth charges were launched and soon the smell of diesel oil wafted across the water, a sure sign that the sub had been mortally wounded.

The O’Bannon, not wanting to take any chances came around for a third assault and noticed on their radar that the submarine had slipped beneath the waves, either as a desperate attempt to dive and escape the onslaught, or as a result of the damage already inflicted upon it. On the off chance that it was the former of those two options, the O’Bannon dropped another 10 depth charges right above the sinking submarine. Soon the crew heard one final large explosion, different to the sounds of the depth charges, signalling the end of the RO-34 submarine.

When word of this outrageous battle made its way back to America, the newspapers there absolutely lapped it up. Some even went so far as reporting that it was solely down to the potatoes themselves doing so much damage that they were in fact the cause of the submarine's explosion.

The legend of the naval potato battle grew and grew until one day the captain of the O’Bannon curiously denied that it had ever happened. 

Now perhaps he did this out of embarrassment as a way to cover up his initial decision to ram the submarine before pulling out at the last second, but the more likely reason for his denial might actually have been that he was fully unaware of the whole incident happening while he was on the bridge giving orders to make space between the vessels so that they could use their own guns.

Whatever his reasons were, the actual eyewitness evidence in favour of the story is overwhelming. Almost all of those above decks swear to the validity of the story of the potato grenades, with many of them providing quotes for multiple books throughout the years.

One of the men, George Starkey swears that he saw his fellow sailors throwing potatoes overboard, an assertion backed up by two other, Gunner Bud Moreau and Seaman First Class Ambrose Hardin, both of whom say they themselves took part in the spud-based assault.

Starkey makes a good point too, noting that one reason why the captain never found out about it, was that all of the sailors were too afraid to boast to him about what they had done for fear of reprimand for throwing perfectly good food and spare parts overboard.

Once the war was over and the men of the O’Bannon had returned home, the ship itself was awarded a metal plaque from the Potato Growers Association of Maine, the state in which the ship had initially been built, commemorating the sensational event.

The plaque, which remained on the ship until its decommissioning in the 70’s read: “A tribute to the officers and men of The USS O’Bannon, for their ingenuity in using our now proud potato to “sink” a Japanese submarine in the spring of 1943.

Presented by the Potato Growers of the state of Maine.”

It’s worth noting that the official website for the US Naval Institute does confirm that the potato throwing did in fact take place with one of the closing lines of their statement rather light-heartedly reading:

“So did the O’Bannon sink a Japanese submarine in World War II with potatoes? The answer is yes, along with some help from depth charges and projectiles from their 5 inch, 1 inch and 20mm guns.”

By the end of the O’Bannon’s storied career it had earned 17 battle stars and a presidential unit citation. All in all it had done exactly what was expected of it, and yet somehow, even more.

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