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Whence cometh Earrings?
USS Sea Dragon (SS194) is probably most known for being the first submarine aboard which an emergency
appendectomy was performed. While on the fourth war patrol in September of 1942, Seaman First Class Darrel Rector became very ill with acute appendicitis. Med-evac was not an option and so an emergency appendectomy was performed by Pharmacists Mate First Class Wheeler Lipes. The procedure, performed in the wardroom with several ships' officers assisting, was successful and Rector recovered quickly.
There is another story associated with Sea Dragon, one not so well known perhaps. This story comes to us from Ex-Chief Electrician Arthur Killam who served on Sea Dragon in World War II.
This is the story, told in his words:
"I was on a submarine, the USS Sea Dragon, in WWII. As part of the Asiatic Fleet, we were stationed in Manila, Philippines. In December 1941 we were at the Cavite Navy Yard for an overhaul. On the same day, December 7, Pearl Harbor was bombed the Japanese wiped out all the airfields in the Philippines thereby eliminating our air protection.
"At noon on December 10, 1941 the Navy Yard was heavily bombed. Three flights of 27 (81 in total) flew over our Navy Yard dropping 500-pound bombs. We did not have a gun that could touch them; they didn't even break formation. The Jap bombers completely destroyed the Navy Yard and all the ships in dry dock.
'Our Sea Dragon submarine was tied up to the dock and our sister ship; USS Sea lion was tied up outboard of us. Sea Lion took a 500-pound bomb down the after-torpedo room hatch, sinking her. (Shrapnel from that bomb explosion sprayed Sea Dragon's conning tower and hull) At that very instant one of our officers and I were in the conning tower. The officer was killed there by shrapnel from the Sea Lion. While I was rushing down the ladder to the control room, another concussion knocked me 14 feet below to the control room deck. Four knobs about 2 inches long were all that remained where the railing used to be around the pump room hatch. I fell onto one of the knobs sticking up, landing full force on the tip of my spine. I lay there senseless on the control room deck for quite a while, and then heard the Captain yell "abandon
ship!" By the time I had picked myself up, managed to get topside and was starting down the dock, the Captain was telling everyone to get back on board.
"A salvage ship, USS Widgeon, tied up to our stern and with some effort pulled us clear of the destroyed Sea Lion. Our sub had also caught a lot of shrapnel from Sea Lion but luckily the pressure hull was not ruptured. We had many holes in the superstructure and a lot of the deck was gone.
"We managed to get over to Manila where we tied up to
the USS Canopus. For three days work was performed on the sub, all night long every night, preparing us to go back to sea. Work was done at night under cover of darkness and during the day we would lie on the bottom of Manila bay until it turned dark again. The reason for this was that the Japanese chose daylight to attack. (The author doesn't say what protected Canopus from daylight attacks.)
"Finally ready for sea on 13 December 1941 we departed for Surabaya, Java, in the Netherlands East Indies. When we passed Corregidor and started south we saw three
Japanese destroyers patrolling the entrance to Manila Bay. Corregidor was an Army island fort at the entrance to Manila Bay. As we proceeded to dive the Japanese gave us our first taste of depth charging. After about two hours the three destroyers finally left. We surfaced and after a few days we finally reached Surabaya, Java, where we went into a Dutch dry dock for repairs.
"After our overhaul by the Dutch we went out on our first offensive patrol run. We were assigned a patrol station off French Indochina (Viet Nam). We were located in Cam Ranh Bay, near a Japanese naval base. We made an
approach on a Japanese heavy cruiser. The Captain ordered firing four torpedoes as the cruiser was going into its base. The torpedoes missed. We were using Mark 14 torpedoes and having trouble with them as was everybody else. The miss was costly; we were pretty heavily depth charged.
After 55 days we ended our patrol. We could not go back to Surabaya because the Japanese had already captured it. Our orders were to go to Perth, Australia. We made five patrol runs from there.
"I had to tell this story to get to the point of why modern man wears earrings: there was this certain Japanese woman who had a radio show from Tokyo, Japan...you know who she was. Well, Tokyo Rose had broadcast that a Japanese destroyer had sunk a red pirate submarine off the coast of French Indochina. This crock of prop (sic) was supposedly us, USS Sea Dragon! You see, due to the bombing in Cavite and several depth charge attacks, most of the black paint on our hull had long disappeared. The red lead undercoating that was left gave us the red appearance; hence, a Red Pirate Submarine.
"Back to the earrings", our Pharmacists Mate decided if we were being called a pirate ship we should all wear earrings like pirates. He then proceeded to pierce everyone's ears, officers excluded. By the time we finished our 5th patrol the entire submarine had pierced ears. Therefore don't attribute the custom of men wearing earrings to rock groups and rappers; give credit where credit is due...to the USS Sea Dragon!"
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