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The Vanished Golden Submarine’s Final Journey and Fate

Khalid Elhassan December 8, 2024 14 min

I-52 - Underwater wreckage of the Golden Submarine — Underwater wreckage of the Golden Submarine. National Geographic

5. Sending a Task Group After the Golden Submarine

American intelligence intercepted the exchange between the I-52 and the Japanese naval attache in Berlin, and sent out a submarine hunter-killer group. Centered around an American escort carrier, the USS Bogue, accompanied by five destroyers, the task group was en route from the US to Europe, when it was tasked with a new mission. On June 15^th, after a brief stop in Casablanca, the Bogue group sailed out to begin its hunt. It was a highly successful team of submarine killers that had sunk a Japanese submarine just a month earlier, on May 13^th. Between February, 1943, and July, 1945, the Bogue team would send 13 German and Japanese submarines to the bottom of the sea.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.