page_title: USS Wahoo (SS-238)
section_title: The search for and discovery of Wahoo
hierarchical_section_title: USS Wahoo (SS-238) / The search for and discovery of Wahoo
caption_attribution_description: English: The "Ship's Bell" from USS Wahoo (SS-238). When submarines went out on war patrol, the bell remained on shore in the event the submarine was lost at sea. This photo was taken at the Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park at Pearl Harbor on the event of the ceremony commemorating her loss and subsequent locating.
context_page_description: USS Wahoo (SS-238) was a Gato-class submarine, the first United States Navy ship to be named for the wahoo. Construction started before the U.S. entered World War II, and she was commissioned after entry. Wahoo was assigned to the Pacific theatre. She gained fame as an aggressive and highly successful submarine after Lieutenant Commander Dudley Walker "Mush" Morton became her skipper. She was sunk by Japanese aircraft in October 1943 while returning home from a patrol in the Sea of Japan.
context_section_description: Wahoo had long been believed to be resting in the Soya (La Pérouse) Strait between Hokkaidō, Japan and Sakhalin, Russia. Beginning in 1995, the Wahoo Project Group (an international team of Americans, Australians, Japanese, and Russians, and led by a relative of Commander Morton)  searched for her based on the available evidence. Japanese Vice Admiral Kazuo Ueda, working with the Wahoo Project Group, examined the historical record and correctly predicted the location of Wahoo.
  In 2005, electronic surveys in the region yielded what turned out to be a U.S. Gato-class submarine in the Strait; in July 2006, the Russian team "Iskra" investigated the site which contributed further evidence of location of Wahoo.
  On 31 October 2006, the U.S. Navy confirmed that the images provided by the "Iskra" team are of Wahoo, the wreckage lying intact in about 213 ft (65 m) of water in the La Pérouse (Soya) Strait. The submarine was sunk by a direct hit from an aerial bomb near the conning tower.
  On 8 July 2007, the U.S. Navy conducted a wreath-laying ceremony at sea for the crew of Wahoo. The ceremony was held on the confirmed site of the sinking of the submarine as a joint exercise with the Navy of the Russian Federation.
  On 11 October 2007, the U.S. Navy held an official remembrance ceremony for the crew of Wahoo, conducted at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park at Pearl Harbor, and followed by a presentation of the history of Wahoo search and discovery by the Wahoo Project Group.
caption: USS Wahoo Ship's bell during 2007 ceremony
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