On Oct. 6, 1943 the USS Dorado SS-248 departed New London, Connecticut for her first war patrol. She was
never heard from again, what happened to her and her 77 man crew is still not known. The boat was bound for
the Canal Zone and was due to arrive on Oct. 14. When she failed to appear searches were conducted but
found nothing. To this day theories abound about the loss of Dorado but no conclusion has been arrived at.
On Oct. 25, 1943 a newspaper report stated that the Navy acknowledged the loss of Dorado and said she had
been "lost to Japanese counter attack", a preposterous claim since the Japanese were not operating in the
Caribbean Sea. Next the popular claim that she was sunk in error by a US patrol aircraft. PBM Mariner
(210-P-9) from
Patrol Squadron 210, piloted by Lt. (jg) Daniel T. Felix Jr. based at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba did attack an unidentified submarine on Oct. 12, 1943 with four depth charges and one bomb however no evidence of a kill was found. Two hours later the same aircraft spotted another submarine, after attempting to exchange recognition signals because they knew a US submarine was in the area, the boat opened fire on the aircraft.
The boat was the German submarine U-214 and they had observed the first attack which is the one thought to
have been against the Dorado. U-214 had laid mines at the entrance to the Panama Canal on Oct. 8 and this
leads to the third theory, that Dorado hit one of those mines.
A fourth theory is that the Dorado, after being bombed, drifted over 900 miles to the Mexican coast and
grounded in shallow water. Pilots before the 1970's claimed that a conning tower was visible and used as
a reference for navigation. The supposed wreck has not been seen in 30 years.
What we do know is that the Dorado vanished and that seventy-seven men remained entombed within her
hull.
|
