As detailed in last Friday’s “Tidbit,” USS BULLHEAD (SS-332) was the last U.S. submarine to be lost in World War II, succumbing during her third war patrol on the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. But, wrote Robert Hamilton in a New London Day article published 50 years after the sub’s sinking, “the crew of the Bullhead had one more message to deliver.”
“[LCDR Walter] Griffith, who was captain of the Bullhead during its first two patrols, was teaching a course at the Navy General Line School in Newport, R.I., when a tattered envelope arrived for him.
“From the postmarks he could tell that it had chased him around the Pacific at the tail end of the war. Inside was a letter from Michael Fina Co. in New York, saying they were holding a gift for him and would send it as soon as they got a permanent address.
“On Aug. 6, 1946, one year to the day after the boat went to the bottom, a silver utility plate arrived at Griffith’s home, inscribed: ‘To Cmdr. Walter T. Griffith, USN, from the officers and men who proudly served under him on the U.S.S. Bullhead.’ ”
