On September 2, 1944 the Finback was playing life guard. Her duty was to sail around and pick up any crashed naval aviators. Subs had this duty because they could run under water and not be seen by the Japanese planes and ships in the area. Of course, the fighter escorts circling over head to help protect them were a dead give away to the ir location.
On this day she was off Chichi Jima, part of the Bonin Islands, when the call came at 0935 of a splashed pilot from the USS San Jacinto. They reached the down pilot without incident and brought aboard one Lt. (jg) George, Herbert Walker Bush at 1156.
They patrolled for a bit in hopes of finding the bomber and navigator from Bush’s plane but it would later be found, one never left the plane and the other one’s parachute never opened.
About half an hour later, another call came in that a rubber boat was spotted from the air. However, the position given was smack in the hills of Haha Jima. The Finback headed that way anyway. Another plane came the position as “west of Haha.” As noted in the patrol report “This was at least as good as any dope we had” so the boat headed towards the location.
Subs usually maintained a few miles distance from the islands to protect themselves from shelling from land forces. But this rubber boat was only 1 1/2 miles off shore. She went in submerged because shells can do awful things to a sub’s hull. They aren’t great for rubber life rafts either. At 1530 they sighted the life raft. Finback zoomed past with her periscope up to let the survivor know that help had arrived. However, due to backing and filling, while submerged they didn’t get the person in the baot hanging onto the parascope until 1620.
For some reason known only to the men on board the Finback, it was decided, with this poor man sitting in his little rubber life raft and hanging onto the periscope, to proceed at 2/3 speed. This went about as well as you can imagine. Again, referencing the patrol report “… but the pilot had one arm around the periscope and the other around the life raft with a bailing bucket bringing up the rear.” So they stopped.
The man got back into his life raft and grabbed on again. Again, 2/3 speeds. The Finback really wanted to get away from the shelling. I’m sure their hitchhiker did too, but he probably would have preferred to stay out of the water. But, in again he went.
The Finback stopped again. They realized this was not working. So they came up to 38 feet to give him more periscope to hang onto. This time it worked. Once they were 5 miles from the beach, they surfaced. At 1717 almost two hours after spotting him, Ensign James W. Beckman of the Enterprise was aboard the Finback.
.Eventually, both men were returned safely to their ships. One would go on to a long political career culminating in becoming President of the United States. The other, James Beckman would be promoted to Lt.. (jg). Unfortunately, during the battles to take the Philippines back from the Japanese, he would be killed on December 14, 1944. Beckman was only 22 years old.
Sources: USS Finback (SS230) War Patrol report for September 2, 1944 from the National ArchivesUSS Finback (SS230) Deck Log for September 2, 1944 from the National ArchivesFind A Grave for date and location of death of Lt. (jg) Beckman