Off the coast of Karafuto in the last weeks of World War II, eight American submariners pulled away from enemy shore in two rubber boats. Behind them, a 55-pound demolition charge waited beneath a coastal railway. Offshore, USS Barb lay surfaced in the dark, ready to receive them.
Then a train came down the line.
The blast hurled locomotive wreckage into the air and piled cars along the track. The eight men kept paddling. They reached their submarine safely, leaving behind one of the strangest—and most carefully documented—raids in U.S. naval history.
A Submarine Crew That Kept Rewriting the Rules
USS Barb (SS-220) was commissioned on July 8, 1942. After early Atlantic service and a transfer to the Pacific, the Gato-class submarine found the skipper who would define her legend: Commander Eugene B. “Lucky” Fluckey, who took command on April 27, 1944.
Fluckey and his crew became known for aggressive attacks, careful study, and a willingness to improvise. They hunted in northern waters, fought around the Kuril Islands, sank Japanese shipping, and rescued 14 British and Australian prisoners of war from rafts after an enemy transport went down.
During Barb’s eleventh war patrol, Fluckey drove into the shallow, mined approaches of Namkwan Harbor on the Chinese coast. On January 23, 1945, the submarine fired ten torpedoes into concentrated shipping, then escaped on the surface at high speed through dangerous water. Fluckey received the Medal of Honor for that patrol—not, as some retellings imply, for the later train raid.
The distinction matters. The true record is bold enough without borrowing glory from another action.
Rockets from a Boat Built for Torpedoes
After overhaul, Barb sailed on her twelfth and final war patrol on June 8, 1945. Torpedoes and deck guns were standard submarine weapons. The rocket launchers fitted to Barb were not.
In the early hours of June 22, the submarine moved within roughly three miles of Shari on Hokkaido and launched rockets at shore installations. Naval History and Heritage Command credits Barb with the first successful submarine rocket attack against Japanese shore targets. More coastal strikes followed.
The patrol had already crossed a new line: a submarine was no longer only stalking ships. Her crew was finding ways to reach targets ashore. That restless thinking led them to a railway running close to the coast of Karafuto, the Japanese-administered southern half of Sakhalin Island.
Three Nights Watching the Rails
Fluckey spotted the railway on July 19. Rather than rush the idea, Barb watched the coast for three days. The crew studied the train schedule, the shoreline, and the hazards between submarine and beach.
The plan called for eight sailors to go ashore by rubber boat, place a charge under the track, and rig it so the passing train itself would trigger the explosion. This was not a torpedo attack dressed up for a good story. It was a landing operation conducted from a submarine in hostile territory.
Every part depended on seamanship and trust. The boats had to find the shore in darkness, the demolition team had to work quietly, and Barb had to remain close enough to recover them without advertising her position. The men also had to leave before the charge fired. Success meant reaching open water before soldiers or patrol craft could respond.
The Night USS Barb “Sank” a Train
During the night of July 22–23, the team landed and placed the 55-pound charge beneath the rails. They connected the firing mechanism to the track so the locomotive’s weight would complete the circuit.
The sailors were back in their rubber boats and pulling away when the train arrived. The detonation sent part of the locomotive about 200 feet into the air. Navy records describe 12 freight cars, two passenger cars, and a mail car derailing and piling into wreckage.
All eight men returned to Barb.
The familiar phrase “the submarine that sank a train” is memorable, but it is shorthand. Barb did not fire a weapon from offshore at a locomotive. Her crew observed, planned, landed, planted the charge, and got home. Told accurately, the feat becomes less like a tall tale and more impressive: it was a small-boat mission carried out by submariners far outside their usual job description.
The Locomotive on the Battle Flag
At the end of the patrol, Barb reached Midway on August 2. Japan surrendered about two weeks later. The submarine finished the war credited by the Navy with 96,628 tons of enemy shipping destroyed, four Presidential Unit Citations, a Navy Unit Commendation, and eight battle stars.
Her battle flag carried the usual record of ships and shore attacks. Along its lower edge sat a small locomotive—the crew’s unmistakable mark for the Karafuto raid. A Navy photograph taken after the patrol shows the demolition squad posing with that flag.
Like the destroyers and destroyer escorts in Taffy 3’s last stand off Samar, Barb’s sailors proved that a vessel’s listed capabilities never tell the whole story. And like the crew that worked anchors and boats to save USS Constitution during the great chase of 1812, they turned ordinary seamanship, patience, and nerve into an unexpected weapon.
The Sailor’s Lesson
The best sea stories are not really about machinery. They are about crews who understand their boat, study the water, and trust one another when the plan changes.
USS Barb’s train raid lasted only one night, but it grew from months of disciplined aggression and a command climate that welcomed ideas from the deck plates. Eight sailors went ashore. The rest kept the submarine ready and watched the darkness for their return.
That is the part worth remembering. The locomotive symbol belonged on the flag, but the achievement belonged to the whole boat.