Navy Confirms Wreck of USS Herring, Submarine Lost 82 Years Ago in the Kuril Islands

The US Naval History and Heritage Command's Underwater Archaeology Branch officially confirmed on June 1, 2026 that a submarine wreck off Matsuwa Island, in the central Kuril Islands between Japan's mainland and Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, is USS Herring (SS-233). Herring was lost with all 83 crewmen on June 1, 1944, after being sunk by Japanese coastal defense guns while attacking shipping near Matsuwa. The wreck, resting upright at a depth of more than 300 feet, was first located in 2017 by a joint expedition of the Russian Geographic Society and the Russian military, which suspected the identification because of the wreck's location and appearance. A follow-up 2022 expedition documented the site and left a memorial plaque honoring the 83 crewmen, engraved with an image of the fish for which the submarine was named and the words 'God rest their gallant souls.' US and Japanese researchers subsequently analyzed the Russian-collected data — including battle damage around the conning tower and evidence of grounding at the bow — to confirm the identification, correlating physical evidence with the historical action report. The confirmation was announced 82 years to the day after Herring's loss.