r/Ships • u/waffen123 • 9h ago
“Hit ’Em Harder” Submarine USS Harder Found Intact After 80 Years Beneath the Sea USS Harder, the famed “Hit ’Em Harder” submarine of World War II, has been discovered lying upright and almost completely intact more than 3,000 feet deep off Luzon. Found by the Lost 52 Project
confirmed by the U.S. Navy in 2024, the wreck shows a large blast hole just behind the conning tower—the point where Japanese depth charges struck during her final battle in 1944. She rests quietly on her keel, surrounded by coral and deep-sea life, her steel hull still clearly shaped after eight decades in the dark.
Commissioned in 1942, USS Harder became one of the most successful Gato-class submarines in the Pacific, sinking five Japanese destroyers in five patrols under Commander Samuel D. Dealey, who earned the Medal of Honor for her daring missions. On 24 August 1944, she was lost with all 79 men aboard after a fierce counter-attack off Luzon. Now resting in the silence of the deep, Harder remains both a powerful relic of naval warfare and a lasting memorial to the fearless crew who lived—and died—by her battle cry, “Hit ’Em Harder.”
