Posted on 05/27/2022 12:19:31 PM PDT by Az Joe
Ironically in this modern technological era, it is probably safer serving on a submarine than any surface naval combatant.
Add to our technology the sheer number of ships that the US produced; as the war began to wind down, there were literally carrier battle groups deployed in the Atlantic Ocean for the purpose of finding U-Boats (and sinking the same).
The fight had become lopsided enough that it was very difficult, if not impossible, for Germany to justify even putting U-Boats out to sea.
First time I went through the WWII sub at Pearl Harbor a Japanese family had entered right behind me. It was very odd hearing Japanese spoken while walking through. I thought I was in a Twilight Zone time warp.
Later in the war the Allies’ improved tech and methods enabled them to take out German subs like there was no tomorrow.
Having toured the Madras Maiden, I don't think there are too many places anywhere on that plane where you wouldn't feel uncomfortable...
There is a book named, “Silent Victory,” whose author is a submariner. He chronicled just about every patrol of every boat in the Pacific in WWII. It was required reading when I went to sub school in 62. It actually became part of the curriculum for sub school.
Some of the stories are bone-chilling even though I served proudly and happily on the boats.
Back in my youth I read a book about the US submarines in WW2. It seems many volunteered for submarines with the belief of “I’ll come home whole or not at all. They had a fear of coming home mangled beyond recognition by wounds, alive but so mangled they could never work, find a wife and other things like that.
Not to mention the ball turret gunner. Those were for the little dudes, it took large balls to man that position!
Ja. Undt the German radar detectors that were designed to detect Allied Radars transmitted loud signals that the allies homed in on. The Germans had no idea that they were attracting allied aircraft. So much for superior German Technology and engineering. It’s a complete fiction. They were out-thought and out-engineered on a regular basis.
What good is the strongest most powerful tank in the world if it breaks down or catches on fire, all on its own?
The article is using all the submarines in all nations in WW2.
We lost IIRC 52 boats.
Still, at just 2% of the US Navy they sank over 30% of all Japanese tonnage. The Submarine was a vulnerable but very effective weapon in WWII.
Especially if you ran into a destroyer carrying these. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kAj9syecU0
That book is incredible. I couldn't put it down. There have been questions regarding its accuracy through the years. The author, Herbert Werner, died in Florida several years ago.
Around 70% of those serving in U-Boats in WWII were KIA.
Since we're on the subject of WWII sub warfare here are a few more great, non-fiction reads on the subject: Wake Of the Wahoo by Forrest J. Sterling, Submarine! by Edward L. Beach, Thunder Below, by Eugene Fluckey, Clear the Bridge! and Wahoo by Richard O'Kane and Sink 'Em All by Charles Lockwood . All of these are gripping, action-packed accounts of US sub warfare in WWII.
I’ve read Beach’s & O’Kane’s books. Did it years ago in high school. Thanks for the list.
There was video posted here a couple of days ago of an interview titled something like, “interview of 100 year old badass B-17 pilot”.
IIRC, it mentioned in 1943 the survival rate of B-17 crew members was around 20%.
If I remember correctly it was around 75%.
Shh! The fish is still Top Secret!
I first visited the Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, TX, back in the 1980s. Is was a (for the time) very modern museum, with numerous displays playing news reel clips of the U.S. Navy winning the War in the Pacific against Japan. On Sony televisions.
My FIL was on such a carrier for the last few months of the war. He was on the Corregidor (CVE58). He had come from the pacific and rode out "Halsey's Typhoon" in it. It developed a crack in the hull structure during the typhoon. The Navy must have thought the Atlantic was a safer place for it.
It turns out that was a mistake. Cold water actually makes the cracking get worse, though his ship had no further problems.
After the war a veterans group asked every state to erect a memorial to an assigned boat. NY and California were asked to erect two. All states have now done so.
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