The submarine that sank a train: the U.S.S. Barb [8:28]

YouTube ^ | May 18, 2017 | The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

[SunkenCiv]

The submarine that sank a train: the U.S.S. Barb | 8:28 
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered | 1.57M subscribers | 663,144 views | May 18, 2017

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: edwardheimberger; eugenebfluckey; godsgravesglyphs; japan; luckyfluckey; pacificwar; tarawa; ussbarb; worldwareleven; wwii

[SunkenCiv]

--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:00	·	Hi, I'm the History Guy. I have a degree in history and I love history,
0:05	·	and if you love history too, this is the channel for you.
0:08	·	In 1973, the Italian submarine Enrico Tazzoli was sold for scrap for the bargain basement
0:20	·	price of $100,000. And that just seems an injustice, because that submarine,
0:26	·	a Gato class submarine that had been given to the Italian Navy by the United States in 1953,
0:32	·	was an extraordinary submarine who had seen some of the most extraordinary
0:36	·	service of the Second World War. And so the amazing record of the Enrico Tazzoli,
0:43	·	otherwise known as the USS Barb, the only US warship to invade the Japanese home islands,
0:50	·	and the only known submarine and US service to sink a… freight train, deserves to be remembered.
0:57	·	The USS Barb, named after a species of fish called the Barbos, was a Gato class diesel-electric
1:06	·	submarine, built by the General Dynamics Electric Boat Company of Groton Connecticut. It was laid
1:12	·	down in June of 1941 and commissioned July of 1942. It was 311 feet nine inches long. Displaced
1:20	·	1525 long tons, when surfaced. It had a maximum speed of 21 knots, a range of 11,000 miles. A crew
1:29	·	of six officers and 54 enlisted, and was armed with ten torpedo tubes, six forward and four aft.
1:36	·	The record of the USS Barb cannot be separated from the extraordinary man who commanded the
1:43	·	submarine's last five war patrols of the war. Eugene B. Fluckey, better known as Lucky Fluckey,
1:51	·	was one of the most gifted submarine skippers of the Second World War. He was a meticulous
1:56	·	planner and a daring officer who had a bold and innovative vision for how a combat submarine
2:03	·	should be used. A 1935 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Fluckey had served aboard
2:10	·	a Battleship and a Destroyer before completing the Commanding Officer School at Submarine Base
2:16	·	New London in Connecticut. In January of 1944 he was given command of the USS Barb.
2:22	·	The Barbs record was nothing short of amazing, among its kills were a Japanese aircraft carrier,
2:29	·	a cruiser and a frigate. The Barb sank 29 enemy vessels just in the period from May of
2:35	·	1944 to August of 1945. According to Japanese records, the USS Barb sank more tonnage of
2:42	·	Japanese ships than any other US submarine of the war. On January 8th 1945, the Barb
2:50	·	set a record for the US submarine service, sinking six enemy vessels in a single day.
2:56	·	One of the most extraordinary submarine raids of the war occurred on January 28th of 1945.
3:03	·	Fluckey used a moonless night to sneak the USS Barb into a shallow minefield protected harbor
3:10	·	on the China coast that the Japanese had been using to shield their merchant vessels from US
3:14	·	submarines. He found thirty enemy vessels anchored there. He fired eight torpedoes and sunk more
3:21	·	tonnage of enemy ships in a single attack than any other single US submarine attack of the war,
3:27	·	and then he out dashed the pursuit through the minefields and made it back to open sea.
3:32	·	The daring attack earned Lucky Fluckey his second nickname, The Galloping Ghost of the China Coast.
3:39	·	The Navy commands faith in Fluckey showed in that they allowed him a rare fifth war
3:45	·	patrol commanding the USS Barb. For the most part, in the United States Navy,
3:49	·	a submarine commander was only allowed four war patrols, after which the Navy decided
3:54	·	that they would become either too cautious or too reckless. For this fifth mission,
3:59	·	Barb requested that the Navy install five 130 millimeter rocket tubes on the deck of the
4:05	·	USS Barb, giving the Barb unprecedented shore bombardment capability for a submarine. While
4:11	·	rockets and missiles are commonly fired from submarines today, the USS Barb was the first
4:17	·	US Navy submarine to successfully employ rockets, destroying several factories and towns along the
4:22	·	coast of Japan. One of the bombard mission's was so effective, that the Japanese reported
4:29	·	that they thought that they had been bombarded by at least six warships, and a submarine.
4:33	·	It was on this fifth patrol that Fluckey and the USS Barb went on perhaps their
4:39	·	most famous raid. Anchored off the coast of Japan, Fluckey watched through his periscope
4:44	·	as Japanese troop and supply trains moved along a railway along their coast. And so,
4:50	·	on a moonlit night, the USS Barb sent eight sailors, in a rubber raft,
4:54	·	to go on shore and plant 55 pounds of explosives under the tracks hooked to a detonator that would
5:00	·	explode when the weight of the locomotive pushed down on the rail. When the explosives went off,
5:05	·	the locomotive flew two hundred feet in the air and the entire train crashed down the hill into
5:10	·	the ocean. The USS Barb is the only known US submarine of the war, to sink a freight train.
5:17	·	And the action was the only US land operation on the Japanese home islands in the Second World War.
5:24	·	The record the Fluckey and the Barb show on the submarine's final battle flag of the war. Fluckey
5:31	·	himself won the Medal of Honor and an astonishing four Navy Crosses. In addition, the crew won two
5:39	·	more Navy Crosses, twenty-three Silver Stars, 23 Bronze Stars, four Presidential Unit Citations,
5:47	·	a Navy Unit Commendation, four Navy and Marine Corps medals, 82 Letters of Commendation Ribbons
5:55	·	and symbols representing 38 enemy vessels, and one locomotive...shown here at the bottom, destroyed.
6:04	·	The adventures of the USS Barb were so epic, that the President himself, Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
6:12	·	asked to be copied on all of Fluckeys Patrol reports. Once while they were in Hawaii, FDR asked
6:18	·	Fluckey to drive the Barb at dangerous speeds, just so that the president could take a film of
6:23	·	the Barb going with all of its banners flapping in the breeze. But in the end, the success of
6:29	·	Fluckey and USS Barb was not just the luck of Lucky Fluckey, he was a meticulous planner he
6:36	·	made very good use of the available intelligence and his own skills of observation. He had a clear
6:42	·	and compelling vision of using a submarine as a fast torpedo boat that could submerge to escape,
6:48	·	rather than the general doctrine of just lying in wait to attack. To give you an idea of how
6:53	·	carefully he planned and managed his crew, when US torpedoes were having troubles with
6:58	·	their detonators, he and his crew dismantled the detonators on all of their torpedoes and
7:03	·	rebuilt them using stronger springs. so that they would be more likely to detonate. In the end,
7:09	·	Commander Fluckey was successful because he was good at what he did. And perhaps no statistics
7:16	·	shows that more clearly than the fact that in five war patrols in the US submarine service, one of
7:22	·	the most dangerous surfaces of the war, not one of Fluckey sailors was killed or seriously injured.
7:31	·	Eugene B. Fluckey eventually rose to the rank of Rear Admiral and served in among
7:38	·	other roles, the role as the Chief of Naval Intelligence. He retired from the Navy in 1972,
7:44	·	and he passed away in 2007, at the age of 93. Lucky Fluckey,
7:50	·	The Galloping Ghost of the China Coast. Gone, but not forgotten.
7:56	·	I'm the History Guy and I hope you enjoyed this edition of my series, five minutes of history,
8:02	·	short snippets of forgotten history five to ten minutes long. And if you did enjoy it, please
8:07	·	go ahead and click that thumbs up button that you see there on your left. If you
8:11	·	have any questions or comments please feel free to write those in the comments section
8:13	·	and I will be happy to respond. And if you'd like five minutes more minutes of forgotten history,
8:18	·	all you have to do is click the subscribe button that is there on your right.

[SunkenCiv]

A nice bonus vid, with a surprise twist.

Edward Heinberger received the Bronze Star for heroism under fire at the Battle of Tarawa. Prior to his service, he was famous for reasons that had nothing to do with the military. It is history that deserves to be remembered... The combat footage is from Louis Hayward's 1944 documentary "With the Marines at Tarawa." The influential short film was notable because it used no actors, and was filmed by Marine Staff Sergeant Norman T. Hatch. The president's approval was required to release a film showing actual combat.

Edward Heimberger, Hero of the Battle of Tarawa | 7:49
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered | 1.57M subscribers | 208,898 views | April 11, 2019

[SunkenCiv]

• 80 years ago today; the last American combat death of WWII. [08/18/2025]

[AndyJackson]

One of the great stories of WWII and the submarine service.

[FreedomPoster]

Most people know about the German U-boats and how they tried to strangle England.

Very few know about our submarine fleet, and how they DID strangle Japan. By the end of the war, the Japanese basically had no transport shipping left, it had all been sunk, largely by U.S. submarines.

[dfwgator]

Most people know about the German U-boats and how they tried to strangle England.

---

And England’s Naval Blockade tried to strangle Germany.

All’s fair in war.

[Leaning Right]

> By the end of the war, the Japanese basically had no transport shipping left, it had all been sunk <

Here’s a chart showing Japanese merchant ship losses by year. Notice how the tonnage really dropped off in 1945. It wasn’t because our submarines were slacking. As you noted, it was because there were only few Japanese merchant ships left to target.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_successful_American_submarines_in_World_War_II

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Easier to read (courtesy of Grok -- I told it to strip out YouTube time stamps and put into a structured paragraph format).

In 1973, the Italian submarine Enrico Tazzoli was sold for scrap for the bargain basement price of $100,000. And that just seems an injustice, because that submarine, a Gato class submarine that had been given to the Italian Navy by the United States in 1953, was an extraordinary submarine who had seen some of the most extraordinary service of the Second World War. And so the amazing record of the Enrico Tazzoli, otherwise known as the USS Barb, the only US warship to invade the Japanese home islands, and the only known submarine and US service to sink a freight train, deserves to be remembered.

The USS Barb, named after a species of fish called the Barbos, was a Gato class diesel-electric submarine, built by the General Dynamics Electric Boat Company of Groton Connecticut. It was laid down in June of 1941 and commissioned July of 1942. It was 311 feet nine inches long, displaced 1525 long tons when surfaced, had a maximum speed of 21 knots, a range of 11,000 miles, a crew of six officers and 54 enlisted, and was armed with ten torpedo tubes, six forward and four aft.

The record of the USS Barb cannot be separated from the extraordinary man who commanded the submarine's last five war patrols of the war. Eugene B. Fluckey, better known as Lucky Fluckey, was one of the most gifted submarine skippers of the Second World War. He was a meticulous planner and a daring officer who had a bold and innovative vision for how a combat submarine should be used. A 1935 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Fluckey had served aboard a Battleship and a Destroyer before completing the Commanding Officer School at Submarine Base New London in Connecticut. In January of 1944 he was given command of the USS Barb.

The Barbs record was nothing short of amazing, among its kills were a Japanese aircraft carrier, a cruiser and a frigate. The Barb sank 29 enemy vessels just in the period from May of 1944 to August of 1945. According to Japanese records, the USS Barb sank more tonnage of Japanese ships than any other US submarine of the war. On January 8th 1945, the Barb set a record for the US submarine service, sinking six enemy vessels in a single day.

One of the most extraordinary submarine raids of the war occurred on January 28th of 1945. Fluckey used a moonless night to sneak the USS Barb into a shallow minefield protected harbor on the China coast that the Japanese had been using to shield their merchant vessels from US submarines. He found thirty enemy vessels anchored there. He fired eight torpedoes and sunk more tonnage of enemy ships in a single attack than any other single US submarine attack of the war, and then he out dashed the pursuit through the minefields and made it back to open sea. The daring attack earned Lucky Fluckey his second nickname, The Galloping Ghost of the China Coast.

The Navy commands faith in Fluckey showed in that they allowed him a rare fifth war patrol commanding the USS Barb. For the most part, in the United States Navy, a submarine commander was only allowed four war patrols, after which the Navy decided that they would become either too cautious or too reckless. For this fifth mission, Barb requested that the Navy install five 130 millimeter rocket tubes on the deck of the USS Barb, giving the Barb unprecedented shore bombardment capability for a submarine. While rockets and missiles are commonly fired from submarines today, the USS Barb was the first US Navy submarine to successfully employ rockets, destroying several factories and towns along the coast of Japan. One of the bombard mission's was so effective, that the Japanese reported that they thought that they had been bombarded by at least six warships, and a submarine.

It was on this fifth patrol that Fluckey and the USS Barb went on perhaps their most famous raid. Anchored off the coast of Japan, Fluckey watched through his periscope as Japanese troop and supply trains moved along a railway along their coast. And so, on a moonlit night, the USS Barb sent eight sailors, in a rubber raft, to go on shore and plant 55 pounds of explosives under the tracks hooked to a detonator that would explode when the weight of the locomotive pushed down on the rail. When the explosives went off, the locomotive flew two hundred feet in the air and the entire train crashed down the hill into the ocean. The USS Barb is the only known US submarine of the war, to sink a freight train. And the action was the only US land operation on the Japanese home islands in the Second World War.

The record the Fluckey and the Barb show on the submarine's final battle flag of the war. Fluckey himself won the Medal of Honor and an astonishing four Navy Crosses. In addition, the crew won two more Navy Crosses, twenty-three Silver Stars, 23 Bronze Stars, four Presidential Unit Citations, a Navy Unit Commendation, four Navy and Marine Corps medals, 82 Letters of Commendation Ribbons and symbols representing 38 enemy vessels, and one locomotive, shown here at the bottom, destroyed.

The adventures of the USS Barb were so epic, that the President himself, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, asked to be copied on all of Fluckeys Patrol reports. Once while they were in Hawaii, FDR asked Fluckey to drive the Barb at dangerous speeds, just so that the president could take a film of the Barb going with all of its banners flapping in the breeze. But in the end, the success of Fluckey and USS Barb was not just the luck of Lucky Fluckey, he was a meticulous planner he made very good use of the available intelligence and his own skills of observation. He had a clear and compelling vision of using a submarine as a fast torpedo boat that could submerge to escape, rather than the general doctrine of just lying in wait to attack.

To give you an idea of how carefully he planned and managed his crew, when US torpedoes were having troubles with their detonators, he and his crew dismantled the detonators on all of their torpedoes and rebuilt them using stronger springs, so that they would be more likely to detonate. In the end, Commander Fluckey was successful because he was good at what he did. And perhaps no statistics shows that more clearly than the fact that in five war patrols in the US submarine service, one of the most dangerous surfaces of the war, not one of Fluckey sailors was killed or seriously injured.

Eugene B. Fluckey eventually rose to the rank of Rear Admiral and served in among other roles, the role as the Chief of Naval Intelligence. He retired from the Navy in 1972, and he passed away in 2007, at the age of 93. Lucky Fluckey, The Galloping Ghost of the China Coast. Gone, but not forgotten.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks P.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I just read the version I provided with paragraphs (a LOT easier for me without the YT timestamps and no paragraphs).

What an astonishing story! I’m surprised this isn’t more sell known. Thanks for posting, SC!! Keep up the good work...it’s well appreciated by all of us.

[Az Joe]

There is nothing sub sailors can’t do

[wally_bert]

Included sinking a truck.

Operation Petticoat.

[NorthMountain]

Most people know about the German Enigma cipher, and how the British at Bletchley Park successfully cracked it, greatly aiding in winning the war ...

Very few know about the Japanese Naval (JN25) and Diplomatic (”Purple”) ciphers and how the American Navy and Army codebreakers successfully cracked it, greatly aiding in winning the war ...

[SunkenCiv]

[snip] Yeah, the coauthor of "The Shattered Sword" (I don't remember names well, and am too lazy to look it up) noted that, as the War Dep't only awarded sinkings if there was third party or other verification, so the US sinkings of Japanese shipping (by air, surface ships, or subs) added up to 8 million tons. The Japanese figure is 11 million tons. As you noted above, it became difficult to find anything to sink by early 1944.

US sub fleet in late 1941 wasn't large, seems like the figure is in the low dozens, with some of the vessels 20 years old. By the end of the war, even after battle losses, the US sub fleet was something like 250 strong, and the subs were better, newer, and more advanced. Oh, the torpedo problems got solved around the end of 1943.

The Japanese took the Dutch East Indies, including Borneo, which had rubber, oil, coal, and iron ore (if memory serves), but the US never put boots on the ground there. It was just a matter of keeping the J merchant marine from moving the raw materials to Japanese factories and shipbuilding.

I repeat myself (as I often do) -- the Japanese attack on the US on Dec 7 '41 was the biggest military blunder of all time, and probably in the top five of blunders of any kind.

Imagine if you will, the Japanese wrap up their campaign in the Solomons (including Port Moresby) and take over Australia before (or instead of) attacking the US. Ouch.

And just a few months into our involvement, the tactically insignificant Doolittle's Raid took place. It was a massive humiliation, and must have sobered them up in Tokyo -- "uh, all our cities are on the coasts..." [/snip]

[SunkenCiv]

I’ve viewed a lot of his vids, but obviously just a fraction of them, as it turns out. Both of these turned up on the YT app on the Roku this morning. I did a web search with “site:freerepublic.com” as the modifier to see if anything had been posted about the Barb, surprised to see, nope. :^)

[NorthMountain]

There is nothing sub sailors can’t do

In this case, they were the only Allied troops to land on the Japanese Home Islands during the war.

[FreedomPoster]

Magic: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast During Ww II
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0960273611

Great book. We knew a lot, and acting on it wasn’t easy.

[NorthMountain]

Excellent book, which explains much that at first glance seems “problematic”.

[Laslo Fripp]

Iwo Jima doesn’t count?

[NorthMountain]

Iwo Jima is not considered a Japanese “Home Island”. Neither is Okinawa. Compared to the main islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku, Iwo Jima is a fly-speck on the map.