How Allied Submarines Crippled Japan in WW2 (You Tube)

You Tube ^ | December 14, 2021 | Histoigraph

[MercyFlush]

Interestingly the only online source I can find that repeats the original story I heard from a personal acquaintance of Captain Enright is a Russian source! All the rest totally whitewash the treatment Enright received from the Navy.

The first time I read about this story was in an issue of Reader’s Digest in the early 1980’s.

Here’s the Russian source:

https://en.topwar.ru/170584-kak-partija-v-poker-lishila-japoncev-avianosca-sinano.html

[GreenLanternCorps]

Traditional theory was that the US could not hold the Philippines for long in a war with Japan, due to Japan controlling the islands between Hawaii and the Philippines.

In 1941 after the Japanese moved into French Indochina, the US began a belated reinforcement of the Philippines. FDR ordered the Philippine Army into Federal service and the War Department sent a series of convoys with what ever could be scraped up. P-40’s, B-17s, several National Guard units with M-3 tanks, etc.

It was too little too late due to problems finding enough shipping.

However the last convoy sent got diverted to Australia and formed the nucleus of the US forces in the Southwest Pacific.

The six months USAFFE held out did really mess up the Japanese timetable however.

We were never going hold them but we kept faith with the Filipinos by trying.

[Paal Gulli]

"WW II submariners had the highest death rate per capita of ANY branch/division of ANY of the military services."

Only because the 8th Air Force (in the European theater) kept increasing the numbers of air crewmen they were sending to Europe once the Allies had air supremacy and there was little threat to American air crews. Which dramatically decreased their overall casualty rate.

But in the early campaigns, their losses were staggering. They lost 60 -- SIXTY -- B-17s in one mission alone, the August 17, 1943 raid on Schweinfurt (with roughly the same number badly damaged). In large part because they (mistakenly & misguidedly) believed the B-17's 13 M2 50-cal machine guns made them invulnerable to fighter attack, so the US committed to daylight missions and left the nighttime raids to the Brits.

Overall the 8th Air Force lost several times more aircraft than the Pacific submarine fleet did submariners.

[Paal Gulli]

It also bears mention that the US Navy hired none other than Albert Einstein (then a professor at Princeton) as a consultant to figure out why their torpedoes weren't detonating.

What they managed to accomplish in the Pacific is even more amazing considering that the majority of the Mk14 torpedoes that hit square failed to detonate (until modified or replaced).

[Az Joe]

When you lose a sub you lose dozens....70 -90 men!!!

What’s a bomber lose,.. 5-6 at most?!!

Give me a break. I got guts pal, a lot more than any other branch.

[oldvirginian]

We got lucky that none of the carriers was at Pearl when the Japanese struck. If the carriers had been wiped out then add a couple of years to the timetable for US forces to start fighting back.

MacArthur was the only military leader to want to liberate the Philippines. Everyone else was advocating bypassing the PI and head straight for Japan.
Thankfully Mac won out and history is what it is.
The Filipino guerillas kept the Japanese on a short leash for a long time and provided valuable Intel and support once we landed.
The folks in DC just didn’t know what those three simple words meant to the people of the PI.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Really bad. After some battle a Jap survivor was picked up out of the water, who was hanging onto the main body of an American torpedo as a life preserver. The guy told them he watched the torpedo arc in perfect, smack the side of his boat, the warhead snapping off and sinking while the motor body continued to float. After his boat finally sank he jumped in and held on for dear life.

 

 

[Henchster]

10 crew in a B-17.