Free Republic

Everything appeared to be in slow motion - except the torpedo spearing through the water towards them at 30 knots. Only five minutes earlier, the USS Tang had been in the middle of a feeding frenzy that would secure its position as the most successful American submarine in the Pacific Ocean. But its last torpedo had turned sharply left - and was now coming straight back at the Tang. Of the 87 men on board that early morning in October 1944, as many as 50 were killed instantly when the torpedo hit. Of the survivors, most were injured. One of...

Carl Bryson was one of the lucky ones when the USS Squalus sank during a test dive 64 years ago off Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Twenty-six sailors were dead by the time the sub settled on the ocean floor. Bryson and 32 others spent the next 36 hours shivering from the cold, breathing foul air and wondering if they'd escape alive. They did, thanks to the efforts of Charles "Swede" Momsen, who led a daring rescue that was the fruit of his single-minded belief that deep-sea rescues were possible - at a time when most others thought they weren't. The full...