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The US Submarine service played a major part in the American victory in the Pacific, sinking nearly three thousand Japanese ships (about three-quarters of them the crucial merchant ships that kept the Japanese home islands supplied. By the end of the war Japan had been cut off from her overseas empire and the resources she had gone to war to secure were completely denied to her.
This book consists of forty-six individual stories, most of them written by the submariners themselves (plus one nurse being evacuated and an airman rescued by a submarine).
This book follows the evolution of the US Submarine service from the unpromising situation early in 1942, when a handful of out-dated boats attempted to slow down the initial Japanese advance, often fighting their own machines as much as the Japanese. This early part of the book contains a series of tales of near-misses, temperamental boats and narrow escapes from danger.
As the war went on the newer fleet boats took over, and the tide turned against the Japanese. There are still tales of lost boats and near-misses, but also more stories of success, or light-hearted tales such as that of the dog that served as a mascot on one submarine.
This collection of first-hand accounts gives a really fascinating picture of wartime service in submarines, from the many perils of a service in which 52 subs were lost to the pleasures of serving as part of a small and almost always friendly and welcome crew of highly trained experts.
Part One: Prewar and Early War Stories (1941-1942)
1 - Submarine School, Cornelius R. Bartholomew
2 - Sea Dragon's Prop Wash, J. Killin
3 - A Vanishing Day-dream, Cornelius R. Bartholomew
4 - Operational Readiness on December 7, 1941, Frank E. Perry
5 - Rest and Recreation, Frank Kimball
6 - The First and only Patrol of S-27 (SS-132), George J. Herold
7 - S-37's Voyage Home, Robert B. Lander
8 - Bob Rose and Sargo's Australian Welcome, Doug Rhymes
9 - Escape by Submarine, Lucy I Wilson
10 - The Doubtful Tale of the S-36, Alfred Sims
11 - Rivets in the O-2, Stanley Lambkin
12 - Aground on a Reef, Frank Bowman
Part Two: Mid-War Stories (1943)
13 - Pompon Evades Torpedoes, Charles Foskett
14 - Gun Boss Pay, Edward Crawfoot
15 - Loss of the USS Grenadier (SS-210), Robert W. Palmer
16 - Midway, Our Refuge of 1943, Jack Quade
17 - Loose Torpedo at Pearl Harbor, James H. Allen
18 - Second Patrol of the USS Bluefish (SS-222), Edwin J. Shepherd JR
19 - S-48, My First Boat, Churchill 'Jim' Campbell
20 - The Ryuho' Last Stand, John M. Good
Part Three: Late War Stories (1944-1945)
21 - Submarine on the Loose, William Dreher
22 - USS Ray's Great Conning Tower Flood, Hal Moyer
23 - Ambush on Borneo, Ken Harrington
24 - Pogy' Stowaway, W.E. Battenfield
25 - The Battle of the Philippine Sea, Ernest J. Zellmer
26 - Penny Picked Me, Bill Gleason
27 - Story of the USS Flier Second Patrol and its Survivors, Alvin E. Jacobson
28 - Left on the Bridge, John Paul Jones
29 - Dying of the Emperor on Palau, Norman R. Direy
30 - Picking up the Left-overs off Palauig Point, R. C Gillette
31 - A Total Loss, Farrell Stearns
32 - The Sape Strait Shooting Incident of November 1944, H.E. Miller
33 - From the Perspective of an Aviator, C.B. Smith
34 - A Submarine Home, Myron Alexander
35 - My First War Patrol, Joseph Corneau
36 - Bucket Brigade, Hank 'Nate' Henderson
37 - Three Submarines in Three Days, Hughstone F. Lowder
38 - Bing is Missing, Bill Gleason
39 - Absence without Leave, March 1945, Joe O'Rourke
40 - From Kamikaze Attack to Typhoon, K.F. Welty
41 - The Sinking of Hatsutaka, Worth Scanland
42 - The Man Who Never Made a Mistake, Jack Blumeberg
43 - Gabilan's Aviator, Robert Talbot
44 - The Capture of I-401, Alex Leitch
45 - From Perch to Prisoner, B. R. Van Buskirk
46 - The S-40 Leaves the Atomic Age, George Stannard
Editors: Edward Monroe-Jones and Michael Green
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 262
Publisher: Casemate
Year: 2012