War under the Pacific

212 Pages·47.345 MB·English

by  Wheeler, Keith

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Thisvolume isone ofa seriesthat chronicles
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WORLD WAR TIME-LIFE BOOKS ALEXANDRIA. VIRGINIA
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BY KEITH WHEELER
AND THE EDITORS OF TIME-LIFE BOOKS
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Time-Life Books isadivision ofTime Life Inc. TheAuthor:KEITH WHEELER hasbeenareporterfora
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TIME LIFE INC. Chicago DailyTimes,andawriterfor Lifemagazine.
PRESIDENTandCEO; GeorgeArtandi Whilecoveringthewar inthePacificfortheDaily
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Wheeler,Keitti
WarunderthePacific
(WorldWarIII
Bibliography.
Includesindex.
I.WorldWar,1939-19—45—PacificOcean
2.WorldWar,1939-1945 Navaloperations—Submarine
3.Submarineboats.
I.Time-LifeBooks, II.Title. IllSeries.
D767.W47 940.54-51 80-13222
ISBN0-7835-5708-6
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CHAPTERS
1 : A Fore e Unready for War 22
2: The Year That Turned the Tide 62
3: The Enemy Below 96
4: On Special Assignment 130
5: A Time of Slaughter 1 66
PICTURE ESSAYS
Evolution of a Weapon 6
Building the Undersea Navy 48
Find 'em, Chase 'em, Sink 'em 82
All the Emperor's Boats 118
Ready for Any job Any Time 44
1
Refit between Patrols 1 54
Remembered Battles 188
Bibliography 200
Picture Credits 201
Acknowledgments 201
Appendix 202
Index 206
CONTENTS
A WEAPON
EVOLUTION OF
larine pioneerSimon Lake (left) examines the engine room ofhis. Argonaut, a 36-footgasoline-poweredboat, which was launchedat Baltimore in 1897.
THE SUBMARINE'S
UNLIKELY ANCESTORS
The U.S. submarines that fought in the Pacific during World
War li were descended from an unHkely cockleshell craft
that had made the first undersea attack on record more than
160 years before. On the night of September 6, 1776, the
Turtle, a tiny, egg-shaped submarine built out of barrel
staves by a Connecticut doctor named David Bushnell,
bobbed across New York Harbor and submerged beside a
British frigate.
The volunteer pilot, a sergeant in the American Revolu-
tionary Army, hoped to sink His Majesty's frigate with a
1 50-pound charge of gunpowder mounted outside the craft
and designed to explode underwater. Also protruding from
the Turtle was a gimlet that was intended to attach the
tThhreosuguhbmpaorritnhoelTeusrtinletsheevceornelnyintgesttoewdeirt,sptihleotp'islodtexhtaerdittyo.opWehrialteestihgehting gunpowder charge to the ship's wooden flank. As things
horizontalandverticalpropellers, holdtherudder, run theballastpumps worked out, instead of piercing the hull the gimlet glanced
sccharregwea—giamllleitn i3n0tomitnhueteesn,embyefsohriep'tshehuTlulrtalne'dsraeilresasuepptlhyegwausnpeoxwhaduesrted. off a piece of metal; the charge floated away, to explode
harmlessly. By then the Turtle had made good her escape.
This abortive effort marked the start of a long, frustrating
endeavor for a handful of Americans who were fascinated
by the possibilities of undersea craft in time ofwar. They la-
bored for more than a century without support or even en-
couragementfrom the Navy, whosetradition-bound officers
scoffed at their contention that the submarine could play a
key role in naval warfare. The officers had cause for skepti-
cism. The submersibles were riddled with flaws, and the de-
signers themselves hardly inspired confidence. Most of
them were unbusiness-like tinkerers with a crankish sense
of independence and no formal training as engineers.
Still, at least one ofthe inventors was no mere dreamer, in
1806 the U.S. Navy turned down a copper-hulled subma-
rine developed by the man who later built the first practi-
cal steamboat. Robert Fulton's design incorporated several
promising features, such as the use of compressed air to ex-
tend a crew's stay underwater. And he managed, in a primi-
—
tive way, to provide what was a vital necessity separate
modes of propulsion for traveling on the surface and sub-
merged. Eighty years would pass before this principle was
mechanically realized in a true submarine.