Historical Sub stories

[Ducimus]

Find a neat story from the Pacific? Post it here!

I'll go first:

As machinegun fire raked them at point-blank range, Commander Gilmore ordered the bridge cleared. As the commanding officer, Gilmore was the last to leave the bridge, and was griveously wounded before he could get below. Realizing that he was jeopardizing his boat's escape, he ordered "Take her down!" and shut the hatch, remaining on the bridge while his boat dived. By saving his command at the expense of his own life, Commander Gilmore became one of the six submariners to earn the Medal of Honor. {A seaman and another officer also lost their lives in this incident}.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Growler_(SS-215)
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08215.htm

[DeePsix501]

USS Triton's First War patrol, a simulated war patrol that turned real...


On 19 November (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_19), the submarine headed west to conduct a practice war patrol and arrived off Wake Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Island) on 26 November (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_26). On 8 December (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_8), she saw columns of smoke rising over the island but assumed that it was caused by construction work being done ashore. That night, when she surfaced to charge her batteries, she was informed by radio that Wake and Pearl Harbor had been bombed and was ordered to stay out of range of Wake's guns. The next morning, Triton observed the Japanese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan) bombing the island. On the night of 10 December (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_10), she was surfaced, charging her batteries, when flashes of light from Wake revealed a destroyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyer) or light cruiser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruiser) on a parallel course. The submarine was silhouetted against the moon, and the enemy ship turned towards her. Triton went deep and began evasive action. When the Japanese ship slowed astern, the submarine came to 120 feet (40 m) and fired four stern torpedoes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo) — the first American torpedoes shot during World War II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II). Her crew heard a dull explosion 58 seconds later and believed that one of her torpedoes had hit the target. The submarine then went to 175 feet (50 m) and cleared the area.

[mrbassbone]

Go here and you will find actual Patrol Reports for USS TANG and USS WAHOO:

www.warfish.com (http://www.warfish.com)