WW2 US submarine patrol reports

[Gino]

Picked this one up on the Rontini BBS:

Folks,

The entire collection of Submarine War Patrol Reports are now available online via the HNSA web site:

http://hnsa.org/doc/subreports.htm

At the end of each war patrol of WW II, submarine commanders created a report on the patrol. These reports were used as the raw material to inform intelligence, improve tactics, evaluate commanders, etc. During WW II, over 1,550 patrol reports containing approximately 63,000 pages were generated. During the 1970s these were photographed and reproduced on microfilm to make them more easly accessible and easily reproduced (approx. 250 rolls). During 2008 a copy of this microfilm was scanned into digital format (110 GB), and in 2009 it was made available online here (14 GB).

HNSA thanks John Clear EMC (SS) USN Ret. and Dan Martini EMCM(SS) USN Ret. for their generous donation of the digital copies of these war patrol reports used to create this online version. We also wish to thank the Naval Undersea Museum for loaning their microfilm copies of the war patrol reports for the project. The online versions have been compressed and optimized for online reading, higher resolutions versions on DVD that may print or OCR better may be purchased from http://www.usssealion.com/ (Unrelated to HNSA). Many of the original documents without any reproduction artifacts many be found at the US National Archives and Record Administration in College Park, Maryland.

Have fun,

groetjes,

[Torplexed]

Picked this one up on the Rontini BBS:

Folks,

The entire collection of Submarine War Patrol Reports are now available online via the HNSA web site:

http://hnsa.org/doc/subreports.htm



Excellent! :cool:

[Falkirion]

Brilliant!

[LukeFF]

Glad to see Mr. Clear help out with this, especially for those who want to read these reports but not spend the money for the DVDs he offers on his site.

[Ivan Putski]

A really fantastic site, tons of info there. Gino, thanks for the link. Puts

[sunvalleyslim]

Thanks Gino,
I spent hours reading my ships patrols (USS Segundo SS-398) I never got to meet the men who served earlier, but was proud to be a member of her last crew. Every Sub Sailor has a tale of his time on the Boat, but the WWII Sub Sailors are true Heroes.......................:salute: :salute: :salute:

[kylesplanet]

A big thanks to all who made this possible. Truly wonderful site.

[SteamWake]

Thanks for sharing this.

Some truely fascinating reads and insights to the everyday day to day life (and death) of the ships and their crews.

[Falkirion]

Request sticky

[Rockin Robbins]

Ditto. This is priceless reference material for anyone who wants to extend their role playing experience to knowing the boat and crew their game submarine represent.

[Fish40]

This is an excellent site! It would be cool if the modders could make it so the boat you have in game could patrol the same areas that the real boat patrolled IRL. I'm not saying you should have the exact same patrol results, but just to patrol the same area at the same time as the real one. Probrably a crap load of work:hmmm:

[Quasimodo]

Wow...what a treasure trove. I was on the USS Croaker when it was based in New London, CT long after the war as a museum. long gone now. Towed to Minnesota or some place like that. Too bad. Its was something that if it were still here I'd appreciate more than in my teenage years.

We still have the Nautlius but *sigh*...it's just not the same.

[Fish40]

I'm really starting to get into this! I've been reading the patrols of the SS Silversides, since this is the sub I currently command in game. A couple of things stood out at me, and I only read the first two patrols. First, the use of the DG in choppy seas. The captain states the difficulties of accurately aiming the weapon, as well as haveing the DG crew being knocked away from the gun in one instance due to rough seas. I would imagine this would slow your reload rate down!

The next thing to hit home with me was the obvious malfunctions of the torpedoes in a couple of instances. The captain states that in a couple of missed shots, he fealt the torpedoes were running too deep. Furthermore, these particular misses continued to run up on the beach, since they were fired at inshore targets. The failure of the torpedoes to explode when hitting the beach caused the captain to suspect a faulty exploder mechanism. These patrols were in 1942, and today we know the captains assumptions were correct. The captain goes on to state the possibility of the Japanese recovering these.


The final item that deemed mention here is the problems experienced with both the air search, and surface radars. On several occasions targets were picked up too late, or not at all. Again, the year explains the difficulties. We know today, as the war progressed radar greatly improved and became a most important weapon!

Finally, the mention of the lack of spare parts, as well as the misidentification of targets on occasion rounded out a typical patrol.

I play the RFB mod, and IMO these guys have done a good job of trying to portray these shortcomings. Things we may consider "bugs", or over the top (in respects to the DG reload times) may have been RL challanges to the RL crews. Oh well, just my two cents. On too patrol report 3.

[Fish40]

I'm really starting to get into this! I've been reading the patrols of the SS Silversides, since this is the sub I currently command in game. A couple of things stood out at me, and I only read the first two patrols. First, the use of the DG in choppy seas. The captain states the difficulties of accurately aiming the weapon, as well as haveing the DG crew being knocked away from the gun in one instance due to rough seas. I would imagine this would slow your reload rate down!

The next thing to hit home with me was the obvious malfunctions of the torpedoes in a couple of instances. The captain states that in a couple of missed shots, he fealt the torpedoes were running too deep. Furthermore, these particular misses continued to run up on the beach, since they were fired at inshore targets. The failure of the torpedoes to explode when hitting the beach caused the captain to suspect a faulty exploder mechanism. These patrols were in 1942, and today we know the captains assumptions were correct. The captain goes on to state the possibility of the Japanese recovering these.


The final item that deemed mention here is the problems experienced with both the air search, and surface radars. On several occasions targets were picked up too late, or not at all. Again, the year explains the difficulties. We know today, as the war progressed radar greatly improved and became a most important weapon!

Finally, the mention of the lack of spare parts, as well as the misidentification of targets on occasion rounded out a typical patrol.

I play the RFB mod, and IMO these guys have done a good job of trying to portray these shortcomings. Things we may consider "bugs", or over the top (in respects to the DG reload times) may have been RL challanges to the RL crews. Oh well, just my two cents. On too patrol report 3.

[tater]

Yeah, I've been reading these with Alden on my lap, and ONI-208J open as well.

Very useful.

It would be an amazing project to mine this for really useful statistical data. You cannot always trust sinkings, or even the number of hits (might be a premature just off the target, etc), but some stuff is very interesting. Gun attacks, for example. Some have good commence/cease fire times, others have a broad engagement period.

Another useful set of statistics would be aircraft contacts, as well as follow up attacks by planes.

Early reports list timed spacing of DC explosions, too.

tater

[keltos01]

Thanks for sharing this.:yeah:

[Linavitch]

These are excellent.

I am also sailing the silverside in game atm, so been reading her reports.

Interstig stuff about the pickets of Sampans and how the USN avoided contact with wooden hulled fishing boats in fear of retribution.

I also vote to sticky this BTW. i would consider it essential reading to any realism junkie.

[Ping Panther]

Wow! Thanks for that link Gino. That stuff really hits home with me.

I looked up my great-uncle's Mike's boat. It's all there. He was listed as a Torpedoman 2nd class on the final crew roster.