audio recording of USS Sealion attack on Kongo

[MKalafatas]

http://www.hnsa.org/sound/index.htm

Forgive me if this has been posted before. I stumbled across it today.

Among the audio files listed is a 4-part recording of USS Sealion attacking the Japanese battleship Kongo off the China coast.

The audio is grainy but still interesting. I was impressed with the crew discipline. Although the rising pitch in their voices betrays some nerves, there is hardly a wasted word and all hands knew their business.

I was able to use the .mp3 files in the 3rd column, but not the RealPlayer or Quicktime files in the first 2 columns.

[MKalafatas]

http://www.usssealion.com/sealion/images/Bates/Stories/kongo.htm

Diary entry of crew member describing the attack.

[Armistead]

You can hear it better if you cut bass down and wear earphones.:yeah:

About anything sub has been posted here several times, but glad you found and enjoyed it, interesting stuff.

[Sailor Steve]

Yeah, it was posted before, but a very long time ago and these things get lost in the shuffle after awhile. I had forgotten about it, though I have a copy, and we get so many newer members every day that most don't know about it.

Thanks for the link. :sunny:

[MKalafatas]

Very curious tactical decision. He unknowingly passed on Yamato (I guess it had a relatively small radar return) to target Kongo. He sets torpedo depth at 12'.

But an escorting destroyer is in the firing line, so he orders torpedoes set to 8' in case the destroyer gets in the way.

Is anyone else puzzled by this?

It seems to violate the military principle of concentration. My inclination would have been to set torpedo depth even deeper, in the event of an interfering destroyer.

The decision almost bit him. He hit with 3 of 6 torpedoes fired at 8' but the Kongo didn't sink and in fact proceeded with the convoy without slowing --- until suddenly blowing up some time later.

[Daniel Prates]

Very curious tactical decision. He unknowingly passed on Yamato (I guess it had a relatively small radar return) to target Kongo. He sets torpedo depth at 12'.

But an escorting destroyer is in the firing line, so he orders torpedoes set to 8' in case the destroyer gets in the way.

Is anyone else puzzled by this?

It seems to violate the military principle of concentration. My inclination would have been to set torpedo depth even deeper, in the event of an interfering destroyer.

The decision almost bit him. He hit with 3 of 6 torpedoes fired at 8' but the Kongo didn't sink and in fact proceeded with the convoy without slowing --- until suddenly blowing up some time later.

Maybe he thought that if the torps hit the BB and the DD came unharmed, the escort would be able to simply make a 90 degrees turn and come over him.

[doulos05]

Very curious tactical decision. He unknowingly passed on Yamato (I guess it had a relatively small radar return) to target Kongo. He sets torpedo depth at 12'.

But an escorting destroyer is in the firing line, so he orders torpedoes set to 8' in case the destroyer gets in the way.

Is anyone else puzzled by this?

It seems to violate the military principle of concentration. My inclination would have been to set torpedo depth even deeper, in the event of an interfering destroyer.

The decision almost bit him. He hit with 3 of 6 torpedoes fired at 8' but the Kongo didn't sink and in fact proceeded with the convoy without slowing --- until suddenly blowing up some time later.

Maybe he thought that if the torps hit the BB and the DD came unharmed, the escort would be able to simply make a 90 degrees turn and come over him.

It seems from the text like this was a night-time surface attack. That might have informed the decision as well, hoping that you'd hit the destroyer with a fluke in the event of it's crossing the wakes (probably the only way it'd see the fish given the weather) and buying time to get out.