Early in the war this was rather common with the "old school" officers. Doctrine for subs was more to be used as a patrol boat than an offensive weapon.

One of the 1st boats to have this happen was the USS Argonaut.

Thanks for refreshing this old thread. It was an interesting read! :up:

The U.S.S. Salmon was indeed pounded to scrap metal. How she made it home for her final patrol is a miracle. Because of her history she is one of my favorite SH4 boats. I ran an entire career with her.

I located on eBay a matchbook of her. Yes, the sub crews commissioned match books for the several subs (some for post war reunions). I have that matchbook framed and here in my office next to a large B&W framed photo of the U.S.S. Houston and H.M.A.S. Perth. Yeah, I'm an old sentimental fart but those two things always give me a feeling of pride in ours and the Australian Navy.

Cheers, mates.:yeah:

Longknife - interesting you mention the differences between accepted norms for fleet boat activities before and then during WWII. As you said this new, much more aggressive attitude on the part of the newer, younger captains grew in favor following early lack of results by the older, pre-war captains operating IAW accepted pre-war doctrine (i.e., night sonar approaches/attacks (?)). It's got to be remembered in the pre-war Navy this was a service where a captain's continued command of a boat could depend on whether he came alongside a dock wall too heavily. Lockwood and the other force commanders eventually allowed much, much more aggressive tactics but it was with the realization, arrived at with eyes wide open, this would inevitably lead to increased losses. The wartime captains were younger men, the most successful with exceptional aggressiveness - Morton, Dealey, O'Kane. Of these three outstanding examples, two ended up dead and the third a POW. This is remarkable because Navy doctrine normally specifies preservation of the ship above all other considerations. I would think SSs and DDs were the two most quickly thought of exceptions to this outlook in WWII.

The most ironic thing about Morton's loss was that Wahoo's PCO was aboard with him for a fam patrol at the time of the ship's demise. One wonders what Lockwood, Nimitz or King would have done with him once relieved.

I remember that's why they were called "fleet submarines" - their targets, in pre-war thinking, were meant to be enemy surface units and they were supposed to attack these targets IAW overall fleet strategy. In light of how the Kaiser's navy nearly starved Great Britain in WWI using U-boats against merchant shipping, it's hard to see how pre-WWII US naval strategists arrived at the conclusion the big, long-range boats we were developing - ideal commerce raiders - should be used to function as an extension of the battle line rather than operate independently and eliminate an enemy's merchant marine. It could be seen that using this method, there would still be the opportunity for the periodic shot at enemy capital units around naval bases and in rear areas, which would obviously still help America's overall naval strategy.

There are a lot of things hindsight makes 20/20 - one of them was that an earlier emphasis and high priority should have been placed on sinking Japanese tankers. I won't even go into the fiasco about the depth control and exploders on US torpedoes.