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Originally Posted by The Noob
Sorry for the question, but i know nothing about the pacific theater, so what made the USS Wahoo so special?
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Thats hard to explain really. Well, at least i find it hard to explaiin.
You could read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wahoo_(SS-238)
But theres really alot of stories about the Wahoo and her skipper. "mush" morton got his name cause well, i guess he ran off at the mouth alot. "mush" i beleive was short for "mush mouth". Wahoo's exploits are stuff of legend.
From the above link i just gave:
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ahoo's orders were to reconnoiter Wewak, a Japanese supply base on the north coast of New Guinea. There was one large problem about reconnoitering Wewak: Wahoo had no charts of the harbor. However, it turned out that one of the motor machinists had bought a cheap school atlas while in Australia. It had a map of New Guinea with a small indentation labeled "Wewak". With that as a reference, Morton located the unmarked area on a large Navy chart and had a blowup made of the Navy chart with an ingenious device composed of a camera and signal lights. Then, to the crew's amazement, they learned that Morton's definition of "reconnoiter" meant to penetrate the harbor and sink whatever ships could be found.
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Mush morton was known for his tenacity, he was arguably the most aggressive submarine skipper who ever sailed, and was reputed to have a burning hatred of japanese. Which is also cause for an incident of machinegunning which is often overlooked by historians. The details of which i wont get into, you could argo for or agains this incident given the situation at the time.
But Wahoo is known for alot more. Such as some of their status reports. One was reputed start with "Running gun battle today....." after which it gave the details. Obviously it invovled a high speed chase using his deck gun. The next day or two another report came from the wahoo, "Another running gun battle today, destroyer gunning, wahoo running".
To appreciate the wahoo, you just really have to sitdown and read all the stories about her, its kinda incredible.