As the war progressed the Japanese started routing their shipping to hug the coastlines (source: “Clear the Bridge” by Richard O’Kane). This put US submarines in the position to have to go into shallow waters to have any chances of hitting anything. Everybody knows that a submarine in shallow water can quickly become a dead submarine. The Pacific may be the deepest ocean, but a lot of it is relatively shallow. USS Tang only sits in 180 feet of water in the Formosa Strait.
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