A shore battery would have to be lucky as hell to hit a submarine. There isn't much to shoot at let alone hit when a sub is cruising along on the surface...unless they are at short range. As for shore batteries having radar controlled gunfire in 1943...I kinda doubt that. That kind of thing didn't come into use till 44'...at least in the Navy...and the Army was always a bit behind technology wise....except when it came to aircraft. (On the other hand the Army WAS working on chemical warfare projects and had almost completed the bombs and the aircraft to carry them all the way to the west coast when the war ended. Least that's the claim on the "Secret Weapons of WW2 History Channel series).
Unless somebody builds a time machine and goes back and watches the entire chain of events unfold,we will never truly know what happened out there. All we do know for sure is that the Japanese attacked her...and she sunk.
But,I will say this. O'Kane's theory of the Wahoo being damaged by a circular running torpedo doesn't hold any water with me. I have NEVER heard of a sub surviving a hit from a circular run. O'Kane should have known better than anyone what a hit from a circular running torpedo could do to a sub. The only way that theory would work is if the Wahoo had been hit by a circular running dud torpedo...which might have still penetrated the hull anyway...and once again leave us with a sub with a big honking hole in it. A 21" circular hole in a sub would be enough to ruin anyone's day.
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