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Originally Posted by Wave Skipper
During the first year and a half of the America's involvment in the war - a large percent of the skippers of U-boats just sat in their subs under the water fleeing from engagment with the Japanese. They were weeded out slowly. They were mainly officers who had joined the navy in the 20s who had wanted a career in a peace time navy - attending white uniform officer parties and seeking for peace time methods for advancment.
SO screw the torpedoes - if you want a real realistic dud, just cower in your chair and take your sub down deep and find excuses why it would be a bad idea to engage the enemy.
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I don't think that's a fair comment for pre-war skippers. Submarine doctrine and training before the war emphasised drills and attack methods that were designed so as to minimise exposure to danger. For instance, in this book I'm reading a book about Mush Morton who skippered the Wahoo, and O'Kane who was the Wahoo's XO before he commanded the Tang, I read somewhere that pre-war attacking from periscope depth was a big no-no in the USN's books, or something like that. Pre-war doctrine even taught subs to fire based on sonar bearings only (iirc).
It's not that the men were incompetent (although some undoubtedly were), it's just that the training they received and the doctrine imparted to them were completely unsuited for the war when it happened.
Don't forget too that US subs were supposed to be scouts for the fleet, not raiders going specifically after enemy merchant shipping. With the crippling of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour, I guess they had a rethink on what subs should do.
Many of the successful war time skippers we read about were products of a younger generation, who were not exposed, or at best minimally exposed, to pre-war training and doctrine.