please help.

seafarer · 08-31-07, 09:56 PM

There were rules. Morton claimed that the survivors fired a machine gun at his crew first, so he obliterated them. Since he and Wahoo were lost on 09/11/1943 during her 7th patrol, and given the Wahoo was one of the high scoring US boats (119K+ tons in 6 war patrols), it never came up again until years later. Then, some historians tracked down some surviving crew members (the slaughter was on her 3rd patrol) who gave a very different description of the event then the original.

Basically, Morton hated the japanese and never hid that fact. Since it was a sympathy shared by a lot of command staff too, and since the Wahoo was such a successful boat, nobody was interested in atrocities, alleged or otherwise. Remember, the open, public sentiment at the time was "the only good jap is (was) a dead jap".

Ducimus · 08-31-07, 10:36 PM

That particualar warpatrol of the USS wahoo was, and continues to be a source of great debate. Theres usually two sides to every story, and with this particular incident in histor, i think its subjected to alot of wordsmithing by both sides of the debate. Regardless of which side of the story one listens to, i think the one universal truth is that the pacifc was a very different theater, and the japanese a very different enemy as compared to other axis nations at the time.

08-31-07, 09:56 PM	#1
seafarer Commodore Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 622 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	There were rules. Morton claimed that the survivors fired a machine gun at his crew first, so he obliterated them. Since he and Wahoo were lost on 09/11/1943 during her 7th patrol, and given the Wahoo was one of the high scoring US boats (119K+ tons in 6 war patrols), it never came up again until years later. Then, some historians tracked down some surviving crew members (the slaughter was on her 3rd patrol) who gave a very different description of the event then the original. Basically, Morton hated the japanese and never hid that fact. Since it was a sympathy shared by a lot of command staff too, and since the Wahoo was such a successful boat, nobody was interested in atrocities, alleged or otherwise. Remember, the open, public sentiment at the time was "the only good jap is (was) a dead jap".

08-31-07, 10:36 PM	#2
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	That particualar warpatrol of the USS wahoo was, and continues to be a source of great debate. Theres usually two sides to every story, and with this particular incident in histor, i think its subjected to alot of wordsmithing by both sides of the debate. Regardless of which side of the story one listens to, i think the one universal truth is that the pacifc was a very different theater, and the japanese a very different enemy as compared to other axis nations at the time.