USS COD gato class destroys dutch submarine

[momo55]

A realy strange event ...this is hard for a crew i can imagine.

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0OVO1QXJ0

[seafarer]

Some still pics of O-19 and O-20

Amazing that the video says she is still on the reef - you'd think surely a storm would have dislodged her by now. I see that you can SCUBA dive on one of her tanker maru victems off Thailand though!

[SteamWake]

Couple of things struck me as strange in that vid.

1.) The interviewee mentioned "Those guys had been on that boat for 5 years"

2.) The guy kicking the brass overboard when they were using the deck gun. I guess they just dumped the casings wherever they could.

3.) When they launched the torpedo at the stricken vessel it seemed like it was only a few seconds of run time. I supposed that was video edited for effect.

Anyhow some really good footage. Maybe the rate of fire debate folks can take a few cues off the deck gun sequence.

[seafarer]

O-19 arrived in the Dutch East Indies in 1939 - I think that's what he meant. Surely not the original crew for that whole time? Some must have been rotated out to other duty?

[SteamWake]

"That was the saddest thing youve ever seen......" [edit] "They had been abord that thing for 5 years. Hadent even been home for 4 or 5 years."

[seafarer]

I know, I've seen the video before, but I never took that comment to literally mean that every single man onboard O-19 had been onboard O-19 since they'd left Europe in 1939.

She went through 5 commanding officers during that time, so why other crew wouldn't change either is beyond me. The commander at the time had only assumed command the previous December. She'd even been back to European waters in 1944. Of course none of the men had seem home - Holland was occupied by the Germans. But it's not like the crew had not changed, nor that the crew had even been in the east Indies the whole time. And they'd certainly not spent 5 whole years never stepping off the boat.