World War Two Submarines

I have always been fascinated with subs of the WWII era. Submariners had one of the most exciting, most dangerous, most cramped conditions, longest hours of any service in the war. The U.S. navy lost 52 subs in the war along with 3506 crewmen. Out of 16000 in the service, 3506 were killed, one in every five, making that the highest casualty rate of any service.

This picture below is the USS Gato, a later model fleet sub of the era. This sub was 311 feet long by 27 feet wide, making for 8400 square feet to house 60 men, 4 diesel engines, giant batteries for undersea operations, 24 torpedoes along with food and fuel enough for 75 days. It is a fact that after 30 days at sea, even on modern surface ships with much better living conditions, men living in close quarters get pretty surly, causing arguments and fights to erupt. I cannot imagine what 75 days at sea under far worse conditions in WWII would do to the crew on a sub.

Here are the sleeping quarters for the enlisted men on a WWII sub. There are 16 bunks in an area smaller than a tiny regular bedroom. If one guy passed gas, 15 others knew about it.

There were no showers used while at sea and living conditions were hot and sweaty in the early days of the war. There were not enough bunks for everyone and that created the term “hot racking.” (One guy got up so the next guy could use the bunk.) At sea, half the crew were on watch and half were resting or eating when not at battle stations. At battle stations the entire crew was up and ready. Note the rubber sheets, without them the mattresses would fill with sweat and rot. There were two reasons why there were no showers at sea, one, the showers were filled with potatoes and foodstuffs when leaving Hawaii for the south Pacific and two, water distilling capability in the early subs was not enough for drinking and showers, so showers lost out while on patrol. That is how subs got the nickname “pig boats.”

Subs were capable of running at 21 nautical miles per hour on surface and 9 knots under water. Sometimes the prevailing currents underwater made the subs barely able to get anywhere at all. After attacking a Japanese convoy, their destroyers would attack the sub with depth charges. The Japanese destroyers on the surface were capable of nearly three times the speed of the submerged sub, so they could sweep back and forth dropping charges while the sub had minimal chances of exiting the area. Many times what saved the sub was the Japanese destroyers had to leave the area to continue protecting the convoy.

From 1941 to 1943 many of the U.S. navy’s torpedoes were defective and production was severely limited. Torpedoes were set to run at a specific depth depending on what the depth of a ship’s keel was. The idea was to hit the ship well under the waterline, making it more difficult for the ship to stay afloat. The mechanism for setting the torpedo depth was woefully inaccurate and the torpedo  would go under the ship being attacked and cause a miss. The gyro compass that controlled the torpedo’s would sometimes malfunction, causing the torpedo to go in a big circle and come right back to the sub. The detonators on torpedos did not always function properly, so even when hitting the ship all they would do was make a loud thump and let the ship and the convoy destroyer escorts know there was a sub close by.

Despite all the harsh conditions, sub crews were the tightest knit outfits anywhere. Sub crews were all volunteer and making the grade was a rigorous task. Many men washed out during training. The ship’s captain could reject any crewman he felt was unfit for the unit.

Below is a periscope photo of a Japanese patrol boat sinking after being torpedoed by the USS Seawolf.

Almost all operations were performed at night and on the surface during WWII and this picture was taken after the sub attacked and dove under for cover, On the surface, subs could move faster and outrun a convoy so they could get ahead and then line up for a torpedo shot. Even this was no guaranty because convoys on both sides would zig-zag to disrupt any submarine attack plan. Subs would sometimes shadow and maneuver for hours, waiting for the right moment to attack.

Modern nuclear subs are giants compared to WWII subs. They can patrol for months at a time. They can stay submerged the whole time and they have far better living conditions. Crew training and selection standards  are even more rigorous and have psychological testing to ensure compatibility for such harsh duty. One nuclear sub, just one, has more destructive capability than all the ordnance fired across the world during WWII. If the Russians, the Chinese and the U.S. started firing all they had at any given time at sea, our world would cease to exist as we know it.