What Little I Know About Submarines

Submarines fascinated us during World War II. Germany U-boats decimated convoys carrying vital war supplies to England. Our U-boats preyed on Japanese shipping, even daring to infiltrate Japanese homeland ports.

World War II submarines were crewed by heroic men. Thousands on both sides died in the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

After the war, nuclear subs cruised under Polar ice carrying lethal loads of guided missiles with atomic warheads. They were the terror of the Cold War. Unfortunately, they are still cruising. There were loses. A Soviet submarine had a reactor malfunction with casualties. The U.S.S. Thresher went down during deep-diving trials in 5500 feet of water 220 miles east of Boston in 1963—perhaps because a pipe weld failed and flooded the engine room shutting down the reactor. An associate of mine lost a son in that disaster.

During World War II there were submarine incidences on both the Atlantic and Pacific cost of the United States. One was humorous to my Aunt Isabel who lived in Los Angeles. The United States military anti-aircraft crews reacting to the threat of attack blew up a man’s garage. I remember the incident. It was called “The Battle of Los Angeles.” Well, some Japanese submarines could accommodate an aircraft.

Before the “Battle of Los Angeles” a Japanese submarine fired on an oil refinery on the California coast. (That’s why the gunners had itchy fingers.) German agents were dropped by submarine on the east coast of the United States. German submarines were common on the East Coast during the war and sunk many merchant ships.

Those were scary times for this Utah kid. (I listened to my older brother talk to his friends about Hitler and the invasion of Poland. I thought the Germans would be dropping in at any time. At the church, a scary skit showing the Gestapo invading homes, terrorizing families with bayonets, and burning books, didn’t help. I loved books.) Scary Japanese submarines just off the California coast made me consider the possibility of a Japanese invasion. Were we protected in Utah by the Sierra Nevada?

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor my cousin, Billy, and I watched the sky for Japanese aircraft. Japanese balloons landed in the Northwest. We all thought an old Japanese man picking up coal along the railroad tracks was counting the tanks and trucks rolling by and radioing the results to Tokyo.

Eventually the old fellow stopped walking along the tracks. I don’t know what happened to him, but I was worried that my friend, Ted Fuji—would Ted be shipped off to an Arizona Japanese-American internment camp? Ted was the one kid with whom I could talk about crystal-radio building.

Now that we have at least six paragraphs under our belt, I can give some references. I hate this new rule and I’ve asked www.ezinearticles.com to explain why they had to do it. In the past, authors could ad links after the first paragraph.

No answer yet!

For the “Battle of Los Angeles,” I suggest you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_air_raid

Read about the “Battle of the Atlantic” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic_(1939-1945)

Read about submarine warfare in the Pacific at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War#The_submarine_war_in_the_Pacific

The Merchant Marine had the highest rate of battle deaths during World War II. During the same time that the Battle of the Atlantic occurred we had the Battle of Britain. We lost more airmen in that battle than the combined World War II losses of Marines and Navy personal.

We did not control the air and the seas until late in the war. Early in the war, only a small fraction of ships sunk by the Germans was replenished by new ship construction. In 1942, we replenished fewer than half of the ships sunk. However, by 1943 we were building new ships about three to each one lost. See http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html

If we had not won the Battle of the Atlantic, we would probably have lost the war.

To learn the fate of Unites States submarines go to http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq39-1.htm

You can see a list of the crew of the U.S.S. Thresher at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)#Enlisted_men

Read about Japanese submarines at http://www.combinedfleet.com/ss.htm

Read about German U-boats at http://www.bosun.net/page9a.html

Read about the history of submarines at http://www.submarine-history.com/

We called enemy submarines “Pig Boats’ when I was a kid. (We called tanks “rolling coffins.”)

If you want to read a book on submarines, you might enjoy Wolfpacks at War. There is a link at http://tinyurl.com/2kop6r

The End

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

John T. Jones, Ph.D. (tjbooks@hotmail.com, a retired VP of R&D for Lenox China, is author of detective & western novels, nonfiction (business, scientific, engineering, humor), poetry, etc. Former editor of Ceramic Industry Magazine. He is Executive Representative of IWS sellers of Tyler Hicks wealth-success books and kits. He also sells TopFlight flagpoles. He calls himself "Taylor Jones, the hack writer." More info: www.tjbooks.com Business web site: www.tjbooks.com

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