Don Boyer
29-10-2009, 23:47
A Review of “United States and Allied Submarine Successes in the Pacific and Far East During WW II.” (4th Ed.). John D. Alden and Craig R. McDonald. (McFarland & Co., Inc., Jefferson, NC and London. 2009)
I’m sure I speak for most all on this forum when I say we all love those tautly-written and historically revealing naval histories with big naval rifles blazing, torpedoes exploding and bombs falling. John Alden’s latest production is not one of those books. In fact, it is mainly one long complex table of data. However, in many respects, it is far more revealing and historically important than many of the blazing battle line books. It will become an absolute necessity on the bookshelves of any serious student of submarine warfare, particularly considering that the effort of the United States and its allies in WW II in the Pacific was the only successful submarine campaign in history. (The Germans and their allies having had the incredibly bad judgment to have picked on the Royal Navy not once, but twice, with predictably dismal results.)
This book provides the most up to date information on the results of American and allied submarine attacks on the Japanese Merchant Marine and Navy in World War II, data that benefits greatly from enormous amounts of modern research and translations of Japanese source documents and records by several contributors as well as (finally!!) intelligence “Utra” decryptions that are now declassified. The book is a follow-on to Cdr. Alden’s previous work and is a much more organized and useful document for the historian and even more accurate in its final detail.
Another important aspect of this volume is the inclusion of as much data as is available on the contributions of the British and Dutch submarine commands to the war in the Pacific, Far East and Indian Ocean, and area of the submarine war often neglected by the American and other submarine historians to date, which has been a slap in the face to our staunch allies in my opinion and long overdue for correction. (Alden’s previous work also considered the allied contributions, but this new volume is far better in detail.) Cdr. Alden also includes the contributions of Soviet submarines at the very end of the war and as much information on the results of submarine mine laying efforts during the war as is available in both Japanese and American records.
There are no shocking revelations in this book, such as showing that the claims of the submarine commanders and commands made during the war were more accurate than the much-detested (in the submarine community) post-war JANAC (Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee) Report of 1947. In fact, it conclusively shows that the JANAC assessments, although based partly on some faulty data and conclusions, WERE closer to the truth in terms of number of ships sunk and total tonnages of vessels lost than the claims of the submarine services. This is an entirely predictable result, and does not reflect badly on the submarine service at all – they were not making deliberately inflated claims by any means.
There are a variety of reasons for this, despite the statement of many post-war submariners that they “were there and SAW what happened.” In the heat of combat with defective torpedoes, angry destroyers, periscopes with less than ideal optics, bad weather, darkness and many other factors, the submariner’s stories can’t always hold water in the cold light of statistical analysis after the fact, sadly ruining many a good sea-story. The introduction to Alden’s new book makes this evident and in fact goes into great detail on how the analyses were made, and why they don’t match up with the claims made at the time by “those who were there.”
There are all those wartime claims of sinking that “10,000 ton tanker” which turned out post-war to have been 3500 tons. You estimate a ship’s weight while trying to draw a bead on it with less than ideal optics under combat conditions while also trying to determine the really important data such as angle on the bow, speed, and length and where that damned destroyer you can hear on sonar is now.
As another example, many submarine patrol reports made during the war used that phrase “breaking-up noises heard” (on sonar or through the hull) after a torpedo attack. Well, a ship with a hole in it, fighting for its life on the surface in even moderate seas is going to make a lot of nasty noises as metal grinds on metal, bulkheads give way, girders twist or break, and fires set off explosions in stores and the like. These noises are not a certain indication that the ship is actually under water, much as wishful thinking might want to make it so. Alden’s book makes this kind of thing clear. Of course there are those claims of “We saw that baby sink with our own eyes” that just can’t be realistically explained because they aren’t credited in the post-war accounts. There are many credits of sinkings to submarines that weren’t originally credited as well, so it seems the record goes both ways, fairly or not.
Alden also makes it clear that the attempt to show who the “top gun” was in terms of submarine commanders by tons sunk or number of ships sunk was, while probably necessary at the time, not really a realistic appraisal of skill and ability in many cases. During the war, there was heavy emphasis placed on “bags” and “kills” by the submarine Admirals in charge (as opposed to the good strategic planning they should have done), and the issuance of medals to officers and crews were based on the post-patrol estimates of these factors. While wartime recognition is vital for morale and as a reward for the enormous risks taken, it isn’t the be all and end all of submarine warfare, nor are those lists at the end of Roscoe’s or Blair’s submarine histories ranking submarines and their captains by tonnages sunk and number of ships sunk.
The tonnage of Japanese merchant and naval vessels sunk in World War II is certainly statistically important, as it shows the major contribution of submarines to winning the war, but the most relevant statistic in those books are the American, British and Dutch submarines listed as “still on patrol.”
This new book by one of the foremost submarine researchers of all time will be referred to again and again by the submarine buff, and provides a fascinating picture of the war through the use of the Ultra decrypts that accompany many of the entries. For one thing, Ultra revealed in no uncertain terms the failure of American torpedoes to sink ships early in the war, yet could not be used to get an obdurate Bureau of Ordnance off its dead ass. It also reveals many little known atrocities of the Japanese in not picking up allied prisoners of war after their ship had been sunk, or killing all those in the water while picking up only Japanese survivors.
The book is peppered with these and similar revelations, probably none more ironic than that during the famous third patrol of the USS Wahoo in which Wahoo’s Captain Morton ordered the boats of a sunken transport to be shot up so as to ensure that the troops onboard the ship he had just sunk didn’t survive (often portrayed as an “atrocity” by history-writing idiots who don’t understand the rules of engagement then in effect**).
Ultra clearly shows that the Japanese ships who picked up the survivors of this “slaughter” by Wahoo themselves left well over 560 Indian Nationals of a labor battalion in the water to die while picking up only their own people in the traditional Japanese style of treating everybody except Japanese as sub-human “gaijin” (barbarian) scum not worth saving – a trait that unfortunately hasn’t really changed much amongst the most nationalist Japanese political groups if you read between the lines of modern Japanese history and politics.
In closing, if you are a buff of submarine warfare, this book will be on your bookshelf soon.
(** On December 7th 1941, the Chief of Naval Operations issued his first wartime order: “Execute unrestricted air and submarine warfare against the forces of Japan.” The word “unrestricted” is not understood by many historians, obviously, particularly those with a penchant for trying to place modern moral standards within the wartime context. It meant that all naval treaties, agreements, concords, handshakes and the Geneva Conventions had all just been thrown in the trash can and burned. This order was never modified by higher political authority during the course of the war. It was an order carried out with remarkable efficiency and attention to detail by the United States navy and its allies.)
I’m sure I speak for most all on this forum when I say we all love those tautly-written and historically revealing naval histories with big naval rifles blazing, torpedoes exploding and bombs falling. John Alden’s latest production is not one of those books. In fact, it is mainly one long complex table of data. However, in many respects, it is far more revealing and historically important than many of the blazing battle line books. It will become an absolute necessity on the bookshelves of any serious student of submarine warfare, particularly considering that the effort of the United States and its allies in WW II in the Pacific was the only successful submarine campaign in history. (The Germans and their allies having had the incredibly bad judgment to have picked on the Royal Navy not once, but twice, with predictably dismal results.)
This book provides the most up to date information on the results of American and allied submarine attacks on the Japanese Merchant Marine and Navy in World War II, data that benefits greatly from enormous amounts of modern research and translations of Japanese source documents and records by several contributors as well as (finally!!) intelligence “Utra” decryptions that are now declassified. The book is a follow-on to Cdr. Alden’s previous work and is a much more organized and useful document for the historian and even more accurate in its final detail.
Another important aspect of this volume is the inclusion of as much data as is available on the contributions of the British and Dutch submarine commands to the war in the Pacific, Far East and Indian Ocean, and area of the submarine war often neglected by the American and other submarine historians to date, which has been a slap in the face to our staunch allies in my opinion and long overdue for correction. (Alden’s previous work also considered the allied contributions, but this new volume is far better in detail.) Cdr. Alden also includes the contributions of Soviet submarines at the very end of the war and as much information on the results of submarine mine laying efforts during the war as is available in both Japanese and American records.
There are no shocking revelations in this book, such as showing that the claims of the submarine commanders and commands made during the war were more accurate than the much-detested (in the submarine community) post-war JANAC (Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee) Report of 1947. In fact, it conclusively shows that the JANAC assessments, although based partly on some faulty data and conclusions, WERE closer to the truth in terms of number of ships sunk and total tonnages of vessels lost than the claims of the submarine services. This is an entirely predictable result, and does not reflect badly on the submarine service at all – they were not making deliberately inflated claims by any means.
There are a variety of reasons for this, despite the statement of many post-war submariners that they “were there and SAW what happened.” In the heat of combat with defective torpedoes, angry destroyers, periscopes with less than ideal optics, bad weather, darkness and many other factors, the submariner’s stories can’t always hold water in the cold light of statistical analysis after the fact, sadly ruining many a good sea-story. The introduction to Alden’s new book makes this evident and in fact goes into great detail on how the analyses were made, and why they don’t match up with the claims made at the time by “those who were there.”
There are all those wartime claims of sinking that “10,000 ton tanker” which turned out post-war to have been 3500 tons. You estimate a ship’s weight while trying to draw a bead on it with less than ideal optics under combat conditions while also trying to determine the really important data such as angle on the bow, speed, and length and where that damned destroyer you can hear on sonar is now.
As another example, many submarine patrol reports made during the war used that phrase “breaking-up noises heard” (on sonar or through the hull) after a torpedo attack. Well, a ship with a hole in it, fighting for its life on the surface in even moderate seas is going to make a lot of nasty noises as metal grinds on metal, bulkheads give way, girders twist or break, and fires set off explosions in stores and the like. These noises are not a certain indication that the ship is actually under water, much as wishful thinking might want to make it so. Alden’s book makes this kind of thing clear. Of course there are those claims of “We saw that baby sink with our own eyes” that just can’t be realistically explained because they aren’t credited in the post-war accounts. There are many credits of sinkings to submarines that weren’t originally credited as well, so it seems the record goes both ways, fairly or not.
Alden also makes it clear that the attempt to show who the “top gun” was in terms of submarine commanders by tons sunk or number of ships sunk was, while probably necessary at the time, not really a realistic appraisal of skill and ability in many cases. During the war, there was heavy emphasis placed on “bags” and “kills” by the submarine Admirals in charge (as opposed to the good strategic planning they should have done), and the issuance of medals to officers and crews were based on the post-patrol estimates of these factors. While wartime recognition is vital for morale and as a reward for the enormous risks taken, it isn’t the be all and end all of submarine warfare, nor are those lists at the end of Roscoe’s or Blair’s submarine histories ranking submarines and their captains by tonnages sunk and number of ships sunk.
The tonnage of Japanese merchant and naval vessels sunk in World War II is certainly statistically important, as it shows the major contribution of submarines to winning the war, but the most relevant statistic in those books are the American, British and Dutch submarines listed as “still on patrol.”
This new book by one of the foremost submarine researchers of all time will be referred to again and again by the submarine buff, and provides a fascinating picture of the war through the use of the Ultra decrypts that accompany many of the entries. For one thing, Ultra revealed in no uncertain terms the failure of American torpedoes to sink ships early in the war, yet could not be used to get an obdurate Bureau of Ordnance off its dead ass. It also reveals many little known atrocities of the Japanese in not picking up allied prisoners of war after their ship had been sunk, or killing all those in the water while picking up only Japanese survivors.
The book is peppered with these and similar revelations, probably none more ironic than that during the famous third patrol of the USS Wahoo in which Wahoo’s Captain Morton ordered the boats of a sunken transport to be shot up so as to ensure that the troops onboard the ship he had just sunk didn’t survive (often portrayed as an “atrocity” by history-writing idiots who don’t understand the rules of engagement then in effect**).
Ultra clearly shows that the Japanese ships who picked up the survivors of this “slaughter” by Wahoo themselves left well over 560 Indian Nationals of a labor battalion in the water to die while picking up only their own people in the traditional Japanese style of treating everybody except Japanese as sub-human “gaijin” (barbarian) scum not worth saving – a trait that unfortunately hasn’t really changed much amongst the most nationalist Japanese political groups if you read between the lines of modern Japanese history and politics.
In closing, if you are a buff of submarine warfare, this book will be on your bookshelf soon.
(** On December 7th 1941, the Chief of Naval Operations issued his first wartime order: “Execute unrestricted air and submarine warfare against the forces of Japan.” The word “unrestricted” is not understood by many historians, obviously, particularly those with a penchant for trying to place modern moral standards within the wartime context. It meant that all naval treaties, agreements, concords, handshakes and the Geneva Conventions had all just been thrown in the trash can and burned. This order was never modified by higher political authority during the course of the war. It was an order carried out with remarkable efficiency and attention to detail by the United States navy and its allies.)