Author: FTB1(SS)

Tinosa’s Target

When people think of naval warfare in the Pacific during World War II, they picture submarine captains locking onto targets, launching their torpedoes, and sending enemy ships to the bottom in a column of smoke and steel. That image, as dramatic as it may be, wasn’t always the truth. At least not early in the war. For nearly two years, American submariners went into battle with a torpedo that refused to do its job. It wasn’t the enemy that nearly broke their spirits. It was the Mark 14.

On July 24, 1943, the submarine USS Tinosa SS-283 faced a golden opportunity and watched it slip away as torpedo after torpedo failed to explode.

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Under the Ice

She started life as a workhorse, not a wonder. USS O-12 was never meant to make history, only to do her duty. Built in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1916, this O-class submarine served briefly in the Panama Canal Zone after World War I. She was solid, if not spectacular. Compared to her Electric Boat sisters, she had her flaws. But for a few short years, she stood watch where it mattered. Then, in 1924, the Navy pulled her from service and parked her at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. She was supposed to be scrapped. That would have been the end of it.

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The Northern Star

In the shadowy chess game of the Cold War, the move that changed everything did not come from a missile silo in Kansas or a bomber base in England. It came from beneath the waves, out of sight and far beyond reach. On July 20, 1960, deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, the USS George Washington unleashed the first Polaris ballistic missile from a submerged submarine. That launch did not just mark a technical milestone. It transformed the rules of deterrence, and in many ways, helped hold off the unthinkable, even into the 21st century.

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