Stories From the US Submarine Force
The USS F-4 was not the pride of the fleet. She was not a grand battleship, nor a sleek destroyer cutting through the waves with an imposing presence. She was, however, an experiment, a step forward in the infancy of submarine warfare, when the U.S. Navy was still feeling out the dangers of the deep. Continue reading “USS F-4 SS-23”
Before the sun ever rose on March 24, 1943, the USS Wahoo (SS-238) had already made a name for herself. She was not just another Gato-class submarine; she was the boat sailors whispered about with awe and admiration. Under the relentless and fearless command of Lieutenant Commander Dudley “Mush” Morton, Wahoo had become a wolf in the water—bold, cunning, and, above all, lethal. Morton had replaced “Pinky” Kennedy after two patrols of frustrating near-misses and faulty torpedoes, and from the moment he gave that now-famous talk—declaring Wahoo “expendable” and inviting any unwilling soul to walk away—her character changed. Continue reading “Wahoo On The Warpath”
It is the spring of 1943. The tides of war are shifting, but slowly, and not without price. Across the vast reaches of the Pacific, the United States Navy’s submarine force is waging an invisible war, slipping silently beneath enemy shipping lanes, severing supply chains one torpedo at a time. These boats are not the sleek, nuclear-powered giants of later decades, but diesel-electric beasts with steel hulls and sweat-stained decks. Their crews, young and dogged, live and die in a steel tube barely longer than a football field. It is here, in this crucible of pressure and silence, that the USS Kingfish (SS-234) earned her scars—and her survival. Continue reading “The Depths of Courage”
Patrol Reports 