I was just watching "Operation Pacific". John Wayne just rammed a Japanese freighter with a submarine. Am I mistaken in thinking that's sheer insanity?

I came in in the middle of the movie and haven't seen it in probably ten years or more. Is this the one where the chiefs get together and prove that the torpedoes are defective (as they really were)? Were they out of torpedoes or did they not shoot because the torpedoes sucked? Or was it just Hollywood BS?

I think it may have happened once or twice but it was not a tactic by design. Rather, it was a last resort. Certainly the sub would be severely damaged if not sunk by such an action.

BTW- there is a WW II sub (USS Razorback) moored on the Arkansas River across from downtown Little Rock. Very cool to tour the boat.

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No life story has happy end.

I think the torpedo testing was in 'They were expendable' the PT boat John Wayne movie.

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Pete.

IIRC the torpedo testing was in "In Harm's Way". Ramming a surface ship with a sub? Maybe if you're Captain Nemo in the Nautilus. The commander of the USS Greenville did manage to sink a Japanese fishing trawler in 2001.

U.S. Navy torpedoes were very unreliable in the first half of WWII. It was very common for the torpedoes to hit their targets and not explode. It was a source of tremendous frustration to submariners and got many of them killed.

Submarines depend on submergence to operate, if they can't, they get sunk fast. Ramming another ship would likely damage the sub. As Saxon Pig said, they didn't do it if avoidable.

They did the drop tests after I posted that, so yes, it was "Operation Pacific".

I already knew the story, but was wondering if it was mentioned in the movie. It was, but in a VERY circumspect way, probably because a lot of it was still classified.

1. I believe the USN designed the torpedo and its detonating mechanism.
   
2. The primary detonating mode was magnetic influence, intended to cause the warhead to detonate under the keel of the target. Very few prototype torpedoes were tested (3?), all of them off of Virginia. I believe there was a 2/3 success rate, meaning that the magnetic influence detonator had a 1/3 failure rate, UNDER IDEAL PEACETIME CONDITIONS. No more tests were done before the start of the war.
   
3. The depth setting mechanism for the torpedoes was defective, often causing them to run deeper than set. This meant that even after doubts about the efficacy of the magnetic fuse arose, torpedoes aimed directly at Japanese ships frequently traveled harmlessly underneath them.
   
4. Even when the torpedoes struck the target, the firing pins had a tendency to break rather than initiate the detonator and cause the warhead to explode. Lots of lucky Japanese sailors heard a loud thud and carried on with their duties, never knowing why they were still alive.
   
5. Contrary to standing orders, ordnance personnel in the field performed extensive testing to prove the defects in the torpedoes.

Cmort has it right. The navy was run by big ship members of what was called the "gun club" (battleship/cruiser guys plus navy ordinance) of the navy at ther begining of the war. And since many of the navy's top brass were involved one way or another with the torpedo screw up, they simply refused to consider the possibility that one of them might have been wrong.
It was an incredible cock up that cost many sub crews their lives. The guys at the top were so arrogant that there was an order published to prohibit sub crew torpedomen from doing any tests or alterations of the fuses or depth settings. Fortunately after a couple of years of war many of the sub crews were commanded by reserve officers who figured that alive and court martialed back home was better than dead and buried under a few thousand feet of seawater. So they conducted tests on their own which could not be refuted.
However the stigma that attached to the earlier sub commanders (who were mostly regular navy/academy graduates) when the gun club guys accused them of being timid and not prosecuting their attacks aggressively enough was never removed, and many of them served out the war in backwater desk jobs and then were dumped right after the war, most of them bore the shame of being accused of acts just short of cowardice and their careers never recovered. Only one lower ranking officer at naval ordinance was ever disciplined, all of the admirals who were complicit in this scandal simply kept on getting promoted.
And Obama fires a General because he did not like what he said to a reporter?
But for the courage of a few reserve officers who confronted the naval command structure, we might have lost the war because of those arrogant XXXXXXXX.

Hollywood hype.
I don't believe there is any documented rammings BY a sub. If any occured, the witnesses didn't testify.....

I think a few subs were rammed when they were caught on the surface but were "under the guns" of the destroyers escorting convoys. I don't know dates and places, but you might want to search for it.

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Lee Jarrett

Off thread (slightly) (or a lot), but I always wanted to know about the USS Devilfish, which I understand was the only submarine damaged by a kamikaze.
"You got a lot of 'splainin' to do".

USS Growler

US Navy Medal of Honor: WWII Submarine Commander H.W. Gilmore

I have read that Jap torpedoes were both faster and more effective.

I think it was mainly dive bombers (Dauntlesses) that saved us at Midway, the Devastator torpedo bombers being shot down before they could engage the enemy.

I don't know how the new Avenger fared in that battle, but the torpedoes were clearly suspect. And some of the Dauntlesses had electric bomb-dropping mechanisms fail.

T-Star

Not if John Wayne or Chuck Norris is driving the Sub.

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Forum consigliere

Longer ranged too.

The Japs "Long Lance" torpedo was probably the best torpedo of the war, it had an extremly long range and a large warhead. The Italians also had very good torpedos for their aircraft which were also used on torpedo boats. Needless to say the Germans had some good ones also, they almost won the war with them. Interestingly enough the Germans did not develop torpedo bombers like the Japs, Italians, English and the US did. I read somewhere that it had to do with Goering not wanting the German Navy to have any aircraft at all, so he did not want an aircraft built just for torpedo delivery. The ju88 could carry torpedos but almost never did, the German Airforce primarily depending on bombing to attack allied ships-probably lucky for us.

The He 111 and He 115 could carry torpedoes as well.

The Germans jumped straight to guided missiles, like the Hs 293 and Fritz X.

They also developed a glider fuselage to give a conventional torpedo a standoff capability.

Our son-in-law's father.

USS Tullibee - 79 Lost, 1 POW

20 July, 2008 Something I can never forget..... Memories are strong for only survivor of WWII sub sinking.

By Amanda Warner For the Times Record News

A young gunners mate stood atop the lookout platform of the USS Tullibee, gazing through his night-vision goggles to survey the 90-to-180-degree sector of the Pacific.

It was about 3:15 a.m. March 27, 1944, when 19-year-old Clifford Kuykendall watched from the bridge as a second torpedo left the submarine's tubes to strike a Japanese convoy about 3,000 yards away.

They had recognized a foreign presence on the radar the night before now it was time to strike.

There they go, a fellow lookout remarked as the powerful warheads headed for their target. We'll see what happens now. Only a minute or two passed before a great force rocked the Tullibee, throwing Kuykendall overboard.

"The explosion was a red film," he said. "It passed over my eyes." The next time he opened his eyes, they saw nothing but ocean.

Kuykendall was submerged. He struggled, clawing at the surface, and finally broke out of the heavy water, now covered with a layer of diesel fuel.

I swallowed so much diesel I could taste it a year later, he said.

The sight he saw next didn't scare him he was too shocked to be afraid.

Kuykendall watched as the 312-foot submarine, his Tullibee, sank into the blue Pacific.

For about 10 minutes he heard other voices. Then all was quiet.

He was alone.

Today, Kuykendall is 83 years old. He doesn't live in the past, but the memories of the USS Tullibee and the 79 men who lost their lives are still strong.

"I remember just like it happened yesterday, he said. It's something I can't forget." Kuykendall grew up in Wichita Falls, and by age 17 he was ready for some excitement.

He decided to enlist in the Navy, so he made the trip to the recruiting office in the post office.

He took the entrance test, passed and then made his way to Dallas for the required physical. He weighed 135 pounds.

The Navy had a waiting list at that time, he said. He had to wait for the call summoning him to serve.

When the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, I was called the next day, he said.

He went to boot camp in Norfolk, Va. Next came gunnery school.

He then met John Hardy, from Colorado. Hardy talked him into the submarine service, which was strictly run with volunteers only.

Kuykendall didn't need much convincing.

ÒSub men received hazardous pay,Ó he said.

Several months later, his orders came for sub school.

They caught me off guard, he said. I had forgotten I signed up. After three months of training, he was walking down the steps of the administration building when he saw Hardy walking up. He was just getting started.

Unfortunately, that was the last time he saw Hardy. He was assigned to the USS Flower, a submarine that later struck an underwater mine. There were only six or seven survivors, Kuykendall said. Hardy wasn't one of them.

Kuykendall was assigned to be a gunner's mate on the USS Tullibee. He spent about 10 months aboard the Tullibee before it was hit by a torpedo in
1944, effectively ending the run.

At the time, the Navy was having all kinds of problems with torpedoes, he said. They weren't shooting accurately and would run in circles.

One U.S. submarine shot 20 unsuccessful missiles at a Japanese ship during the war, Kuykendall said. They were all duds.

Kuykendall later realized the torpedo that hit the Tullibee had run circular, coming back to strike the very submarine that released it.

It just ran erratically, he said.

As he watched the Tullibee sink beneath the waves, he was left with an overwhelming sense of shock.

He struggled to stay afloat, dogpaddling and drifting, until he realized he was wearing a life belt. He was too weak to fully inflate it, so he settled with blowing it up about half-way.

The only thing on the water was diesel fuel and me, he said.

He floated there until about 10 a.m., when he saw a ship flying a flag with a big rising sun.

The ship headed right for me, he said.

The Japanese men on board saw him and fired their weapons.

Bullets from their machine guns hit the water all around him, but none of them hit, Kuykendall said.

They eventually lowered a ladder and pulled him up out of the water.

The danger had only just begun for the young gunner's mate.

An English-speaking officer wanted answers. He yelled at Kuykendall and beat him with the flat of his fists. Kuykendall remained quiet.

Eventually, the officer left the room. He came back with a sword.

He said he was going to behead me, Kuykendall said. The sword was as tall as he was. Two guards were holding Kuykendall on either side. When the officer swung his weapon, they got out of the way, leaving Kuykendall to fall to the floor.

The blade passed over his head.

The officer tried again with the same result. A third time he swung the sword, and Kuykendall fell.

I was too weak to hold myself up, he said.

Luckily, a message came over the speakers in the ship, calling the officer away.

Kuykendall was transferred to a small room with a mat. A Japanese man with a red cross on his arm came and gave him a sweet cup of tea, he said.

Not all Japs were bad, Kuykendall said. They were just fighting for their country. Kuykendall carried that truth with him for the remainder of the war.

He remembered it as he stood tied to a tree for three nights and three days.

He remembered it in Saipan, as he looked through the white blindfolds the Japanese thought they were hindering him with.

He remembered it in Ofuna, a Japanese interrogation camp, as he was being questioned and beaten with homemade baseball bats.

He remembered it while he was hungry, thirsty and weak.

Finally, he felt kindness again in the Ashio Labor Camp in the Aslito Mountains, near Tokyo. A Japanese soldier gave Kuykendall a big, greasy rice ball, wrapped in a May edition of the Tokyo Times.

He said, I don't believe in mistreating prisoners, Kuykendall said.

At the labor camp, he worked in the copper mines, loading ore in cars and pushing them out of the caves. They sang songs to pass the time.

They worked 10-hour days, 10 days on and one day off, in fall 1944. They were fed two meager meals a day.

It was really cold in the mountains and we werent properly clothed, he said.

A vast majority of the prisoners in the camp had given up hope.

They were beaten down, Kuykendall said. I believed we would still win the war, they didn't. One night, they watched as B-29s flew over. He later discovered that it had been their last mission. They were flying in to bomb an oil refinery, he said.

On Aug. 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered.

A couple of days later, the guards tripled their rations. We knew something was up, Kuykendall said.

They were liberated Sept. 5, 1945.

The trip home was a long one. They headed back through Tokyo, where not a building was left standing, stayed a week in Guam and then went back to Pearl Harbor.

He was transported to a naval hospital for treatment. He weighed just 90 pounds.

He was ready to go home, so he asked to be transferred to the closest naval hospital to Wichita Falls. He went to Norman, Okla.

Eventually, Kuykendall received a roster of all the men aboard the Tullibee. Among the 80 men, he had been the sole survivor.

He worked to send letters to all of their next of kin. He told them he was sorry; he told them what he knew.

That's the least I could do, he said.

In 1948, he joined the Army and returned to Japan, back to all the places he had been held captive.

When the Korean War broke out, he was part of Task Force Smith, which was composed of more than 400 men.

Two-thirds of them were lost. Kuykendall sustained shrapnel to the head, and a bullet wound in his left leg.

North Koreans were lined up from one end of the horizon to the other, he said.

We got clobbered. After the war he wound up in civil service, working for security in the Department of Defense.

He retired in 1975.

Now, at 83, Kuykendall remembers his service proudly. He doesnÕt live in the past and he said the memories have faded a little.

It's something I can never forget, he said.

© 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co.

Here is a link to some great information and photos on German aircraft used as torpedo planes:

German Torpedo Bombers? What Were they?

It worked for the Hunley against the USS Housatonic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_(submarine)

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

As with Tullibee, it was a self inflicted shot from a torpedo on a circular run that sank the USS Tang, the top scoring US submarine in WWII, commanded by Dick O'Kane.

Ironically, on this patrol O'Kane had fired the best torpedo savo of the war, seven ships with nine torpedos. The torpedo that got the Tang was the last fish on the boat and after they fired it they were then to head back to Pearl for an overhaul. . . the handful of survivors spent the rest of the war in Japan as POW's.

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