Submarines At War

Description for SUBMARINES AT WAR: THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SILENT SERVICE by Edwin P Hoyt:

Comprehensive, illustrated, and action-packed, SUBMARINES AT WAR is an account of American undersea warfare from the time the Yankees invented a submarine to use against the blockading Royal Navy of George III. This history recounts the little-known use of submersible "Davids" in the Civil War, as well as turn-of-the-century developments by American inventors such as John Holland, whose vessel became the prototype of the world's submarines. Here, too, are the adventures of the early submariners called "pigboats." And here are the stories of several submarine disasters, from which the service learned basic lessons of operation and survival.

American submarines were deployed but saw little action in World War I; in World War II their use against the Axis powers, Japan in particular, shortened the war by years. Here's what it was like to be in the conning tower of the Spearfish as she takes the last "special passengers" off beleaguered Corregidor, what it was like to be in the torpedo room of the GrowlerChikufu Maru and the Miyodano Maru, and what it was like to be on the deck of the Wahooas she machineguns thousands of Japanese troops adrift in life jackets after the sinking of their transport. And here is what it was like to be depth-charged to the surface by Japanese destroyers and to suffer the atrocities of a Japanese prison camp.

There are stories of heroism and self-sacrifice, such as that of Captain John Cromwell, wo gave his life to protect the secrets of the invasion of the Gilberts and the breach of the Japanese navel codes. There are stories of the deaths of other brave men, such as Commander Samuel Dealey and the U. S. S. Harder. For the first time, Mr. Hoyt chronicles the sinking of the Harder, an ironic tale of a submarine sunk by a ship made in America.

The book devotes special attention to the war between the submarines and the Japanese antisubmarine forces, and to the controversy over the inferior American torpedoes which even at the end of the Pacific war, could be as dangerous to the American submarines that fired them as to the foe.

From the beginnings to the nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed vessels of the 1980s, this is the fascinating story of the men who go down to the sea in submarines.