Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [191]
The overwhelming majority of submarines sunk met their fates west of the Philippines or around Japan, in the sea-lanes where they engaged shipping. Retribution by enemy escorts was not the only hazard crews faced. On 31 October 1944 off western Luzon, Guitarro torpedoed an ammunition ship “which must have gone in the air almost as far as Manila.” Nineteen hundred yards away, the submarine was hurled aside by blast and driven fifty feet underwater, with vents springing and fuel oil spraying through the boat’s working spaces. Several boats were sunk in the same fashion as Seawolf, by “friendly fire” from U.S. ships or aircraft. Some grounded in shallow water, as did Darter following its triumph against Kurita’s fleet during the Leyte Gulf battle. The boat was scuttled after its crew was rescued by Dace. Others experienced horrors in minefields. Manuel Mendez of Pampanito said: “Many will tell you that depth-charging537 is the most frightening experience, but unless you have found yourself submerged in a minefield and heard the cable lines scraping along the hull, you haven’t lived.” Harder, commanded by the legendary Texan Sam Dealey, was sunk by a Japanese patrol boat on 24 August 1944, after sinking sixteen Japanese ships totalling 54,000 tons. The fate of some lost boats was never known.
Salmon defied the odds off Kyushu on the night of 30 October 1944, and miraculously survived. After torpedoing a tanker, the submarine was crippled by depth charges, and descended five hundred feet before her dive could be checked. The captain decided the boat must take its chance on the surface. At first they found the surrounding sea empty, the nearest enemy vessel 7,000 yards away. The submarine’s crew worked furiously in the darkness to plug holes and pump the bilges. After almost four hours, an enemy frigate approached. Salmon raked the Japanese with fire from its deck gun before escaping into a rain squall. Having radioed for aid, with the help of nearby sister boats and air cover, the submarine eventually reached Saipan.
A TRAGIC side effect of the submarine war was that it cost the lives of around 10,000 Allied prisoners, indeed perhaps as many as one-third of all those who perished in captivity. Nimitz’s captains had no means of identifying transports carrying POWs, on passage to become slave labourers in the Japanese home islands, though in the latter part of the war Magic decrypts did indicate that certain convoys were carrying prisoners. The U.S. Navy adopted a ruthless view, that destruction of the enemy must take priority over any attempt to safeguard POW lives. It is hard to see how commanders could have done otherwise: if the Japanese had perceived that prison ships were spared, they would certainly have started to carry Allied personnel as hostages. Most of the hapless victims simply vanished, their fates unknown to their attackers. In a few cases, however, there were survivors to tell terrible stories. The Japanese guard commander on the old tramp Shin’yo Maru told prisoners being transported from Mindanao that if the ship was attacked, he would kill them all. On 7 September 1944, Shin’yo Maru was indeed sunk by the submarine Paddle. As promised, guards mowed down all those who tried to flee the wreck. Some twenty POWs were mistakenly rescued by Japanese craft picking up their own people, but when the prisoners were taken aboard another vessel, each in turn was shot. One man jumped overboard and got ashore on Mindanao, as did a handful of others from the wreck, who were cared for by local people until picked up by Narwhal.
Two 10,000-ton