Hunters

The five gentlemen in the opening graphic were the top five United States Navy submarine commanders of World War II, all operated in the Pacific. Together they accounted for 95 Japanese ships of 370,000 combined tons!

Numbers in parentheses indicate multiple awards.

Included in those totals are an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, numerous destroyers, a frigate, and a number of enemy submarines. Between these five men there are three Medals of Honor, eighteen Navy Crosses, two Distinguished Service Crosses, 1 Distinguished Service Medal, six Silver Stars, and a Bronze Star with "V" for Valor. A highly decorated group.

Among the major combatants of Word War II, only Japan and the United Kingdom were island nations, heavily dependent on shipping to survive. Nazi Germany tried to bring Britain to her knees with her U-Boat fleet in Word War II. They came very close to doing so. Had it not been for Hitler's obsession with destroying the Soviet Union, there is a possibility that Britain might have had to sue for peace as the full might of the German military would be concentrated against her.

Three things (in my estimation) saved the British people from defeat: Hitler's invasion of the USSR in June of 1941' the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 (accompanied by Hitler's idiotic decision to declare war on the United States - the Japanese did not reciprocate by declaring war on the USSR), and in those days there was just no quit in the inhabitants of the British Isles.

In the Pacific theater, the United States Navy's submarines were a key factor in driving the Japanese Empire to the brink of defeat. In terms of merchant shipping, the Japanese started the war with 5,975,000 tons of shipping, at the end of the war that had been reduced to 1,983,000 tons. The submarine fleet played a large role in cutting off Japan from nearly all raw materials and leaving a number of Japanese garrisons to be left on their islands, out of the war and with no way to get back into the fight.

Of course, no submarine commander is very effective without a good crew. It was typical in WWII (on both sides) for the skipper to be decorated for the actions of the entire boat. It's worth noting that under the command of those five men, each of their crews received the Presidential Unit Citation -

The Presidential Unit Citation is awarded to units of the uniformed services of the United States, and those of allied countries, for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy on or after 7 December 1941. The unit must display such gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions so as to set it apart from and above other units participating in the same campaign. (Source)

Napoléon is alleged to have said that "there are no bad regiments, only bad colonels***." While it's true that a good unit can overcome having bad leaders (and that's pretty rare), a good leader can raise the performance of his unit to such an extent that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Those five men did exactly that.

Here are a few brief excerpts from the commands of these extraordinary skippers (all source listed below) -

Dick O'Kane - 

Under O'Kane, Tang also performed "lifeguard duty", a common joint operation, with a Fast Carrier Task Force, of positioning one or more submarines in a "ditching station" off an enemy island under air attack in order to rescue downed pilots. Off Truk, he and the Tang rescued 22 airmen in one mission, thus earning a Presidential Unit Citation.

O'Kane was captured by the Japanese when Tang was sunk in the Formosa Strait by her own flawed torpedo (a circular run of a Mark 18) during a surface night attack on October 24–25, 1944. O'Kane lost all but eight members of his crew, and was at first secretly held captive at the Ōfuna navy detention center, then later moved to the regular army Omori POW camp. Following his release, O'Kane received the Medal of Honor for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity" during his submarine's final operations against Japanese shipping.

Slade Cutter - 

On lifeguard (aircrew rescue) duty in support of carrier air strikes on Saipan, Seahorse next sighted and sank the Japanese submarine I-174, one of the few submarine attacks on another submarine in World War Two. A week later, Seahorse found another convoy 45 miles west of Saipan and sank another freighter, refueling in New Guinea returning to Brisbane, Australia, on the 11th. The patrol earned Cutter a third Navy Cross.

Accompanying the U.S. invasion of the Marianas in mid-June 1944, Lockwood sent more than a dozen submarines westward to interdict possible Japanese reinforcements. Seahorse departed Brisbane on 3 June for her fifth war patrol and took station with Growler in the Surigao Strait between Mindanao and Leyte 13 June. Seahorse's greatest contribution to the Battle of the Philippine Sea was locating a Japanese battle group centered around the Japanese battleships Yamato and Musashi. In 1997, Cutter told a reporter the task force was too distant to catch, but he sent a routine contact report.

Dudley "Mush" Morton - 

After three arduous war patrols, Morton was given the highly dangerous assignment of penetrating the Sea of Japan for the second time. Morton was reported missing in action in December, when his submarine was presumed lost. After the war, it was determined from Japanese records that, on October 11, in the time frame in which the Wahoo was expected to exit through La Perouse Strait, an antisubmarine aircraft found a surfaced submarine and attacked, dropping three depth charges.

Declared deceased on January 7, 1946, Morton had been awarded the Navy Cross with three gold stars in lieu of a second, third, and fourth awards, and the Army Distinguished Service Cross.

Eugene "Lucky" Fluckey - 

In one of the stranger incidents in the war, Fluckey sent a landing party ashore to set demolition charges on a coastal railway line, destroying a 16-car train. This was the sole landing by U.S. military forces on the Japanese home islands during World War II. Fluckey ordered that this landing party be composed of crewmen from every division on his submarine. "He chose an eight-man team with no married men to blow up the train," Captain Max Duncan said, who served as Torpedo Officer on the Barb during this time. "He also wanted former Boy Scouts because he thought they could find their way back. They were paddling back to the ship when the train blew up." The selected crewmen were Paul Saunders, William Hatfield, Francis Sever, Lawrence Newland, Edward Klinglesmith, James Richard, John Markuson, and William Walker. Hatfield wired the explosive charge, using a microswitch under the rails to trigger the explosion.

Fluckey was awarded four Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism during the eighth, ninth, tenth, and twelfth war patrols of Barb. During his famous eleventh patrol, he continued to revolutionize submarine warfare, inventing the night convoy attack from astern by joining the flank escort line. He attacked two convoys at anchor 26 miles (42 km) inside the 20 fathom curve on the China coast, totaling more than 30 ships. With two frigates pursuing, Barb set a then-world speed record for a submarine of 23.5 knots using 150% overload. For his conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity, Fluckey received the Medal of Honor. Barb received the Presidential Unit Citation for the eighth through eleventh patrols and the Navy Unit Commendation for the twelfth patrol.

Samuel Dealey - 

Dealey brought Harder back to Pearl Harbor in late February 1944 and took her out for her fourth war patrol on March 16, 1944, accompanied by USS Seahorse (SS-304). Initially assigned lifeguard duty for downed U.S. aviators in the western Caroline Islands, Harder on April 1 was sent to rescue an injured navy pilot on a small enemy-held island just west of Woleai, which had been hit that day by an American aircraft carrier strike. Under an umbrella of friendly air cover, Dealey nosed Harder toward the beach until he could ground the bow up against the encircling reef and hold it there by working both screws. Then, in the face of Japanese sniper fire only partially suppressed by the circling aircraft, a rubber boat was sent in to retrieve the navy pilot, Ensign John Galvin, who was brought to safety in what soon became a legendary rescue. As Blair**** describes it:

"By the time Harder got to the reported position, the aviator, Ensign John R. Galvin, was already stranded high and dry on the beach. Dealey lay alongside a reef. Dealey's third officer, Samuel Moore Logan, and two volunteers jumped in the water with a rubber raft, secured to Harder by a line. They fought their way through the surf and coral to the island and picked up Ensign Galvin. As they were attempting to get back to Harder, a navy floatplane landed to help. It ran over the line and parted it. Another Harder volunteer jumped in the water and swam another line through the surf and coral to the beach. While navy planes circled overhead, Japanese snipers fired away from the foliage while the Harder's men pulled the raft and the five men aboard. The rescue was later hailed as one of the boldest on record."

Continuing his war patrol, Dealey next scored his first of four successes against the toughest target of all – an enemy Japanese destroyer. Spotted by an enemy aircraft north of the Western Carolines on April 13, 1944, Harder became the quarry of a patrolling enemy destroyer Ikazuchi, which closed to within 900 yd (820 m) before Dealey fired a spread of torpedoes. The destroyer sank within five minutes. Dealey's ensuing contact report quickly became famous: "Expended four torpedoes and one Jap destroyer". Four days later, Dealey also sank Matsue Maru (7,000 tons) near Woleai – then surfaced again near the island on April 20 to bombard the beleaguered Japanese garrison with his submarine's 4 in (100 mm) deck gun. Harder ended its fourth war patrol at Fremantle, Australia, on May 3, 1944.

Brave men, brave crews.

Sinking of the Japanese destroyer Yamakaze on 25 June 1942 approximately 110 km southwest of Yokohama harbour, Japan,
photographed through the periscope of the U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus (SS-168).

Sources:

• O'Kane - The Lucky Bag - 1934, Wikipedia
• Cutter - The Lucky Bag - 1935, Wikipedia
• Morton - The Lucky Bag - 1930, Wikipedia
• Fluckey - The Lucky Bag - 1935, Wikipedia
• Dealey - The Lucky Bag - 1930, Wikipedia, The Destroyer Killer
• Gato-class submarines
• Balao-class submarines
• JANAC Losses

Editor's Notes: 

1. Yes, I'm still in a bit of a nautical mood, I ran across the story of CDR Dealey and one thing led to another. Which is often how a blog post is born (at least the way I do it).
2. That header will be up all this week to commemorate the passing of Captain Carroll "Lex" LeFon eight years ago, an event that played a large role in my starting this blog. The F-4E Phantoms were photographed at the memorial service for Brigadier General Robin Olds, one of my heroes. This Missing Man formation is slightly non-standard as it is the leader of the formation (#1) pulling up from the formation, usually the leader of the second element (#3) is the one who does that. As Robin Olds was arguably one of the best leaders to ever serve in the United States Air Force, it is only fitting (and proper) that #1 pulls away. In the hearts of many, General Olds will always be #1.

* The Joint Army–Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) was a United States inter-service agency set up to analyze and assess Japanese naval and merchant marine shipping losses caused by U.S. and Allied forces during World War II. (Source)

** One war patrol as prospective commanding officer.

*** Colonels command regiments, at least they did in "olden times."

**** Blair Jr., Clay (1975). Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan. Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company. ISBN 0-397-00753-1