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American Submarines Were the Unsung Heroes of World War II

Austin Smith

Published: December 9, 2024 10:55 am

Key Points

• German U-boat strategies changed during World War II into “Wolf Packs,” in which several submarines cooperated to sink enemy vessels. 
• The Allied reaction to the German Wolf Packs was a coordinated inter-service effort encompassing air reconnaissance, enhanced coordination, and strategic sites like Iceland. 
• American submarines played a crucial role in the Pacific Theater by sinking the majority of Japanese battleships and commerce ships after the Japanese supercarrier Shinano was destroyed.
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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Austin Smith: No, no. You had mentioned we don’t typically think of World War I as a submarine conflict, and that although it was, it had to submarines rather. Yeah. But really the defining war where the submarines, the golden era of submarines, so to speak, was World War ii. So let’s talk about that. What role did submarines play in World War ii?

[00:00:14] Austin Smith: Um, specifically the German Wolf packs. And talk about that dynamic.

[00:00:19] Michael Muir: Yeah. Well, Wolf packs, um. That was a development, uh, taken from some of the lessons of World War I. Now, the early U boat commanders, um, wanted all of the glory for sinking a ship to themselves. So they’re very individualistic, uh, in their approach.

[00:00:34] Michael Muir: And some of them did rack up some really impressive statistics. I think the most successful was, in fact, the, uh, commander, Walter Sveig, uh, Sveig, I think his name was, of the, the ship, the U boat that sank the Lusitania. If I remember correctly, his service record was 49 ships sunk. Um, so this is, this was, yeah, they, they were very busy, but the problem was because they were operating alone.

[00:00:55] Michael Muir: Uh, that limited the tactical opportunities they could seize, and they couldn’t always take on convoys. So the Wolf Packs was just bringing teamwork into submarine warfare. Um, so instead of being individual commanders looking for glory, it was a pack of submarines working together to bring down, you know, hundreds, or even thousands of tons of shipping.

[00:01:13] Michael Muir: And, uh You know, that minimizing the risk of convoys, um, but ultimately, um, when the United States was eventually drawn into the war, it took a huge effort by the Allies to overcome German wolf packs, um, and it was an inter service effort. Um, one of the huge aspects of this was that the Air Force, uh, were absolutely vital in this effort.

[00:01:34] Michael Muir: They would do a lot of reconnaissance ahead, and they was, again, submarines don’t spend as much time as you might think submerged, so you can actually spot them quite easily by aircraft. Um, And that was something the Germans didn’t do. The German services didn’t really cooperate in the same way the Allies did.

[00:01:49] Michael Muir: So this combined effort, along with other aspects, for example, uh, the occupation of Iceland gave the Allies a vital, uh, kind of midway point and a staging area for aircraft and for other ships. Um, and they were eventually able to, to overcome this problem. But it took, um, You know, a very long time. And the other thing the Germans did is they had other submarine ports because they, you know, they occupied France, they occupied Norway and Denmark.

[00:02:15] Michael Muir: So they gave them a lot more options. Um, so it was this really long term concerted effort, um, by the allies to overcome this problem. But one theater where submarines ran riot was the Pacific Theater. And again, this is something that doesn’t, you know, when we talk about the Pacific Theater, we think of, you know, island hopping, we think of Midway, we think of Pearl Harbor, we think of, you know, the invasion of Okinawa and all that sort of stuff.

[00:02:40] Michael Muir: But what often gets overlooked is just how absolutely critical to the American war effort submarines were. Um, American submarines sank the majority of Japanese shipping. Um, In the Pacific, it was about 55 percent and they did a lot of damage there. The Japanese never really developed in the same way the allies did.

[00:02:58] Michael Muir: The Japanese never developed an effective countermeasure to American submarines. Um, so America is basically a carte blanche to, um, inflict massive Japanese, primarily on Japanese merchant shipping, but however, they also sank a lot of warships. In fact, the heaviest ship ever sunk by a submarine, um, was by the Americans.

[00:03:19] Michael Muir: Uh, I think it was in 1944, early 1945, and Japanese super carrier called the Shinano, 60, 000 tons. Um, an American commander spotted, uh, the Shinano, it wasn’t finished yet, and it was being escorted by two ships. All he saw in his view was just a large ship and launched four torpedoes at it. It sank. He got nothing more of it.

[00:03:40] Michael Muir: And it was only after the war, the commander and the crew learned that they’d actually sank the Japanese super carrier that was in, uh, was, excuse me, under construction. Um, And if you think about the number of carriers, the Japanese had the limited number, um, you know, what a huge impact that was, um, albeit unknown at the time, and then there’s huge damage to Japanese shipping.

[00:04:00] Michael Muir: So this wearing down of the Japanese ability to effectively wage war, um, makes the American submarine force in the Pacific one of the unsung heroes of World War II. They did still lose a lot of subs. It was 52. Um, that were lost over the course between 1941 and 45.

[00:04:18] Austin Smith: But it’s interesting because we typically think about, uh, you know, Germany as being the submarine power of world war two.

[00:04:23] Austin Smith: So to, it’s, it’s probably surprising for a lot of our listeners to hear that actually the Americans had maybe not equally potent, but an extremely dominant submarine force as well.