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It's January 1943 in the Pacific and American submarine skipper Dudley Morton is just 10 days into his first patrol aboard USS Wahoo. His mission: to sink Japanese ships and disrupt supply lines. This aggressive strategy is a radically new tactic for the U.S. Navy, and Morton is just the man to carry it out. See these water wars up close and witness Morton take on entire Japanese convoys above and below the Pacific in this thrilling exploration.
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00:00January 1943, less than 10 days into his first patrol aboard USS Wahoo, an American submarine
00:13skipper performs reconnaissance of a Japanese base in the South Pacific. Nine miles into the
00:21occupied harbor, he spots the most dangerous possible threat. An enemy destroyer armed with
00:30underwater bombs called death charges, designed to sink submarines. Before the war, the decision
00:41would have been easy. Stay safe. But to defeat Japan, they'll need a new generation of commander
00:49to take the offensive and pursue every contact against each enemy's ship, putting his vessel
01:00and crew in the line of fire.
01:02In World War II, a subsea weapon allows warriors to fight from beneath the waves. With cunning,
01:09force, and tenacity, their enemies strike back.
01:27Revolutionary, but still sometimes primitive, it's a desperate bid to change the course
01:39of war. Their stories are legend.
01:461 PM, January 24, 1943.
02:00As the new commander of USS Wahoo, Dudley Morton discovers a Japanese destroyer in Wiwak harbor.
02:10The safe choice is to remain concealed and retreat unnoticed. If they're spotted, the waters here
02:17are too shallow to avoid a sustained death charge attack. But Morton is determined to inflict
02:23serious damage on the enemy's fleet. The destroyer will not be spared. He positions his submarine
02:323,000 yards from the destroyer and prepares for attack. His strategy is to fire three torpedoes,
02:42betting at least one will hit.
02:44TDC, give me a one-degree spread on each of those fish. We're gonna fire tubes two, three, and four.
02:52Fire two. Fire three. Three firing. Fire four. Four fired electrically.
03:07But the destroyer clips along faster than expected. All three torpedoes run through its wake.
03:14Morton increases the input speed for the destroyer. Wahoo fires again.
03:21But this torpedo also misses. The destroyer has changed course. The failure to land these shots
03:29allows the enemy to zero in on Wahoo. The destroyer charges, betting it can ram the sub into shallow waters.
03:43Morton's aggression exposes a radical shift in the risk tolerance of American submarine captives.
03:58This scenario would have been unimaginable aboard Wahoo under its first commander.
04:09It was commissioned and brought into service just five months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
04:20With so many battleships, escorts and aircraft damaged or destroyed,
04:24Submarines are charged with taking the fight to Japan to target Japanese merchant shipping.
04:35This is going to be a war of attrition. It's gonna be fought every convoy, every ship at a time.
04:42Wahoo bears the name of a fish. A tradition forged in the earliest days of American submarines.
04:49It's a Gato-class sub. 312 feet long and 27 feet across the beam.
04:57Its combination of speed, endurance and payload are almost unrivaled.
05:04The Gato is probably the biggest mass production submarine of World War II by a long shot.
05:10It's about twice the size of what the Germans did.
05:12It's big for a reason. It's big because it's designed to operate very far from home for a long time.
05:20There's sufficient food and supplies on board for the crew to remain at sea for 75 days.
05:31And enough diesel to cruise nearly halfway around the world without refueling.
05:35And because it was a big sub, you could put in things that were extra.
05:40Size paid off big.
05:42August 23rd 1942. Wahoo embarked on its first patrol to sink Japanese ships and disrupt supply lines.
05:57Unfortunately, its leadership did not live up to the boat's promise.
06:03The skipper was Marvin Kennedy.
06:07His crew described him as gentlemanly.
06:18The U.S. Navy spent peacetime years training its submarine force as scouts to collect intelligence and avoiding contact with the enemy.
06:28When America entered the war, this risk aversion failed to deliver successful strikes.
06:34They had too many skippers that just were too timid.
06:37They wanted to stay far away from their prey.
06:39They didn't want to raise the periscopes really high for fear of being seen.
06:42They didn't want to run on the surface for fear that a Japanese patrol plane might see them.
06:48On October 5th 1942, Kennedy failed to pursue a Japanese aircraft carrier.
06:55The crew watched as one of the most prestigious targets of the war sailed from their grasp.
07:04They've put a lot at risk. Long distance travel.
07:07They're putting themselves in harm's way.
07:09And then to not attack aggressively and get the sinking is demoralizing.
07:14It has to hurt their morale and Kennedy has to see it as well.
07:17The second patrol wasn't much better.
07:24Under Kennedy's command, they returned to port with most of their torpedoes unused.
07:32In December, Wahoo's first skipper is relieved of submarine command.
07:38The U.S. Navy replaces over 40 skippers, nearly one in three by year's end.
07:47America had built this perfect fighting machine in the Gato-class submarine,
07:52but didn't have the talent early in the war to be able to maximize that submarine for its full potential.
07:57Wahoo's new skipper is Dudley Mush Morton.
08:02Mush Morton takes command of the Wahoo at the start of his third patrol
08:07in a really pivotal time in the submarine war.
08:10He's a Kentucky Baptist.
08:12He has broad shoulders and big hands and a jaw that Time Magazine describes as looking like a bowler.
08:19It's kind of this James Dean-like figure of submarine service, you know.
08:23Morton watched Kennedy fumble Wahoo's second patrol before taking command.
08:28He promises his men this time will be different.
08:32Morton recognizes that a lot of submarine skippers aren't as aggressive as they need to be
08:37in order to truly fight the Japanese.
08:39He sees a lot of weaknesses in the strategy that others are employing.
08:51Morton's first mission has two objectives.
08:55Reconnoiter a Japanese supply base called Wiwak Harbor.
09:00Then, enter the patrol area around the island of Palau to hunt and sink Japanese shipping.
09:13Wahoo leaves the submarine base in Brisbane, Australia, January 16th, 1943.
09:18But just finding Wiwak proves a challenge.
09:23The Pacific Ocean is vast.
09:25The area is sort of encompassing much of where American Submariners would patrol would be about 8 million square miles.
09:30The coordinates are vague.
09:33Their target lies somewhere between 4 degrees south and 144 degrees east.
09:38A grid of nearly 4,700 square miles.
09:43Without accurate charts, direction comes from an unlikely source.
09:48A crew member purchased a school atlas for his kids while in Australia.
09:53One of its maps now is the search for Wiwak.
09:57They use it to produce a hand-drawn version as a navigational chart.
10:04With headings laid in, the crew proceeds on the surface towards Wiwak, even during the daytime.
10:11This way, the Sub can travel at over 20 knots or 23 miles per hour.
10:18Submurged, it can only push 9 knots for short bursts.
10:23It's faster, but makes the Sub much easier to detect.
10:28Morton mitigates the risk with extra lookouts.
10:31After spotting an enemy aircraft, the crew moves to clear the bridge.
10:48Since they are unsure whether the plane has discovered them, Morton insists they wait until it is within 6 miles of the Sub.
10:56He weighs the risk of possible aerial bombs against more surface running time.
11:03As the plane gets closer, the crew watches and waits.
11:08Wondering if this new skipper might be pushing his luck too far.
11:13In the South Pacific, an American submarine crew watches with dread as an enemy aircraft approaches.
11:31Under their previous commander, USS Wahoo would have plunged safely beneath the waves.
11:36With their new skipper, Dudley Morton, they keep visual contact with the Japanese airplane.
11:43It's a risky game. Planes armed with bombs are Submarine's deadliest threat.
11:50Tense minutes pass.
12:06Just before it crosses into Morton's safety perimeter, the plane turns away, without detecting Wahoo.
12:12Morton saves time averting the crash dive, and keeps the crew's eyes peeled for targets, asserting their mission to sink ships.
12:30At 3 a.m. on January 24th, 1943, Wahoo reaches the mouth of Wiwak Harbor.
12:45Perched on the edge of a fiercely protected shipping route in the Bismarck Sea,
12:52it shelters a Japanese supply base on the north coast of occupied New Guinea.
12:59Bases at Wiwak Harbor are positioned in such a way so that the Imperial Japanese forces
13:05can very quickly mobilize and strike out and knock off some of the supply lines to Australia.
13:13Morton makes the decision to prowl the shallow bay.
13:16For the submarine to enter the harbor, what they're doing is entering an area where there's not a lot of room to maneuver.
13:31Wiwak Harbor will be defended. There's obviously infantry, there's guns, and the potential for warships.
13:38So to enter the harbor is very risky, but it's the only way to get a good reconnaissance.
13:43Nine miles in, Wahoo discovers a Japanese destroyer.
13:49Normally, you're told not to go after destroyers because you should concentrate on the merchant ships.
13:55A lot of the question with submarines is how you decide what's worth the effort.
14:00Which ships are worth attacking and taking a chance with your life?
14:04It's not just the target, but the location.
14:07He's better off sneaking back out of the harbor and then making an attack as the ship leaves,
14:11because that way his ship is safe and the crew by extension are safe.
14:16But Morton decides to take on the tempting target.
14:20The Japanese couldn't produce destroyers very fast.
14:23The fleet destroyers were not only hard to reproduce, but they had elite crews.
14:27Every ship that the Americans sank and the Japanese, not only did they lose the ship, they lost their experienced sailors.
14:35They lost the money that it took to build that ship and the resources involved.
14:40It would erode their powerful war machine.
14:41Before he strikes, Wahoo's captain gambles on a surprising substitution.
14:52He hands control of the periscope to his second-in-command.
14:57Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Morton is revolutionary in the way he conducts attacks from his submarine.
15:04He uses his executive officer on the periscope as the co-approach officer,
15:10and he sets up the attack in his head without being a slave to one particular area.
15:15In this case, the periscope, which is traditional for submarine captains.
15:17It's really easy if you're looking through the periscope to get hung up on exactly what you see in that narrow frame of field.
15:24Morton believes it's much better for him to be able to sort of step back, have that 30,000-foot view of the whole battlefield.
15:30Because it's constantly evolving, it's constantly changing, and he needs to be able to be focused on the big picture.
15:38The job goes to Richard Hetherington O'Kane.
15:42You only get a few shots of looking through a periscope.
15:44What you do is you make a guess as to where the target is and how fast it's going and what direction.
15:50He takes a quick look around with the periscope.
15:53It'll be supplemented by other things, but it's really all on his shoulders.
15:57Distance, 2,200 yards and decreasing.
16:00O'Kane calls the destroyer's range.
16:03Morton plots the attack.
16:05Fire three.
16:07Three firing.
16:09As he fires three torpedoes, it costs Morton an eighth of Wahoo's ordnance.
16:14But increases the odds he'll sink the target before it sinks him.
16:22When the first three torpedoes miss, Morton increases the destroyer's speed in his calculation to 20 knots and fires.
16:30They miss again.
16:35Wahoo has expended its ammunition to no avail.
16:40Worse, they have drawn the attention of the sub-destroyer.
16:44You're a submarine officer.
16:47As long as you're submerged, not bothering anybody, you're invisible and you're safe.
16:53Every time you fire a torpedo, if it's visible, that gives the other side an incentive to get you.
17:00But Morton does not attempt to dive into darkness.
17:04He leaves the periscope up, announcing Wahoo's exact position.
17:08He has just two more torpedoes loaded in the forward tubes.
17:15The destroyer charges.
17:20Ramming a submarine to damage its hull is a crude but effective tactic.
17:25For Wahoo, the close proximity leaves no time to evade if its torpedoes miss.
17:35The only option left is an extremely risky shot.
17:39Sailors call it down the throat.
17:42Morton aims a shot straight at the ship's narrow bow.
17:45He has no other option.
17:49If he doesn't, the destroyer has all the speed and maneuverability to pound him into the silt.
17:54And there's nothing he can do above it.
17:56So he's forcing him to attack.
17:58And trying to change the attack into a situation where he can have any vantage.
18:05As the destroyer closes in, Morton's timing has to be perfect.
18:10If they fire for more than 1200 yards, the destroyer has time to evade.
18:15But within 700 yards, the torpedo won't have time to arm and detonate.
18:21I fired two.
18:23They release two torpedoes.
18:25The first flies wide.
18:26The skipper and his crew must wait and hope.
18:27The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:28The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:29The first flies wide.
18:30The skipper and his crew must wait and hope.
18:31The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:35The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:36The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:37The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:42The first flies wide.
18:43The skipper and his crew must wait and hope.
18:44The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:45The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:49The second torpedo finds its mark.
18:56Fire two.
18:57Fire two.
18:58An American submarine fires at a Japanese destroyer deep in an occupied harbor in the South Pacific.
19:12On patrol with a new commander.
19:16Their first five shots have gone wide of a Japanese ship.
19:21Their hope now rests on a final torpedo.
19:24A risky shot now racing towards the narrowest part of the ship.
19:29Less than a minute after the previous shot flies wide.
19:36The second torpedo to fire.
19:39Down the throat.
19:40Lands a direct hit.
19:42The blow cripples the destroyer's hull.
19:46We got a hit.
19:48Wahoo plunges deep under the damaged ship.
19:53To avoid a collision.
19:54And escape the carnage.
19:56The warship remains afloat on the surface.
20:04After an attack, sometimes the ship goes down right away.
20:07Other times it can take hours.
20:09Sometimes you can torpedo a ship and it doesn't sink.
20:16The wounded ship starts to drop its cache of depth charges.
20:26More than 80 feet down, Wahoo's crew must prepare for the worst.
20:42Death charge attack can be a truly terrifying thing for these submarine sailors.
20:53Because you're in a windowless boat.
20:56So you can't see where the danger is coming from.
20:58You're just trapped in this tin can with explosions that are shaking your boat.
21:03There's a lot of noise.
21:06They go off.
21:07You hear them go off.
21:08It's nerve-wracking.
21:15Suddenly, the explosions cease.
21:18A violent cracking noise penetrates Wahoo's hull.
21:22They're not that far from the boat to begin with.
21:29So you can hear this right through the hull.
21:31The sound of the water rushing.
21:33The sound of the boilers exploding.
21:35And certainly the sound of steam and water boiling.
21:38The crew recognizes the sound of the doomed destroyer's boilers hitting cold seawater.
21:43The destroyer has split open.
21:50Wahoo ascends to periscope depth to confirm the kill.
21:58It burns as its bow tilts into the sea.
22:04Morden banks his first win as a submarine commander.
22:07He now needs to steer clear of enemy countermeasures to escape the bay.
22:11Now let's go.
22:16He drops Wahoo down to 100 feet and slips away.
22:24As darkness falls, the Japanese light fires on Wiwak shores.
22:28Perhaps to reveal a glimpse of the sub sailing by.
22:34Wahoo cruises deep, past the flames.
22:37Mush Morton clearly demonstrates to his crew the potential of the Gato-class engineering.
22:50And despite the victory, he's not ready for home.
22:56They have 18 torpedoes left to sink Japanese ships.
22:59Morton and his new crew are just getting started.
23:08The next leg of his patrol takes Wahoo north.
23:13Towards an island chain also occupied by the Japanese.
23:16After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan continued its sweep across Asia.
23:23The conquests create a realm triple the size by the middle of 1942.
23:29The Japanese message that they send the world is Asia for the Asians.
23:34But it really means Asia for the Japanese.
23:37They've been fighting a war in China since 1931 really.
23:42And very intensively since 1937.
23:45Once it looked as though the Japanese were going to try to conquer all of southern Asia.
23:49We wanted to stop them.
23:54As an island nation, Japan relies on spoils from freshly annexed lands.
23:59To fuel its smelters and feed its men.
24:02Shipping routes crisscross the Pacific.
24:05The Japanese materially bankrupted for all of their supplies.
24:08They had to bring in everything almost from other places.
24:11Not only food to feed its burgeoning population, but also all of its war materials.
24:14The bauxite needed to make aluminum, rubber for tires, cotton for uniforms, and more importantly oil.
24:20Which is the most vital thing to be able to power their battleships, fighter planes and bombers.
24:24It really depended on a maritime highway system.
24:27If the Japanese economy is cut off, you can cut off its ability to buy and bring in the imports it needs.
24:33To build the war goods that it needs and to fuel its war machine.
24:36In 1943, Chester William Nimitz commands the American Pacific Fleet.
24:47His forces practice unrestricted submarine warfare in the Pacific.
24:54Unrestricted submarine warfare means if I see it, I sink it.
24:58Once everything is fair game, that's total war.
25:00Under Nimitz, submarines are assigned to specific patrols to attack the Japanese.
25:13Wahoo heads for an island pass, used to fast-track goods from Palau to Japan.
25:21Palau exports key natural resources.
25:24There's bauxite, which is used for aluminum, which becomes the airframes for the Japanese aircraft.
25:32And secondly, of course, phosphate for fertilizer.
25:34You can fertilize your crops and get better food production.
25:39But operating in these waters won't be easy.
25:43Japan has built warships unchecked since it pulled out of a naval disarmament treaty in 1936.
25:49Its navy is the third largest in the world and concentrates predominantly in the Pacific.
25:58They spent most of the period between wars building up a large fleet.
26:04The large fleet was excellent.
26:06In 1941, they were probably about as good as you could get.
26:09And they move, they move rapidly.
26:12Their army is very effective.
26:14The odds in the Far East are very much in their favor.
26:16Well entrenched, Japanese forces have a clear advantage.
26:31To help tip the balance, Wahoo needs to locate enemy ships.
26:35More than 30 hours into the search, the crew spots smoke on the horizon.
26:45Captain, I want to see this.
26:51Wahoo has found not one ship, but three.
26:55A Japanese convoy.
26:58Two freighters carry goods.
26:59The third is a troop transport.
27:02Morton knows that allied convoys were perfect targets for Nazi Germany earlier in the war.
27:08The Germans combined numbers of U-boats.
27:12The wolf packs were a way of finding convoys and then concentrating against them.
27:16In the Pacific, Morton faces these three ships alone.
27:19You're by yourself, deep in enemy waters.
27:24You have to be very self-reliant.
27:27Every time you do anything, you're exposing yourself to destruction.
27:33Wahoo's new skipper must decide how to strike an entire convoy.
27:37Close on target.
27:41Close on target.
27:57In January 1943, an American submarine has not successfully attacked a Japanese convoy.
28:03The choice will make Morton and Wahoo famous and infamous.
28:24In January 1943, USS Wahoo stalks a Japanese convoy near Palau in the South Pacific.
28:30The assault will expose Dudley Morton's submarine much longer within enemy waters than attacking one ship.
28:40Submarines are uniquely vulnerable to attacks from depth charges, aerial bombs, even gunfire.
28:48The more aggressive you are, the more chances you give the enemy to get you.
28:56Wahoo sets out in pursuit.
28:58Once in position, they target the lead freighter.
29:03In Morton's time, American skippers will expend on average nearly 12 torpedoes per ship sunk.
29:11Wahoo has 18 warheads against ships loaded with enemy troops and supplies.
29:17He will need to be more efficient if he wants to sink them all.
29:21I'm firing a torpedo at his ship.
29:25He's moving, I'm moving.
29:27The angles are all tricky.
29:29You have to figure out where he's moving and how fast.
29:33The torpedo data computer is a submariner's mathematician.
29:37The torpedo data computer is a way of figuring out where the target is, how fast it's going, what direction it's going, then working out what the torpedo has to do to get to it.
29:49Readings from the periscope tell the data computer, or TDC, the enemy's range bearing an angle relative to the submarine's bow.
29:59It tracks the target and sets a precise course for the torpedo.
30:04During the Second World War, the American Navy relies heavily on the TDC.
30:12You got it.
30:13It aims, fire the torpedo, does the rest.
30:16No one else had quite that integrated system.
30:18The first two torpedoes race towards a Dakar Maru, a Japanese freighter with a 56-foot beam.
30:34Morton quickly turns on her sister ship, a 475-foot-long Arizona Maru.
30:42Standby four.
30:43Four on standby.
30:44Fire four.
30:45The Mark 14 steam torpedo leaves a wake, a very visible wake, in the water.
30:52So as the torpedo is fired, you're literally identifying your location with a line from where the torpedo is to where you were.
31:01The longer you take the fire, the greater your chance of being caught.
31:05The first two torpedoes hit their mark.
31:09The Dakar Maru starts to list.
31:11But only one of two torpedoes meant for the second freighter strikes, and just slows the Arizona Maru down.
31:21With two ships wounded, Wahoo's skipper shifts his focus to the third.
31:26Standby three.
31:27Siwa Maru transport, the convoy's prize.
31:30If it's carrying people, you are literally eliminating the threat of a brigade or a division, which would, in the end, the Marines would have to start on the beach to defeat.
31:41Morton decides to fire three torpedoes into the transport ship.
31:45Fire three.
31:46It draws down Wahoo's supply of ordnance, but it increases his chance at a kill.
31:52Morton doesn't want to let it get away.
31:55He knows the ship is probably loaded with troops key to Japan's war effort, on their way to fight Americans.
32:01Two of the three warheads hit, the transport is crippled.
32:14But the second freighter returns to the fight, and charges straight at Wahoo.
32:20It's a tactic called ramming.
32:22If you can ram the submarine, your chance of escape, obviously, is very, very high.
32:28If you try to run away, the submarine will always catch you.
32:32So, by charging it, what they're trying to do is eliminate the threat the only way they can.
32:36For the second time in three days, Morton's submarine faces a charging ship.
32:42For the second time, they don't back down.
32:46Up until this point, submarine skippers would go out, and they would shoot at a ship, and hopefully sink it.
32:51And then they would often retreat.
32:52And rather than go in and just fire and then flee, he came back time and again.
32:58Wahoo fires two more torpedoes at the charging freighter.
33:07The freighter keeps coming.
33:12Morton abandons the collision course and dives his sub.
33:17Now the Wahoo, the hunter, is now being hunted.
33:20But the Wahoo has most of the advantages here.
33:23If the Wahoo can dive, the transport will invade them, and they can follow the transport.
33:27If the transport gets hit by the torpedoes, same result, you still sink the transport.
33:31The Wahoo still has the advantage, despite the fact that it's being attacked.
33:36Morton has spent four precious torpedoes on the Arizona Maru, but has failed to sink it.
33:41He allows the freighter to limp off, and turns back to the troop-filled Siwa Maru.
33:50Fire four.
33:51Fire four.
33:52Two more torpedoes seal the ship's fate.
34:02The explosion registers high enough it obscures the bridge.
34:05So you're talking about 70 feet in the air.
34:08The crew, of course, is now trying to abandon ship.
34:10Huge explosion.
34:12Which could mean the Maru was carrying explosives.
34:14It could mean it was carrying something of high volatility.
34:18Aviation fuel, maybe.
34:19And that's what was struck.
34:20They have now sunk two-thirds of the convoy.
34:25But Morton still wants the freighter that got away.
34:29The Maru has now been joined by a tanker.
34:33But the cost of attacking three targets from underwater scuttles the plan.
34:39While Wahoo is submerged, it runs off of 250 lead-acid battery cells, each four feet high.
34:46They could stay underwater on battery power for up to 48 hours, but only if they're going at two knots.
34:51Which, you know, that's only about three miles an hour.
34:53I mean, that's the pace most people would just go walk.
34:57After hours of running and gunning, Wahoo's batteries are drained.
35:02Morton must call off the chase, and he's forced to surface.
35:07Two engines are sacrificed to recharging.
35:09With limited speed and range, he decides to circle back and check on the target he hit earlier.
35:18Transport sinks slowly enough that those on board get into the boats.
35:24Twenty Japanese lifeboats dot the Bismarck Sea.
35:30Hundreds of men are in and around them.
35:32Victims of Morton's torpedoes.
35:37But also declared enemies who Morton believes are committed to destroying Americans.
35:44He thinks they're troops. They're going to go ashore.
35:47They'll still be affected ashore. They'll be killing us when they get there.
35:51Better to kill them now.
35:53He thinks of the boats as legitimate targets.
35:55And if they're legitimate targets, of course you shoot them up.
36:05As Morton considers the situation, he orders his crew to be at the ready.
36:18Fire!
36:19But Morton is wrong about these troops.
36:25He orders his gunners to go ahead and open fire.
36:28He doesn't know it, but a lot of these people in the water are actually Indian POWs that the Japanese have actually picked up.
36:35And he assumes that they're all just Japanese soldiers, troops that may have been transported.
36:39And they go on and they end up shooting and killing 195 of these Indian POWs, in addition to about 87 Japanese troops.
37:02Keep firing!
37:03Morton was never reprimanded for this act.
37:05In fact, he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross by General MacArthur for sinking these ships.
37:20We tended not to think that you should shoot up survivors.
37:24However, it was also an extremely savage war in which Japanese survivors often kept fighting.
37:30So, that also feeds into what happens.
37:41Mush Morton's killing of these POWs, it's really a dark cloud that even today still hangs over the legacy of the Wahoo.
37:48By 2pm, Wahoo's skipper moves on.
37:57The submarine's batteries are charged.
37:59Wahoo can now pursue the ships that escaped.
38:07The freighter and a tanker have a head start of at least two hours.
38:10To catch up, Morton must remain surfaced.
38:16This makes Wahoo vulnerable.
38:18The Japanese have almost certainly deployed anti-submarine units to protect what's left of their convoy.
38:24You don't want to run a surface fight with someone because it doesn't take that much to put you out of business.
38:31That's an awfully dangerous thing to do.
38:34Just after 3.30pm, a puff of smoke, then the profile of two ships off the port bow.
38:40A tanker carrying millions of gallons of oil flanks the fleeing Arizona Maru.
38:48But Wahoo has only seven torpedoes left.
38:52Morton plans to spend three on the tanker.
38:56A hit will deny precious fuel to Japan's war machines,
39:00but leaves limited options in case of counterattack.
39:03As soon as the torpedo counts down to just a handful or a couple of torpedoes,
39:09Morton's ability to attack is seriously diminished.
39:15As darkness falls, Wahoo readies for a final offensive.
39:20Fire two.
39:26Fire three.
39:28Fire four.
39:34Fire four.
39:36Three torpedoes race towards the Manzia Maru tanker.
39:39Re El unhealthy.
39:45Fire four.
39:47Fire four.
39:49Fire four.
39:51Fire four.
39:53Fire four.
39:55freight four.
39:56Fire four.
39:58Fire four.
40:00Fire four.
40:02Fire five.
40:02Fire five.
40:03It costs two more to halt the tanker.
40:10Morden has two torpedoes left to sink the freighter he's chased for hours.
40:16Before he can fire, the Maru launches its own attack.
40:23Munitions light up the night sky, shells drop into the water, and some ricochet over the periscope.
40:29The submarine sacrifices armor plate for stealth, so if that hull is punctured in any way shape or form and can't be repaired, that submarine can never dive.
40:39Which means its greatest chance of survival in enemy controlled waters just vanishes.
40:44So to be on the surface and under direct fire from the ship, whether destroyer or transport, is extremely scary.
40:50And for the crew, extremely dangerous.
40:55Fire 3.
40:56January 1943. Off the coast of Palau in the South Pacific.
41:01A submarine commander has downed a Japanese freighter and a troop ship.
41:08An Arizona-class freighter from the convoy now attacks the American crew.
41:17Scope down.
41:18Wahoo dives 90 feet to escape the gunfire.
41:29The splash of shells continues to echo through the hull.
41:35Even though merchant shipping is not usually armed with depth charges, out of periscope range, the submarine is helpless and can't fight back.
41:45About 15 minutes later, Morten creeps back to the surface.
41:59The freighter has stopped firing.
42:02But a cold light sweeps over the horizon.
42:06The submarine-killing destroyer is now on the hunt for Wahoo.
42:17Morten doesn't have the firepower to take it on.
42:19There's not much you can do about a destroyer. They're often as fast or faster than you are.
42:26So it puts the submarine at a major disadvantage.
42:31But Wahoo's skipper makes the decision to finish what he started.
42:35As the destroyer closes in, Morten fires his last two torpedoes at the final ship of the original Japanese convoy.
42:45The freighter slips from the light.
42:50As the destroyer deals with the carnage, Wahoo retreats to the safety of the open sea.
42:55The commander much morebare is after half an item andaksÓ™.
42:57Go under attack that bill can't Reid's return for water.
42:59Two penguins that focus on being Irrified to shore- worse.
43:00OK, it's it really is.
43:01Multiple messages, although most tanks are absolutely overtime- Fryer forest.
43:02The freighter slips from the light.
43:05As the destroyer deals with the carnage, Wahoo retreats to the safety of the open sea,
43:08Commander Mushmorem has no of exceedingwal Kamen in solves any particularilah as always.
43:11Commander Mush Morden gets his kill.
43:13Commander Mush Morton gets his kill.
43:30On February 7th, 1943, Wahoo steams proudly into Pearl Harbor.
43:37A broom lashed to its periscope.
43:40It's a sly wink to the naval tradition of claiming a clean sweep.
43:45The Navy and the press love it.
43:49The brass holds up Morton and his crew as the first U.S. submarine to sink a convoy.
43:55More than 11,000 tons of Japanese ships and shipping.
44:00Despite submariners being notorious for their silent service,
44:06Morton and Wahoo make the papers.
44:11He even consults on Cary Grant's wartime thriller, Destination Tokyo.
44:19Morton's aggressive tactics change the conduct of the American submarine campaign.
44:25That was the first time in the war when any submarine skipper had actually done something like that.
44:30No one had really dared to think that, hey, could an American submarine go in and destroy every ship?
44:36Well, Mush Morton showed that it was a possibility.
44:39It set a higher bar for submarine skippers going out after that.
44:42It wasn't just Mush Morton, it was the support team he had, primarily with Dick O'Kane.
44:49As a leader, his men really loved him.
44:51Wahoo's triumph would be short-lived.
44:55Before year's end, Wahoo is struck by a hail of enemy bombs in the Sea of Japan.
45:04It would be declared overdue and presumed lost.
45:10At 36 years old, skipper Mush Morton goes down with his ship.
45:16But his impact on submarine warfare is critical for the U.S. Navy.
45:21Mush Morton was the trailblazer.
45:24If you look at the totality of the war, he's sort of the center fulcrum on which all the strategy and tactics really change.
45:32It's fascinating because all of that really falls on the shoulders of one individual.
45:38Morton and the crew of Wahoo demonstrate the tenacity and tactics needed to tip the bounds of power in the Pacific.
45:45We showed the rest of these skippers what could be done, what they could accomplish with this amazing submarine that the American Navy had constructed.
45:54.
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