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Are We on the Brink of World War III? | Geopolitical Analysis 🌍⚠️
In this video, we break down the escalating global tensions, proxy conflicts, and shifting alliances threatening modern global stability. From multi-theater conflicts to the rise of hybrid warfare, we explore expert predictions, defense strategies, and what a major global conflict would actually look like in the 21st century.
💬 What do you think is the biggest threat to world peace today? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
🔔 Follow the channel for weekly deep dives into history, global affairs, and military strategy!
In this video, we break down the escalating global tensions, proxy conflicts, and shifting alliances threatening modern global stability. From multi-theater conflicts to the rise of hybrid warfare, we explore expert predictions, defense strategies, and what a major global conflict would actually look like in the 21st century.
💬 What do you think is the biggest threat to world peace today? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
🔔 Follow the channel for weekly deep dives into history, global affairs, and military strategy!
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TVTranscription
00:12Pearl Harbor was a turning point in history.
00:18A monument to the battleship Arizona commemorates the beginning of America's involvement in the
00:24Second World War, while the USS Missouri represents its end.
00:37A much smaller memorial consists of two simple circles of stones honoring what many consider
00:45to be the single most effective military service in the war against Japan, the submarine force
00:51of the United States Navy.
00:54The American submarine campaign during the Second World War was the most absolutely decisive
00:58victory of that war.
01:00The submariners in the Pacific reduced the Japanese Imperial Navy and its merchant fleet
01:04to near non-existence.
01:08A short distance away from the memorial stones is the USS Bofin, a survivor of the conflict,
01:15preserved now in her wartime condition as another monument to American submariners.
01:23Curious visitors come in peace today, but in her prime, the Bofin was a warrior, travelling
01:31nearly 100,000 miles on nine war patrols, sinking more than 67,000 tons of Japanese shipping.
01:38But such victories are not won without sacrifice.
01:43There are 52 stones at the Pearl Harbor Submarine Memorial representing the 52 boats lost in action
01:49during World War II, and the 3,505 men who perished with them.
02:01The American submarine force relied on stealth and secrecy.
02:07It was vital that enemy ships once struck never knew it was a sub that hit them.
02:13The operations of American submarines were largely secret, and they became known collectively
02:18as the Silent Service.
02:23The letters SS in the Bofin's official hull number identify her as a submarine.
02:29The numerals show she was the 287th sub to enter the US Navy since the force was founded,
02:35with the commissioning of the USS Holland in 1900.
02:45Bofin and the other boats of her time represented the pinnacle of American submarine technology,
02:51which was slow to grow, but luckily peaked just before the Second World War, at the critical
02:57moment when it was needed the most.
03:02Two decades earlier in the First World War, Germany had proved the submarine could be a deadly weapon,
03:09with such sinkings as the civilian ocean liner Lusitania.
03:13The rest of the world, however, recoiled from this indiscriminate warfare.
03:19At that time there was a great abhorrence of submarine warfare, particularly the unrestricted type,
03:27that was considered almost cowardly to attack and sink unarmed merchant ships, or even ones that had a deck gun.
03:36In the 1920s, arms limitations treaties officially declared unrestricted attacks to be immoral.
03:44The operational doctrine for submarines was known as the cruiser rules.
03:49The cruiser rules meant that the submarine had to surface across the merchant ship, inspect its cargo or whatever,
03:56and then put the crew in a place of safety.
04:01This political climate between the wars threw naval planning into confusion.
04:07If stealth attacks were unacceptable, how else could submarines be used?
04:12Prior to the World War II submarines, and some years before World War II started,
04:18there was quite a discussion in the Navy as to the proper employment of our submarines.
04:24And it was decided that the battleship was the backbone of the Navy.
04:29The idea was that the submarines were adjuncts to the battle line, and they were to help the battle line.
04:36And so what was the mission of the submarine?
04:38Well, it was to scout ahead of the fleet, and that's why they had to be called fleet submarines.
04:45Prior to the mid-1920s, American submarines have been small, awkward and ineffective.
04:51But now, to keep up with the fleet, subs needed 20-knot speeds and long-range capabilities.
04:57This demanded designs for boats exceeding 300 feet in length.
05:07At 1,500 tons or more, the boats were double the weight of their predecessors.
05:12But there was a weak link. American diesel engines of the 1920s simply didn't measure up.
05:20We could not manufacture a diesel that was reliable enough over the long term,
05:25which could provide a submarine on the surface with 20 knots plus,
05:30in order to sustain the pace of a battle fleet. It couldn't be done.
05:36But in the early 1930s, the American railway industry was spearheading improvements in diesel technology,
05:43designed to replace steam power on American trains.
05:50A fortunate coincidence for the Navy.
05:53Similar engines were ideal for submarines.
05:58One of the things you have to remember about submarines is that they have to have two power sources.
06:03One for submerged operations, which is all electric,
06:06and one for surface operations, and that's the diesel engine.
06:12An efficient new arrangement no longer geared diesels directly to the propellers as in earlier subs.
06:18Now the engines drove generators full-time,
06:21feeding current to electric motors, which turned the propellers instead.
06:26Large banks of batteries provided the power when the sub was submerged,
06:30and the diesels had to be shut down.
06:34By the time of 1934,
06:37we really had a submarine that had almost all the characteristics of the fleet boat
06:42that did serve during the war.
06:45And from then on, it was a case of improvement and refinement.
06:51Among those refinements were features to make the crew comfortable on long voyages,
06:56because the next military opponent facing Navy submarines was undoubtedly Japan.
07:04If the Navy's major task was to patrol the Pacific,
07:09if they needed a submarine that had long sea legs,
07:12could accommodate a large crew, could sustain them over time,
07:15could provide clean air and good food, and good drinking water.
07:19And the design had to be like that.
07:23In 1939, plans for the USS Gato were in progress.
07:27With war on the horizon,
07:29its design became the fixed standard for mass production.
07:36The Gato class subs were 312 feet long and carried a crew of 80.
07:41They could make 19 knots on the surface,
07:44dive 300 feet,
07:45and were equipped for journeys of 10,000 miles or more.
07:49The American fleet submarine had come of age.
07:55I think they were the best-built submarines in the world.
07:58Barring none, Germans, anybody else, we had the best.
08:01Ours were Cadillacs.
08:02We all had our own bunk, we had three good meals a day,
08:05and we had a clean boat, we had a good crew, we had water.
08:09We'll take a bath once a week.
08:11And they were very reliable and dependable.
08:15But the first of the Gato class subs,
08:18who had failed to be ready in time to do the job for which they were designed,
08:22World War II was about to begin.
08:35When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
08:38battleships and airfields were the prime targets.
08:46Unnoticed or ignored were the submarines,
08:49whose crews were among the first Americans to fight back.
08:54When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
08:56there were a number of submarines alongside the dock in the submarine base.
09:00They, of course, immediately went to General Quarters,
09:03as all the ships did.
09:04And they ran up on deck and got their guns and tried to shoot at the airplanes.
09:12A remarkable set of photographs offers a seldom-seen view of the attack.
09:16The submarine Narwhal at anchor,
09:19with the explosive clouds of black smoke
09:21rising from mortally wounded battleships in the background.
09:29On deck, sailors survey the attack in disbelief.
09:33The Union Jack flutters in a breeze on the Narwhal's bow,
09:39as a Japanese plane streaks out of the sky toward them.
09:46The Narwhal, together with the submarine Tautog and a nearby destroyer,
09:50were given group credit for shooting down the first of 29 Japanese planes destroyed in the raid.
09:56On this day of infamy, however, their efforts were barely noticed.
10:02They didn't do much good,
10:05because these submarines were not intended to be anti-aircraft ships.
10:08They did man their stations and they did well for themselves,
10:12and the planes did not attack them,
10:14therefore there were no submarines damaged at Pearl Harbor.
10:19The submarine Pompano, built in 1937,
10:22had been scheduled to arrive at Pearl Harbor
10:25from the mainland that very morning.
10:27But rough weather had made her four hours late.
10:30A young officer, Roger Payne, was on board.
10:33The message that we got, plain language, was,
10:36this is no drill, tack on Pearl Harbor, this is no drill.
10:41And that was really the only word that we had for quite a while.
10:49With cautious war procedures suddenly in place,
10:52the Pompano did not reach her destination for another two days.
10:57It was a very shocking thing indeed to enter Pearl Harbor
11:03and to see the battleship Roe in a shambles,
11:09bodies actually floating in the water still.
11:11This was two days after the event.
11:15The pre-war rules of restraint and political courtesy
11:19under which all subs had previously operated
11:22were suddenly gone.
11:25When the Japanese hit us at Pearl Harbor,
11:27that wiped all the rules off the books.
11:29We got a piece of paper signed by Admiral Nimitz,
11:33directing our skipper to use unrestricted submarine warfare,
11:38sink ships of any kind whenever he found them.
11:41I was cheering.
11:43I was emotionally affected by what I saw
11:47as the quality of my leadership.
11:51At the start of the Second World War,
11:53there were only 55 American submarines in the Pacific,
11:58split between Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.
12:01A number of these were the obsolete S-class boats,
12:05built in the early 1920s,
12:07and useful for little more than training.
12:10The others, like the Pompano,
12:12were advanced but developmental fleet subs.
12:15The new mass-produced Gato-class boats were yet to be completed.
12:21When the USS Gato was commissioned three weeks
12:24after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
12:26it signalled the beginning of a massive building program
12:30that would put 221 new fleet submarines into duty
12:34before the end of the war.
12:38In 1943, the Gato-class would be succeeded
12:41by the Baleo-class subs.
12:44Nearly identical in appearance,
12:46they were equipped with heavier hulls
12:48and called thick-skin boats,
12:51allowing dives to 400 feet,
12:53100 feet deeper than the thin skins.
13:00As America mobilized for war,
13:02the unique role of the submarine
13:04with its cutting-edge technology
13:06attracted the finest of crews.
13:08The Pacific fleet was in shambles,
13:10and only the boats of the Silent Service,
13:13remained to draw the battle lines.
13:20We were fortunate during World War II.
13:22Lots of people wanted to get into submarines
13:24for different reasons.
13:26But the main one was that the submarine
13:27was carrying the war to the Japanese at the time,
13:30while our surface forces in the beginning of the war
13:33were rebuilding in order to be able to carry the battle
13:37to the final conclusion.
13:39There were a lot of people who,
13:41even though they didn't have an engineering education,
13:44were very, very interested in what made things tick.
13:47And there were a lot of things on board a submarine that ticked
13:49and needed taken care of.
13:53The fleet subs of World War II were ingenious fighting machines.
13:58Inside their engine rooms,
14:00four massive diesels cranked out 5,400 horsepower each,
14:05all converted instantly into electricity.
14:09In the next compartment was the manoeuvring room,
14:12where the electric current was switched to drive motors
14:15or charged batteries, or any combination of the two.
14:20When you operated, normally it would be on the surface
14:22and you would run your engines,
14:24but your engines would also keep the battery charged up.
14:27Submerged, however, you would discharge the battery,
14:29the engine would be stopped.
14:31If you ran for one hour at high speed, you'd be discharged,
14:35or you could go at very slow speed for as long as 48 hours
14:38before you were fully discharged.
14:40But at that point, you had to recharge your battery.
14:42The only way we could do it
14:44was to surface the submarine and run the diesel engines.
14:49A full battery charge could take up to eight hours,
14:52so the safest time to do it was at night,
14:55when the sub was least visible to the enemy.
14:59At the very centre of the submarine was the control room,
15:03containing the valves, gauges, levers and handles
15:05to accomplish the dive and surface,
15:08the very essence of the sub's existence.
15:14We practiced this a lot, and we thought of all sorts of different stratagems
15:18to increase our diving speed to the point where the trigger,
15:22which was my first submarine,
15:24we got her down to 30 seconds during the war.
15:28Immediately above the control room was the conning tower,
15:32the part of the boat located inside the superstructure
15:35that gave all the World War II subs their distinctive silhouette.
15:39Here, the course of the boat was directed as she was put into battle.
15:43This was home to the helm, the boat's steering wheel,
15:47as well as its eyes, the periscopes.
15:52High-tech gear was crowded into every corner.
15:56Sona, to listen for targets,
15:58and radar, installed after the start of the war,
16:02for an electronic fix on Japanese vessels.
16:07There was even a special Torpedo Data Computer, or TDC,
16:12a mechanical calculator that automatically tracked a target
16:15and aimed the torpedoes.
16:17Those were fired from the two torpedo rooms,
16:20with six tubes forward and four tubes aft.
16:26They carried a great load of torpedoes.
16:28They carried 24 torpedoes.
16:30We could reload them quite quickly.
16:33So, they were the ideal ship for that purpose.
16:38I called them ships, because I think they indeed should be ships,
16:41but they were called boats by everybody.
16:46Boats was a leftover from the days when submarines were small and insignificant,
16:53demeaned by surface sailors.
16:55Now, these subs held the key to victory,
16:58and the designation Boats became a badge of honor.
17:03In drawing the noose around enemy shipping,
17:06American submariners would encounter enough danger
17:09and adventure to make them legendary for years to come.
17:18Of all the stories involving American submarines
17:21in the Second World War,
17:23none is stranger than that of the sister ships Sculpin and Squalers.
17:27Their tale involves each in a drama concerning the other's survival and destruction.
17:38The saga begins in early 1939,
17:41at a time when events were leading the world to a war that was still months away.
17:51The Sculpin and Squalers were commissioned 45 days apart at the naval shipyard
17:56in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
17:57Their designs were virtually identical.
18:03They were among just ten American subs built that year,
18:06still too early for the accelerated construction programs
18:10which the war made essential.
18:14On May 23, 1939,
18:17the Squalers was on a training run off the northeast U.S. coast,
18:20near the Isles of Shoals,
18:22barely 15 miles out from the Navy Yard in Portsmouth.
18:25As she prepared to execute a standard test dive,
18:29something went disastrously wrong.
18:35On that particular dive, everything went according to plan.
18:39But for some mysterious reason, which has never been explained,
18:44the main induction vent opened,
18:46letting a cascade of ocean water into the engine rooms of the submarine.
18:54Many people don't realize what the main induction is.
18:58It's a huge pipe, as big as 36 inches in diameter,
19:02to take air into the submarine to run the diesel engines.
19:08Now, the four engines on the submarine have to all run at the same time sometimes,
19:12and they all need air at the same time,
19:14so that's why you need that big of a pipe.
19:16It's a huge pipe.
19:19In the control room, attention during the dive
19:22was focused on what submariners called the Christmas tree,
19:26a panel of red and green lights showing the status of all the openings on the boat,
19:31including the main induction.
19:34But inside the engine room,
19:35a huge column of water was suddenly pouring in through the big pipe.
19:41We know it was open because water came in,
19:44but we also have testimony from all the people in the control room
19:47that that was shut and they saw the green board,
19:50they saw the light was green, not red.
19:53The sub would sink in a matter of minutes.
19:57Water rushing into the engine room killed nearly half the crew immediately,
20:01a quick but agonizing death.
20:05I just know that they all had enormous pain, enormous,
20:09and it ruptured their eardrums immediately
20:12and probably blanked most of them out.
20:14They were probably unconscious because of the tremendous pressure that hit them that fast.
20:23Survivors rushed to close the submarine's watertight doors,
20:26isolating the flooded compartments behind secure bulkheads.
20:3133 men found themselves stranded in the forward part of the boat.
20:34They were 240 feet below the surface of the icy Atlantic
20:39and had no idea how many hours would pass before they would be missed.
20:50When the Squalus failed to report in after its test dive,
20:54her sister ship, the Sculpin, was dispatched to look for her.
20:59The Sculpin found the Squalus by sighting its emergency rescue buoy,
21:04with which all subs were equipped.
21:06With Sculpin leading the way,
21:08ships, men and equipment converged on the scene.
21:13But the Navy had an ace, a new diving bell, invented by Commander Alan R. McCann.
21:19It was rushed to the scene aboard the rescue ship Falcon.
21:23In a hazardous operation, the bell was sent to save the lives of men who would otherwise be doomed.
21:34You sort of glued to the radio.
21:36We didn't have TV, so we were all following as best we could how these people might be rescued.
21:44And there was a tremendous feeling of wonder and awe when, in fact, they brought up a large number of
21:51the crew.
21:52The first bell brought up seven crewmen, and it was almost miraculous to the press covering it,
21:59that for the first time in history, crewmen were brought up from great depth from a submarine.
22:06It was almost unbelievable.
22:07Cables went out across the country, and gigantic headlines were generated in newspapers everywhere.
22:15Though 26 men were killed, all 33 who remained alive in the forward part of the boat were saved.
22:23In the inquest that followed, no conclusions were reached on the cause of the squalus accident.
22:28The mystery of the main induction failure remains unsolved.
22:36People have theorized over what happened, and I have my own theory, no proof, just my idea.
22:41The chief in charge, a checked-out sailor he'd been in submarines for years,
22:47must have somehow opened the induction when he meant to open some other valve.
22:53He probably grabbed the wrong handle and opened the induction.
22:57You can do a thing a million times correctly, that's the time you're gonna make a mistake.
23:02You've got to realize you get stale when you're doing something, so you don't do it routinely.
23:09You've got to remember that this kind of a thing, you do it unroutinely every time.
23:16Two months later, the sea off the Isles of Shoals was crowded once more,
23:21as salvage ships converged on the site to raise the sunken squalus.
23:26The Sculpin was on hand again.
23:28Her destiny still linked closely to her sistership.
23:33When President Franklin Roosevelt saw pictures of the squalus as her nose leapt from the water,
23:39he likened her to a sailfish.
23:41That description would become the new name of the ill-fated boat,
23:46after it was restored and put back into service.
23:49But cynical, superstitious sailors thought this sub would forever be cursed.
23:54They nicknamed it the Squailfish.
24:03When America entered World War II, so did the Sculpin and the Sailfish.
24:08For two years, the boats were sent on routine patrols in the Pacific, until in 1943,
24:14fate and the Japanese once again reunited the sisters.
24:22In November of that year, Captain John P. Cromwell was aboard the Sculpin,
24:27coordinating a three-sub wolf pack near Truck Island, then a major Japanese base.
24:32Suddenly, the sub was attacked by an enemy destroyer.
24:36Depth charges damaged the Sculpin beyond recovery.
24:38The Sculpin was at the limit of its battery charge. There was no way it could stay under the surface
24:47any longer without dooming the crew. So the skipper decided to scuttle the boat.
24:54The Sculpin had to sink herself to avoid falling into enemy hands.
24:59Cromwell, as the wolf pack commander, now faced an agonizing decision.
25:04He was aware of a planned top-secret American strike on the Gilberts, a thousand miles to the east.
25:10His capture could put the entire strike in jeopardy.
25:15He is recorded as having said, I'm sorry, I can't go with you.
25:19I cannot take the chance of being put on dope or torture that I couldn't take or something
25:26to cause me to tell information that I have known. Therefore, I must stay aboard.
25:33And he did. He went down to the wardroom and just simply sat there until the ship sank.
25:40John P. Cromwell was awarded the Medal of Honour for his sacrifice.
25:49The Sculpin was lost, but 41 of its crew survived. Captured by the enemy,
25:55they were put aboard the aircraft carriers Chuyo and Unyo, bound for Japan.
26:00It was here that the sailfish, formerly called the Squalus, entered the Sculpin story once again.
26:11The Sculpin prisoners were below decks on the two carriers as they headed into a typhoon off the
26:17coast of Japan. It was the same area that the sailfish was assigned to in seeking out enemy vessels.
26:26Due to the violent storm, the sub could not actually see its target.
26:31Only radar revealed the presence of a large enemy vessel.
26:35The sailfish attacked the Chuyo and sank it, not realizing that 21 Sculpin prisoners were on board.
26:47Among the 21 Sculpin prisoners, only one survived. It was not until the end of the war that investigators
26:54could piece together this strange story of the two boats. Years would pass before the lone survivor
27:01of the Sculpin, learned the deadly torpedo had come from the sailfish. Sister ship to his own.
27:12As the United States rushed to put its newest submarines into production at the beginning of
27:16the Second World War, the Navy was forced to make the best use of its existing boats as well.
27:23Among the 55 subs scattered across the Pacific when the war began were three extraordinary giants. The
27:30Argonaut, the Narwhal and the Nautilus. Designed in the late 1920s, they were part of the then
27:39current V-class boats and were the largest submarines built by the US Navy until the advent of nuclear power
27:46in the 1950s. Biggest of the three was the Argonaut, the only American submarine designed specifically as
27:56a mine layer. Her aft torpedo tubes were replaced with special mine laying hardware.
28:05At 387 feet, this made her 10 feet longer than her sister ships and 75 feet longer than the mainstream
28:13fleet subs of World War II. But the great size of the Argonaut and her sisters also put them at
28:19a
28:19disadvantage. Well, as it turned out, they didn't have enough power. They were low-powered, so they
28:27didn't have the speed they should have had. The diesel engines that we later put on our submarines were
28:32not available for them at the time. So these subs were slow, unwieldy, but simply were not very effective submarines.
28:41Even prior to the war, America's big subs had achieved fame. The Argonaut, for instance, became
28:48a movie star. In 1931, John Ford sat on her deck to direct his film entitled Beneath the Sea.
28:57The Argonaut was given a special paint job and the number U172. The submarine played the movie role of a
29:06large German U-boat, which her basic design closely resembled.
29:12Four years later, in 1935, when child actress Shirley Temple visited Pearl Harbor,
29:18it was the Argonaut she toured. No lesser sub would do.
29:25Of all the three big boats, only the Narwhal docked at Pearl Harbor faced the enemy directly on the first
29:32day of the war. The Argonaut and Nautilus were on patrol near Midway Island. Although they saw
29:39no action on that day, the Nautilus would play a key role in the Battle of Midway seven months later.
29:46The Nautilus was, with a lot of other submarines, was deployed around Midway Island with the idea that
29:55some of them would be in place if the Japanese made the landing attack on Midway, which we expected.
30:02On June the 4th, 1942, the Nautilus made contact with Japanese warships.
30:09After launching an unsuccessful attack, the sub watched the enemy fleet turn north,
30:14leaving one destroyer behind to counter-attack. This tactic proved a fatal mistake for the Japanese.
30:24And after diff-charging for a while, the destroyer took off and headed north. It just so happened
30:29that Commander McCluskey, an aviator, was out with the dive bombers. He was in charge of this flight,
30:35and they had lost contact. They had no idea where the Japanese were. So he saw a destroyer heading
30:42north at high speed. And he said, well, why is that guy heading north? There's only one reason I can
30:46think of. He wants to rejoin the main force, and we'll follow him. So McCluskey followed the destroyer
30:53that had been depth-charging the Nautilus. And sure enough, in a short time, there was the Japanese
30:58fleet dead ahead. When McCluskey arrived, there was no air cover over these carriers. He just simply
31:04attacked as soon as he could. And they released their bombs, and two hit the Akagi, and the others
31:10were all hit equally. And so it was the debacle of the Battle of Midway. It happened in five minutes.
31:18Three weeks later, the Nautilus again made history. She was sent to a spot near the entrance of Tokyo
31:25Bay to bombard the summer palace of Emperor Hirohito. Alone among the submarines, the big boats had the
31:32right equipment for the job. They were built with large six-inch guns, biggest submarine guns we've
31:42ever had. And they developed great accuracy with those guns. Danger in the Japanese waters prevented
31:52the Nautilus from attempting the surface attack. Instead, she found another target.
31:58On June the 26th, 1942, the Nautilus tracked, torpedoed, and sank the Japanese destroyer Yamakaze,
32:05an extraordinary event because of this photo.
32:10I happened to have been a friend of a man named Ozzy Lynch, who was aboard the Nautilus,
32:17and he was a photographic nut of the sort. But he had invented a means of getting pictures to the
32:23periscope, which we believed had been told it was impossible. But Ozzy Lynch,
32:28being one of these characters who doesn't believe what he's told, tried it and it worked.
32:35This was the first combat photograph taken through the periscope of an American submarine.
32:40It was published in Life magazine and was used repeatedly as a morale booster,
32:45a rare break from the heavy secrecy of the submarine force.
32:49The picture was released two months after the fact.
32:52Navy sensors mentioned neither the submarine's name nor where the photo was taken.
32:59One of the things about that picture, which is a little surprising, if you look at the water line,
33:06you see that the horizon is at an angle. Not only is the ship sinking, but the water is sinking
33:12too.
33:13And that is because the people who took the picture and had it developed and put it out for publication,
33:19they couldn't let well enough alone. They had to improve it. And if you look at the picture,
33:25you see that, hey, come on, guys, that isn't the way it really was.
33:27You have to turn the picture to see the way it really ought to be.
33:34Despite these successes, the slow speed of the Nautilus, Narwhal and Argonaut,
33:39made them better suited to special missions than lone patrols. A young officer named Philip Eckhart,
33:46was on the Argonaut in August of 1942, when just such orders were given.
33:51We were told to get out to the Pearl Harbor at best speed, and they had a special mission in
33:59the
33:59offing for us, and we didn't know what it was. The mission cast the Argonaut and Nautilus as
34:08transports for the US Marines. They carried Carlson's raiders to their daring attack on Makin Island,
34:15destroying the Japanese garrison in a diversion to the American invasion of Guadalcanal 1,200 miles away.
34:25Nine months later, another special mission. The Nautilus, this time with the Narwhal,
34:31transported 214 army scouts to take part in the American operation to drive the Japanese from the
34:38Aleutian island of Attu. Philip Eckhart had transferred to the Nautilus from the Argonaut
34:46prior to the Attu raid. It was while serving aboard his new ship, he heard about the loss of his
34:52old one.
34:53In January 1943, the Argonaut had been sent east of New Guinea, near the Solomon Islands.
35:01I just feel that the Argonaut was sent into extremely dangerous waters, keeping in mind what her
35:08configuration was, namely no after torpedo tubes. After torpedo tubes are 25 to 45 percent of your
35:18firepower, and they didn't have them. The Argonaut's aft torpedo tubes had been replaced with the
35:26specialised hardware she needed for her original design as a mine layer. Though she performed well
35:32in taking marines to Makin Island, she had never been on a true war patrol, seeking enemy ships to sink.
35:39A Japanese destroyer proved her undoing.
35:44The Adept charged him, and the Argonaut, as reported by the Japanese actually, to have surfaced. Their bow came out
35:54of water at a sharp angle.
35:56The destroyer was close aboard, pumped it full of shells, and she sank.
36:04Her stone at the Pearl Harbor Memorial records a loss deeply felt amongst submariners. The Argonaut,
36:11as big as she was, carried more crew than any other American sub. 106 men died when she went down.
36:19The single greatest submarine loss of World War II.
36:27By mid-1944, the war was going well for the American Navy. Preparations were being made to
36:34retake the islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian in the Marianas. A thousand miles to the west of those
36:42islands, submarines were sent to patrol the San Bernardino Straits in the Philippines. There they
36:48hoped to sight the Japanese Mobile Force, a fleet of ships expected to oppose the American offensive.
36:55Locating the enemy was essential.
36:58The Japanese forces came through San Bernardino Straits. There was a long way to go to make an
37:04engagement with the American forces. For several days they were unsighted. Nobody knew where they were.
37:13Zeke Zelmer was an officer aboard the USS Cavalla, a new submarine on its very first war patrol.
37:21Cavalla was built at Connecticut's Electric Boat Company and was commissioned on February 29th
37:27in the leap year 1944. Her men called her their lucky lady.
37:34For sailor superstitious reasons, we felt that the 29th of February was very auspicious and
37:40would bring luck to our lady, our lady the Cavalla.
37:45But the crew scarcely knew how lucky she'd be as they searched for the Japanese Mobile Force
37:51off the Philippines their first time out. Through the sonar system came the tell-tale sounds of enemy ships.
38:00Cavalla saw some ships, heard some noises submerged, and found themselves with a mobile force coming at them.
38:09Ideal situation for a submarine commander. Sink them all.
38:13But skipper Herman Koestler did nothing. Unknown to his crew, his orders were to report first, shoot second.
38:23Herman did his duty. He did not fire. He let the carriers and all these magnificent, juicy targets go by,
38:31and they didn't know he was there. And he simply then surfaced, got his antenna out of water at any
38:37rate,
38:37and sent the report. It turned out to be one of the decisive reports of that battle.
38:44Frank, the crew and the officers as well were devastated. Here we had the ideal target on our
38:52first patrol. We counted at least 15 ships by sonar. We had seen some seven ships, including carriers and
38:59cruisers. And we just sat there as quietly as we could, listened to them, and let them go. So there
39:07was
39:07terrible disappointment. Morale was probably at the lowest ebb I saw it on the Cavalla.
39:13But Zelmer and the crew would not be disappointed for long.
39:17With the Japanese now located, the orders were changed. Shoot first, report second.
39:23Before long, ships appeared on the horizon, one of them a large aircraft carrier.
39:30Now the important thing to know was, are they Japanese or are they American? The last thing we
39:37wanted to do was to sink an American carrier. So it is imperative that we have a positive
39:41identification before we went in and made our final attack.
39:49The ship in the periscope was the Japanese carrier, Shokaku. Although the Cavalla's crew did
39:56not yet know it. To all appearances, it could have been one of their own.
40:00The Shokaku was unlike most Japanese carriers. It had a large island on the deck, as do our carriers.
40:07Most of the other Japanese carriers were more flush deck. And so we had the one that was the easiest
40:14to
40:14confuse with an American carrier.
40:18The Cavalla was closing fast. And the Skipper still could not identify the carrier.
40:24The executive officer took a look. Then the fire control officer.
40:29They desperately scrutinized their ship recognition manual. Time was running out.
40:37We are now getting closer to the target and we are going to have to make a decision.
40:42The Skipper raises the scope, takes another observation. We are now close enough.
40:47The ensign stands out and he says, there is a meatball on the ensign. It is Japanese.
40:52We will fire on the next observation. We proceeded for the next three minutes.
40:59Fired six torpedoes at 1200 yards. Three of them hit.
41:08The Cavalla and her crew remained submerged, avoiding attacks from Japanese destroyers.
41:15Sounds of the enemy depth charges grew faint as she edged out of the area.
41:19And then we heard four very large explosions in the distance.
41:23These were not depth charges because they continued to rumble.
41:27It was an explosion and a lot of noise. And we thought that spelled the end of the carrier.
41:34Zellmer and the Cavalla crew were elated. Even more so when, long afterwards,
41:40they realized that the Shokaku was one of the carriers that participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
41:48Well, one is elated with what one accomplishes during the war.
41:53And then when you put the little frosting on the cake as well,
41:55you get an extra feeling of satisfaction. A little payback, if you will.
42:03The Cavalla was one of the two American subs to sink aircraft carriers prior to what became
42:08the first battle of the Philippine Sea. The Japanese Navy entered the action so weakened,
42:14it was a lopsided American victory, forever known as the Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot.
42:25Today, Zeke Zellmer is a frequent visitor to his old boat. The USS Cavalla sits in a state of disrepair
42:32at a naval memorial park in Galveston, Texas.
42:44One of fifteen wartime subs still surviving. There are plans to restore her to the condition
42:50in which she served so well.
42:55As for the boats that succumbed in battle,
42:57the memorial at Pearl Harbor reminds us that submariners never considered them lost.
43:08The submarine way of saying that a submarine is lost is that she's on eternal patrol.
43:15This means that she's down there with her crew on board and they're serving their country and will
43:21forever. They can't do anything else. Their lives are ended, submarines are wrecked, but they're serving their country.
43:40The submarine way of saying that it's a country that has been megantly streaming to the memorial part.
43:41It is a basement to the seize-in-town authorities.
43:45The submarine may be found on a nursery.
43:45The air is the same space as the hostage system allows them to capture them.
43:46The air is the same space as the관이 still there,
43:48and the air is connected to the force of the soldiers.
43:48The air is the same space as the 81 one has been killed...
43:48It is the same space as the stationary.
43:50The air is the same space for the energy of the city of Gopala and the air is the same
43:50space.
43:50The air is the same space for complete major passage of the air is the same space as the air.
43:56What the air is?
44:23Transcription by CastingWords
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