Dark is the Harbor: Tales of the U. S. Submarine War Against Japan in World War II; The War Patrols of USS Trout (SS 202) by Jeweldeen “Deen” Brown RMCM (SS) USN Ret. Edited by Stephen Leal Jackson PhD

Author:Jeweldeen “Deen” Brown, RMCM (SS), USN Ret. Edited by Stephen Leal Jackson, PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / General
Publisher: Outskirts Press, Inc.
Published: 2024-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

During the war I was stationed on the submarine, USS Trout (SS 202). Even on our boat, stationed in advanced areas, we started hearing about these prisoner of war camps and the kind of treatment and cruelty a prisoner could expect. Crew members talked about whether or not we would allow ourselves to be captured by the Japanese or choose some other more drastic option. There were many emphatic assertions made by my shipmates including some that said they would not allow themselves to be captured; whether or not they would have actually evaded capture by choosing that drastic alternative fortunately was never tested.

The Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, and President Roosevelt were very aware of the situation and knew too that the United States would have to lodge a protest with the Japanese to try and mitigate their terrible actions. One of the main problems that the government had was to find a credible and verifiable source of the information about the condition of the Japanese prisoner of war camps. In order to file a persuasive official protest, which would undoubtedly find its way into the news media and governments of both our allies and our enemies, the accusations had to be accurate, provable, and compelling. With these prerequisites in mind, government officials considered how to obtain very solid and irrefutable information about the treatment of these POW’s held by the Japanese. Those requirements mandated that they needed to find prisoners of war who had escaped from those camps and get them back to the States where they could be interviewed. This was the task that they were faced with; very easy to describe but very difficult to accomplish.30

Since there had been such a large number of our personnel captured when the Philippines collapsed, much of the discussion centered on finding men who had escaped from prison camps in the Philippines that might provide vital, first-hand information. As luck would have it there was help to be had within the Japanese-controlled Philippine nation. After the takeover of the country, Philippine irregulars, sympathetic civilians, and free Allied military men who had evaded capture continued a guerilla war against the Japanese. These loosely organized forces had maintained radio contact with General MacArthur’s staff located in Australia.

Through this resistance organization, intelligence was received that four United States military officers had escaped from the Japanese prison camp system and were attempting to find some likely location for their evacuation from the islands. Considering the stranglehold the Japanese had on the land and airspace surrounding the Philippine nation, extraction by submarine seemed the only scenario likely to succeed. At the time, General Douglas MacArthur was responsible for the Allied war effort in the entire area of the South Pacific. As the senior officer in charge he was technically boss of all military forces operating in the South Pacific. However, he could not command use of a submarine since the Navy had arranged to retain operational control of their submarines.

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