Iron Men and Tin Fish: The Race to Build a Better Torpedo During World War II by Anthony Newpower

Author:Anthony Newpower [Newpower, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Technology & Engineering, World War II, Naval, Wars & Conflicts, General, united states, Military, Weapons, Military Science, History
ISBN: 9780275990329
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2006-08-30T00:39:35+00:00

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Iron Men and Tin Fish

Rear Admiral Ralph Waldo Christie congratulates Lieutenant Commander John R.

“Dinty” Moore, captain of S-44, after sinking the Japanese heavy cruiser Kako following the Battle of Savo Island. Moore used the Mk. 10 torpedo to achieve his success and exact a measure of revenge for the disaster at Savo Island.

(National Archives)

bombard American forces. Torpedoes on both sides continued to play a major role in the campaign.

The Long Lance claimed its next victim two weeks later in the same vicinity of its earlier victims. At 0355 on 22 August, the picket destroyer and Battle of Savo Island survivor USS Blue detected on both radar and sonar an unidentified surface vessel moving at good speed about 5,000 yards off her starboard beam. The ship continued to close Blue, whose crew prepared to bring the vessel under combined torpedo and gunfire. They were too late.

At 0359 a Long Lance fired from the Japanese destroyer Kawakaze ripped into Blue’s stern, rendering her propellers useless and flinging sailors and debris everywhere. Once again, superior U.S. Navy damage-control efforts succeeded in preventing Blue from sinking. Unfortunately, the damage to her stern made towing the beleaguered destroyer extremely difficult. As night fell on 23 August, Blue still remained a fair distance from the harbor at Tulagi.

Fearing her destruction by the Japanese in an expected attack that evening,

Outclassed

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Turner ordered the Blue scuttled. And so the Long Lance chalked up yet another victim in the aptly named Ironbottom Sound.

Turner’s fears of an impending attack were well-founded. The next major clash between forces occurred mainly in the air. The Battle of the Eastern Solomons, fought from 23–24 August, consisted mainly of bombing attacks by both forces. Both sides featured many of the same commanders and participants from the Battle of Midway some three months earlier. Torpedo planes from the Saratoga and the Enterprise managed to register attacks during the clash, and a torpedo hit on the light carrier Ryujo contributed to its demise in battle. Japanese torpedo aircraft failed to make an impact in the battle, largely due to the excellent combat air patrols conducted by the American fighter screen. The Mk. 13 aerial torpedo used by the United States at the time favored a simple contact exploder mechanism of a design completely different from the Mk. 6. When placed in the hands of a well-trained pilot, the Mk. 13

worked with deadly efficiency, as survivors of the Ryujo would attest.

As both sides picked up the pieces and regrouped, an American warship already familiar with submarine torpedo attacks received a refresher course.

The morning of 31 August began routinely enough for the officers and men of the Saratoga. With the excitement of the previous week’s battle quickly subsiding, Saratoga resumed the more mundane task of patrolling the approaches to Guadalcanal. Saratoga was not the only warship patrolling this area to the east of San Cristobal Island. Commander Yokota Minoru of the submarine I-26 shared these waters with the Saratoga and around 0745 that morning fired a spread of six Type 95 torpedoes from a range of 3,800 yards.

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