Cutting the lifelines (May 1943)

Dick O’Kane, Executive officer, USS Wahoo.

23 May 1943

I have been with the men of the USS Wahoo for 5 patrols already and it now time for me to be moving on to command my own submarine, the new Balao-class submarine. But the time spent with the Wahoo is fruitful and I have learnt much from the skipper, Lt-Cmdr Morton.

In the first 2 patrol, we were made to patrol the shipping lanes just off Truk. The ships in that area were practical unescorted, not only for the merchant ships but also the Imperial Japanese naval ships. For instance, we came across an unescorted Japanese carrier but we were not able to attack it and the most defended convoy we saw was escorted only by one destroyer. I think that the Japanese were unaware of US presence in the area. However, even with the advantage that we have, we were not able to inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese. This is partly because of the lack of aggressive of Lt-Cmdr Kennedy, our first skipper, and bad positioning of the ship. The total number of ships we sank during that time was 2 freighters. We could have gotten more if we had been more aggressive in our tactic.

After the first 2 patrols, Lt-Cmdr Kennedy was transferred to the USS Guest and Lt-Comdr Morton took over as skipper of the ship. This change in command changed our fortunes. We departed for our 3^rd patrol on the 16 January and headed for a new patrolling area called Wewak near the north coast of New Guniea. We spotted and sunk a destroyer anchor off the Kairuru Island. On the same patrol, we caught up with an unescorted 4 ships convoy on the 26 January. The battle with that convoy lasted for 10 hours and we expended all of our torpedoes but it resulted in 2 sunken freighters, a badly damaged troop carrier and tanker.

The 4^th and 5^th patrol of the Wahoo produced the similar results. A total of 14 merchant ships were sunk, 11 on the 4^th patrol and 3 on the 5^th patrol. Up to now, the Japanese failed to put improve it protection on the merchant ships. The merchant ships were sailing without any escort nor travelling in huge convoys, this allowed us and the other US submarines to attack their vital supply routes without serious opposition for the Imperial navy. The Wahoo was so successful the Admiral Nimitz awarded Morton his second Navy Cross and other awards on the 22 May 1943. Now is time for the Wahoo to undergo an overhaul and it is time too for me to move on to another ship.

More damage could be done on them if we were equipped with better torpedoes. The Mark 14 torpedoes were unreliable; they would either detonate prematurely or would be a dud. This is very frustrating for us and many other submarines in the fleet. From what I heard from other submarine Cmdrs, they would be equipped with faulty torpedoes for an entire patrol. Rumour has it that a new type of torpedo is currently in developing and I hope that this new weapon would make the submarine force a more potent weapon in the war