Strike of the Sailfish
Two Sister Submarines and the Sinking of a Japanese Aircraft Carrier
-
-
4.3 • 13 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
A gripping true-life thriller about the first US submarine to sink a Japanese aircraft carrier—and the sub’s tragic twist of fate
In 1939 off the New England coast, the submarine USS Squalus accidentally sinks to the bottom of the sea during a training exercise, killing half her crew. Coming to the rescue is the USS Sculpin, in many ways the Squalus’s twin. As their oxygen supply dwindles, the remaining crew aboard the Squalus are saved in a time-consuming, white-knuckle operation. Eventually the sunken submarine is raised, repaired, and returned to duty, with a new name: the Sailfish.
Four years later, on patrol during the darkest days of the Pacific War, the Sailfish’s radarman picks up the tell-tale signs of a Japanese convoy, known by U.S. intelligence to include aircraft carriers, the most formidable of all enemy ships. Never before has an American submarine taken down a carrier—much less in the middle of a typhoon. Immediately, the crewmen swing into action, embarking on a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as this once-dead boat evades enemy cruisers to stalk closer and closer to their prized target. Little do they know that aboard the Japanese carrier are survivors of an attack on the USS Sculpin, the very boat that saved the Squalis-turned-Sailfish back in ’39.
Author Stephen L. Moore takes readers inside the nine-hour duel, narrating the action aboard both the Sailfish and the doomed carrier, where the American POWs fight against all odds to save their own lives before the ship goes down. Employing a wealth of new information, including long-lost survivors' accounts, fresh interviews with the last of the sub's crew, and official patrol reports, Strike of the Sailfish is the thrilling story of this strange chapter of naval history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Moore (Patton's Payback) details a tragic twist of fate in this riveting dual chronicle of two submarines, the USS Sailfish and the USS Sculpin. In May 1939, the Sculpin raced to save the Sailfish, known at the time as the USS Squalus, when it sank 240 feet and landed on the ocean floor during a test dive in the Atlantic. Out of the 58-member crew, only 32 men survived the 39 hours it took before rescue divers brought them back to the surface. The Squalus was raised from the bottom, repaired, and renamed the USS Sailfish in 1940, and went on to serve with distinction in the Pacific during WWII, becoming one of the few U.S. submarines to sink a Japanese aircraft carrier during the war. However, unbeknownst to the crew of the Sailfish, the carrier it torpedoed in December 1943, the Chuyo, was transporting 21 sailors from its former rescue ship, the Sculpin, to a prisoner of war camp in Japan. The Sculpin had been sunk during combat a few weeks earlier, and the surviving crew captured. Moore's narrative aptly weaves together the stories of the two fatefully connected vessels and their crews, highlighting the bond between wartime comrades and the details of daily life in the submarines' cramped quarters. This is a treat for WWII history buffs.
