The Hunters, The Allied Assets
Several Allied nations participated in the fighting in the Pacific theater during World War II. The Netherlands, Great Britain, Australian, China, the United States and several others countries brought military force to bear against the Japanese empire. Allied surface vessels, submarines, land and carrier-based aircraft, and mines were all employed to cripple Japanese warships and the merchant fleet. Sinking Japanese merchant shipping would prevent the movement of Japanese troops and supplies, while denying Japan the ability to harvest much-needed oil and raw materials to sustain an industrial nation at war.
While the U.S. Navy’s “Silent Service” came to play a prominent role in the destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet, the state of the submarine fleet was lacking in the first year of American involvement in the war. Of the 111 subs available, only 51 were assigned to the Pacific and only 39 of those were of modern design. The remaining submarines were of relics of the First World War and incapable of long patrols deep into Japanese controlled waters. Due to these shortcomings only 1/3 of U.S. subs were capable of patrolling the vast waters of the Japanese empire at any given time early in the war.
The issue of faulty torpedoes was especially damaging to the U.S. submarine campaign. Unbeknownst to Allied planners their torpedoes had two critical flaws, they often ran deeper than the set and they often failed to detonate. This first defect would often cause them to pass harmlessly under the hull of a targeted ship, deep enough to defeat the torpedo’s magnetically induced warhead. Similarly, the firing pin on the nose of U.S. torpedoes would often malfunction and break upon impact with the hull of an enemy ship.
American submarines under the direction of Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, Commander Submarine Force, Pacific, operated differently than the infamous German U-boat. Organized into groups known as “wolfpacks,” the German submarine force responded to radio transmissions which provided the German naval command tactical control of the U-boat fleet. Unlike the Germans, American submarines operated flexibly, without the tactical control of land-based higher command. Although American submariners adopted the “wolfpack” tactic and often coordinated with other submarines, commanders were left to develop the tactical situation as they saw fit.