FOREWORD

THEY were iron men who took iron ships to sea and left an unparalleled record of courage and duty, faithfully performed. Less than 2 percent of U.S. sailors served in submarines, yet submarines would sink 55 percent of all Japanese ships lost in World War II—more than the U.S. Navy’s surface ships, its carrier planes, and the Army’s Air Force combined! Yet, for its many vital achievements, the submarine force paid a terrible price in the war. Fifty-two boats and more than 3,400 submariners—one out of every five—failed to return.

I’ve had the great fortune over the years to serve as a career submariner. During and after my thirty-eight years of service, I’ve had, and continue to have, the distinct privilege of knowing these iron men, these submarine veterans of World War II.

Vice Admiral Charles “Uncle Charlie” Lockwood, a commander of the U.S. Submarine Force during the war in the Pacific—an assignment I had some fifty years later—wrote of these men with which he served, “They were no supermen, nor were they endowed with any supernatural qualities of heroism. They were merely top-notch American lads, well trained, well treated, well armed, and provided with superb ships.”

The submarine veterans of World War II have provided their successors in the submarine force powerful traditions that continue to serve the submarine force well.

First of these is the tradition that demands “forceful backup” of each crew member—a tradition that makes it known that each and every crew member regardless of seniority is critical to the safe operation of the ship.

Second is the tradition that submariners take care of one another. Life in submarines is one without physical or psychological privacy. Our veterans have instilled in us all a realization that this lack of privacy demands complete mutual respect of others. These veterans taught us the true meaning of mentoring before it became an overly used word in leadership and management books.

Finally, these veterans provided the catalyst for “continuous improvement” of the submarine force. During the war, they solved major problems in tactics, weaponry, and selection of leaders at all levels. It was this “continuous improvement” that resulted in major post-world-war developments in the use of passive sonar ranging, nuclear energy, and cold-war tactics against the Soviet Union.

Sadly, today our nation faces many of the same problems our submarine force faced prior to and early in World War II. Tragically, we Americans don’t understand history. The strong traditions our veterans provided us have made our submarines a dominant force for national defense. Our ability to take the fight to potential enemies and stay for months without resupply are strong arguments for a robust submarine force. The missions that our submarines carry out in peacetime, the onset of conflict, and during hot war are not transferable to other forces.

With this said, our nation has built less than a submarine a year over the last decade and a half. Fourteen different studies have recommended a force level of at least fifty-five submarines, yet we are cascading to a force of thirty ships. Meanwhile, a potential competitor, China, states, “After the First World War, the dominant vessel was the battleship. In the Second World War, it was the aircraft carrier. If another global war breaks out, the most powerful weapon will be the submarine.” China will have commissioned at least sixteen new attack submarines in the last two years.

“Uncle Charlie” Lockwood of World War II said, “May God grant there will be no World War III; but, if there is, whether it be fought with the weapons we know or with weapons at whose type we can only guess, submarines and submariners will be in the thick of the combat, fighting with skill, determination, and matchless daring for all of us and for our United States of America.”

Americans must learn from history! The Depths of Courage is a history book that comes to life as it intertwines the individual stories of young Americans with the phenomenal history of our submarines in World War II. Most of the men mentioned in the text are long gone—on “Eternal Patrol.” Many of those who survived the war are now deceased and resting in “Safe Harbor.”

With the above said, The Depths of Courage has had a profound effect on me. It pushed me to rededicate myself to ensuring that our great nation understands that today we are rapidly moving toward an inadequate submarine force, a force that only meets 60 percent of global missions, a force so small that within ten years, we will not have the ability to design and build submarines properly because we are allowing critical skills and knowledge to atrophy under an anemic build rate.

May you enjoy this true adventure book! I pray that when you complete it, you will feel as I do that we as a nation need to rededicate our efforts to maintain an adequately sized submarine force. Our World War II submarine veterans deserve no less.

God Bless and Keep Charging!

 

—Al Konetzni, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet (1998-2001)