The German U-boat skipper Reinhard Hardegen once observed, “We were waging war against merchant ships, not against the crews, and there is a great difference.”1 No doubt many submarine commanders agreed, but there was also a great difference between not actively trying to kill survivors and doing something to assist them. Acts of compassion tended to be selective and fickle. Commander Otto Kretschmer of the U-99 once became so haunted by the sight of a single man on a raft that on the following day he backtracked his submarine until he found the man. His crew provided the survivor with warm clothes and brandy, then transferred him to a lifeboat stocked with food and water.2 Such singular attention to an enemy’s survival, however, was rare. In both the Atlantic and the Pacific most survivors of submarine attacks had to rely on being rescued by their compatriots or sheer good fortune to stay alive. Even rescue by friendly ships could be in doubt, since those traveling in convoy were routinely instructed not to stop to help torpedoed merchantmen.3
In the Atlantic theater over 30,000 British merchant mariners perished during the war, a higher fatality rate than any of the armed services. The odds of survival tended to improve the longer the war lasted, because of innovations such as protective clothing and life jackets with lights. Much depended on how long a ship took to sink and the conditions of the sea; a slow-sinking ship on a calm sea during daylight in warm latitudes provided the optimal situation for survival. At least the last condition was much more likely to prevail in the South Pacific than in the North Atlantic, but while one might be less likely to die from hypothermia in tropical waters, the problems of thirst and sharks were accentuated. By one estimate, 116,000 seamen in the Japanese merchant marine were killed or wounded, with 70,000 casualties the result of U.S. submarine actions.4
Since submarines typically went deep to avoid counterattacks After firing their torpedoes, their crews tended to remain oblivious to the death and human misery left in their wake. Charles Andrews, skipper of the USS Gurnard, claimed never to have seen a Japanese survivor.5 As with many other modes of mechanized twentiethcentury warfare, a distant torpedo attack made killing easier and more impersonal. In contrast, gun attacks and boarding parties frequently brought submariners face-to-face with their victims; how they reacted in such situations illustrates a range of attitudes as well as the vagaries of naval warfare.
More than was true of other warships, the lack of space on submarines and their vulnerability on the surface provided two obvious disincentives for rescue operations. Admiral Chester Nimitz, in a statement to the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg, emphasized the lack of room for passengers, while rescue operations could cause “undue additional hazard” and interfere with a submarine’s mission.6 German submariners made a similar case for not assisting survivors, emphasizing that they faced the added dangers posed by the Allies’ effective use of radar and long-range aircraft patrols.7
Arguments about lack of space were in fact somewhat overstated, since submariners frequently managed to cram considerable numbers on board when rescuing comrades and allies. For example, After the USS Sealion and the USS Pampanito sank two Japanese transports in a convoy from Singapore in September 1944, the crews discovered that most of the passengers were Allied prisoners of war. The men of the Pampanito managed to pull seventy-three Australian and British survivors from the water and add them to the eightynine crew members already on board. The Pampanito’s skipper, Paul Edward Summers, noted the problem of habitability with so many men on board, but they were able to berth most in the After-torpedo room. Saving these men would be remembered as one of the Pampanito’s most illustrious actions of the war. Summoned to the scene, the Sealion, Barb, and Queenfish assisted in the rescue, picking up over 100 more survivors despite the threat of an impending typhoon.8
The evacuation of soldiers and civilians from behind enemy lines also involved transporting considerable numbers of people by submarine. In April 1942, for instance, the USS Searaven evacuated thirty-one Australian aviators from Timor.9 The USS Gato under Bob Foley picked up some fifty coast watchers, scouts, and refugees (including a half dozen Catholic nuns) from Teop Harbor on the northeastern coast of Bougainville for transport to Tulagi. Foley’s executive officer, Norvell G. Ward, would later carry out many similar missions in command of the USS Guardfish. Ward believed a submarine could handle up to 100 additional passengers, as long as extended dives weren’t required. In this sense air quality rather than space proved the main limitation.10 Gene Fluckey of the Barb also believed that up to 100 survivors could be accommodated on a submarine if every square foot were used.11
Beginning in October 1943, nineteen different submarines evacuated nearly 500 civilians from the Philippines. In 1944, for example, the USS Angler made a rendezvous off Panay expecting to take on about twenty passengers, but found fifty-eight people waiting to be rescued. Not wanting to disappoint people who had been stranded for two years, the crew packed them into the torpedo rooms and lived on short rations until the submarine could reach Australia.12
Such missions exposed submarines to extraordinary dangers, as did rescue efforts to recover downed aircrew. The idea of submarines “lifeguarding” for Allied aviators originated with Admiral Charles Pownall After he led air attacks on the Gilbert Islands. With their ability to penetrate deep into enemy waters, submarines appeared to be a splendid means of recovering downed pilots and crews. Charles Lockwood claimed that the Skate, under Gene McKinney, carried out the first “effective lifeguard duty” when fighters and bombers attacked Wake Island in early October 1943, but the episode also highlighted the dangers involved.13 Diving out of an overcast sky, a Japanese Zero surprised the submarine during the operation and one of the Skate’s officers, Lieutenant (junior grade) Willis E. Maxson, was shot. Maxson died the following day. In a similar incident, the executive officer and five crewmen of the USS Plunger were wounded by a diving Zero in late 1943 while lifeguarding in the eastern Marshall Islands.
On one patrol alone the USS Tang under Richard O’Kane rescued twenty-two aviators. In line with O’Kane’s recommendations, a special air patrol subsequently worked with submarines to locate downed aircrews and provide air cover for the rescuers. In 1945 the USS Tigrone under Hiram Cassedy set a record by rescuing 31 downed aviators in the space of five days. By the end of the war U.S. submarines had pulled over 500 airmen out of the drink.14 The Japanese had nothing comparable, and indeed were astonished by American efforts to recover their men.15
On occasion submarines also effectively doubled the number of men on board by rescuing the crews of other Allied submarines that ran aground. When the USS Darter grounded in October 1944, the 85 officers and enlisted men were transferred to the USS Dace. With 165 men on board, provisions were quickly depleted, but the men reached Fremantle on a diet of mushroom soup and peanut butter. Similarly, After the Dutch submarine O-19 grounded on a reef in July 1945, the USS Cod picked up the entire crew. In yet another dramatic incident, After the USS Bergall received damage from an enemy shell, all hands but a skeleton crew were transferred to the USS Angler.16
There was, of course, a difference between having cooperative comrades on board and the potential dangers of an enemy. At least in the early stages of the war, any rescue operation could likely expose submarines to considerable danger, and attempts to aid survivors remained relatively rare. Some submariners, however, did assume responsibility when they endangered noncombatants. After accidentally ramming a sampan in Makassar Strait on 31 May 1943, for example, the crew of the USS Gurnard temporarily took on board fourteen Moros (Muslims indigenous to the southern Philippines). Although the Moros carried some Japanese money on them, the crew did not ask for payment; they were given food and later transferred to another sampan.17
As previously noted, submariners tended to do more to assist survivors, or at least minimize loss of life, as the war progressed and more gun attacks were made. William Robert Anderson, who served on the USS Trutta, recalled that if women and children were spotted on junks, the crew would allow the passengers to abandon the vessel before firing along its waterline.18 As skipper of the USS Bluefish, Lieutenant Commander George W. Forbes Jr. recommended that submarines be equipped with additional life raft s in order to accommodate people off-loaded from vessels sunk.19 William Kinsella, skipper of the USS Ray, explained that when he and his men sank small ships they tried to knock out the engine first, allowing crews to get in lifeboats before they sank the craft with the five-inch gun and fire.20
Some other submariners were more proactive in assisting survivors. On 13 February 1944, the USS Hake used its guns to attack a sailing sloop estimated to be fifteen tons. After the Hake fired some “challenging bursts” from its 20 mm gun, the sloop changed course and ran up a Japanese flag, at which point the submarine destroyed the craft with a withering fire kept up for nearly ten minutes. The Hake pulled four Malaysian survivors from the water, but two broke away and jumped overboard. According to the patrol report, the two men who remained on board responded to “dry clothes and kind treatment.” The Hake returned to the site of the sinking about an hour later, and crewmen managed to coax the two other Malaysians back on board; they also responded to “decent treatment,” but had little information to impart.21
In another incident, the USS Hawkbill used its deck guns to sink a small coastal steamer in the Gulf of Siam on the night of 29 May 1945. The crew subsequently discovered twelve Siamese survivors, including one young woman, in a sinking lifeboat. Some of these people were temporarily brought on board the submarine, but four men were too badly wounded to move. After the Hawkbill’s men bailed out the survivors’ half-flooded lifeboat and accommodated some of them in the submarine’s rubber boat, they towed the Siamese ten miles toward land before cutting them loose some four miles from the coast of Thailand. At this point the survivors were given some bread, fresh water, a medical kit, and directions to the nearest land.22
As discussed in the next chapter, Japanese survivors were almost invariably treated as a distinct group. The status of Koreans, and more so “native” Malays, Indonesians, Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos, proved more ambiguous. At least initially, many local peoples in Southeast Asia accepted Japanese occupation with equanimity. The Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere proclaimed in August 1940 promised liberation from Western control, while “pan-Asian” rhetoric appealed to the nationalist instincts of Indonesians, Malays, and Indians. At least initially, for example, Indonesian elites widely collaborated with the Japanese. By the end of the war, however, most had been alienated by the privations, forced labor, notions of racial superiority, and outright cruelty they endured under Japanese rule. An estimated 5 million people died in Southeast Asia as a result of Japanese invasion and occupation.23
The problem for Americans often involved distinguishing between friend and foe. Shortly After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Time magazine offered hints on distinguishing the Japanese from other Asians, but it is doubtful that this helped much in practice. Time observed, for example, that the Chinese were less hairy than the Japanese and likely to have a “more placid” expression.24 It appears that some U.S. submariners drew little distinction between Koreans and Japanese. Dale Russell, a gunner on the Flying Fish, reports that one of his crewmates wondered out loud “what good we did by shooting up those small Korean boats.” Another crewman, however, retorted, “Remember what the bastards did at Pearl Harbor? . . . Some of the planes flown on that Pearl Harbor attack were probably flown by Korean pilots.”25
In truth, thousands of Koreans had joined the Japanese armed forces, although often through coercion. After Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910, Koreans remained second-class members of the Empire and resisted assimilation policies, which by the 1930s included a ban on using the Korean language in schools. A further move toward cultural domination came in 1938 when Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese surnames. The veneer of volunteer recruitment ended in August 1943 when full-scale conscription began, and more than 200,000 Koreans were drawn into the Japanese Army and Navy. At least some would develop a reputation for brutality comparable to that of the Japanese. Over another million Koreans were forced to work in Japanese factories, construction sites, and mines during the war, and throughout the war they were conscripted into labor battalions in support of Japanese troops.26
There is some anecdotal evidence that American submariners treated Koreans more leniently than they did the Japanese. Conducting its fourth patrol in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, the USS Segundo attempted to discriminate between vessels manned by Koreans and those crewed by Japanese, attacking only the latter. On the Afternoon of 29 May 1945, the Segundo pulled alongside a Korean craft, motioning for one of the crew members to board the submarine. Apparently the whole crew wanted to come on board; however, all but one were turned away. According to the Segundo’s patrol report, the submariners reasoned that a Korean prisoner “would be just as well informed as the Japanese and would be more inclined to part with his information.” The report added, “Besides he was cleaner and was not wounded.”27
After stopping and boarding a fishing schooner in April 1945, the USS Tirante crew found “three thoroughly scared and whimpering fishermen.” The men, all apparently Koreans, were taken prisoner. Interrogation later revealed that a fourth Korean on the schooner had evaded the Americans, because “he thought we were Japs, thus putting his days as a ‘draft-dodger’ to an end.”28 In another incident, the Tirante fired on a two-masted schooner, estimated at thirty to forty feet long, when patrolling off the western coast of Korea in June 1945. The vessel quickly hove to, and when inspected was found to be manned mainly by old men who were assumed to be Korean. The only man of military age on the schooner was taken prisoner. The rest of the schooner’s complement received some bread, Spam, and cigarettes, for which the Tirante crew “received much bowing to express their thanks.”29
A confidential letter from the Pacific Fleet in December 1944 instructed that whenever it was practical to do so, Korean and Formosan prisoners should be segregated from the Japanese, noting, “The hostility which many Formosans and Koreans feel for the Japanese makes them particularly valuable as a source of intelligence.”30 At least occasionally, it appears that Japanese prisoners tried to trade on the distinction. As described by the Barb’s commander, Gene Fluckey, one of their Japanese prisoners “was smart enough to claim he was Korean, knowing full well none of us could tell the difference.”31
Generally, the ethnic Chinese elicited greater sympathy than other groups in the Pacific. Japan had occupied Manchuria in 1931 and seized much of China’s coast in 1937, nearly two full years before Germany invaded Poland. Following the Doolittle bombing raid on Japan, the Chinese aided in the recovery of sixty-seven American airmen, suffering massive retaliation from the Japanese for their efforts. During the course of the war an estimated 15 million Chinese were killed.32
Chinese who were living overseas tended to view the war as an extension of Japanese aggression in China and formed the main element of resistance. At least on occasion, Chinese fishermen helped land Allied agents from submarines in Malaya.33 Throughout Southeast Asia the Chinese also suffered the main brunt of occupation. After the conquest of Singapore, thousands of Chinese were tied up and dumped at sea or machine-gunned. Japanese Army administrative policies for Sumatra and Malaya stipulated that hostile Chinese be executed, and that noncooperation be met with property confiscation and deportation. Many Chinese were massacred in Malaya, and other massacres occurred in Borneo, where the money and businesses of local Chinese were appropriated. Thousands of Chinese were sent to Japan to work in mines or on construction works, where many perished.34
With ships frequently manned by mixed crews, the Chinese often became unintended casualties. On the Afternoon of 19 March 1945 the USS Balao battle surfaced and attacked a group of trawlers. In one of the attacks four men were blown over the side of their vessel After being hit by a five-inch shell. The Balao crewmen left a rubber boat for the survivors. With prisoners already on board, they were not keen for more, but nevertheless took on board a young man who swam to the submarine.
Those left in the lifeboat yelled pitifully as the submarine sailed away. The Balao’s commander, Robert Kemble Worthington, confided, “Poor devils probably would have been better drowned than dying of exposure.”35 In fact, as the Balao sped away, it dawned on him that one of the men in the lifeboat had been yelling, “Me Chinesieman.” Sure enough, the young man picked up by the Balao proved to be Chinese. With this information, Worthington elected not to attack another group of trawlers spotted later the same day.
The USS Ray further illustrated the dilemma of sorting out the relatively “innocent” from belligerents during its seventh war patrol, when it attacked small ships transporting rice from Korea to Japan in the Yellow Sea. The patrol got off to a poor start due to defective torpedoes. In one attack a torpedo literally jumped out of the water, resulting in the Ray being punished by a severe depth charging in shallow waters. In order to compensate for the torpedo problems, the submarine began gunning for diesel luggers and sailing vessels.36
When the Ray pulled alongside one of its victims, a four-masted schooner, on 24 May 1945, water was already washing over the sinking craft ’s deck. Eight frightened Chinese emerged from the aft end of the schooner, and they were brought onto the submarine’s deck with the idea of transferring them to a fishing boat. A couple of the Chinese spoke enough English to explain that the vessel was bound from Daimen to Kyushu under the command of two Japanese. The Ray’s attack killed one of the Japanese, while the other reportedly took the schooner’s only life ring and jumped overboard when the first shots were fired.
For skipper William Kinsella, the interrogation was a revelation: “[W]e realized that in sinking these ships we had killed innocent, although mercenary Chinese and Koreans.”37 Kinsella still believed the ships had to be sunk, however, since the vessels and their cargoes of rice were of value to the Japanese. He resolved, though, that in future he would give crews every chance to abandon their vessels before destroying them.
Having given the Chinese some food and transferred them to a fishing sampan, the Ray attacked another schooner the same morning. This time the crew fired only a few rounds from the 40 mm gun into the ship’s rigging. The patrol report jubilantly noted: “Our tactics work! The crew lowered the lifeboat and abandoned ship.”38 The Ray’s boarding party subsequently set the vessel on fire, but only After discovering the Korean master in the hold and taking him prisoner. This system of subduing by gunfire, putting crews in lifeboats, and then destroying the craft with fire saved not only lives but ammunition. Nevertheless, Kinsella emphasized that he would not put a single member of his crew in jeopardy for the sake of a survivor.39 Some submariners adopted a policy of boarding ships only if the crews refused to leave, fearing that otherwise there might be a danger of booby traps.40
Allied submariners, along with fate, sometimes dealt survivors extremely cruel hands. After the USS Spadefish sank a Japanese freighter in February 1945, the submarine surfaced to look over the survivors. According to torpedoman John Schumer, “When you got topside After a sinking and saw the group in the water, you felt sorry for them.” In the freezing waters of the Yellow Sea, Schumer observed, “you’d know they weren’t going to last long.”41 Interested in finding a useful prisoner, the crew of the Spadefish nosed up to a lifeboat, and an armed deck party coaxed a couple of men on board the submarine. One was so young that the submariners initially mistook him for a woman. This youth could speak some broken English, but once the men were identified as Chinese instead of Japanese they were thrown overboard into the icy waters. The episode haunted some of the crewmen long After.42
Many ships had ethnically mixed crews, frequently overseen by one or two Japanese officers.43 After sinking a small freighter in May 1945, the USS Blenny acquired a detailed profile of its crew, noting that in addition to twelve Japanese from Batavia, the crew consisted of seventeen Javanese, three men from Borneo, two each from Ambon and Madura, two Chinese from Singapore, and one Dyak. The ship itself, the 520-ton Hokoku Maru, was formerly the Chinese ship Li Liang. After the sinking the Blenny crew spotted eighteen men in the water, and persuaded a dozen to board the submarine. These included four Japanese and eight Indonesians. Most of the Indonesians were later transferred to a small prau and given some tinned goods for their trouble. The three Indonesians who elected to remain on board the submarine were identified as Wasio Soewito, a Javanese and the ship’s second machinist; seaman Said Abdullah, a JavaneseMadurese; and Max Adam, the fireman from Ambon.44
While mixed crews might function harmoniously when a vessel was afloat, the battle for survival following a submarine attack sometimes revealed ethnic tensions. After sinking a junk on its next patrol, the crewmen of USS Blenny discovered that the junk’s skiff was unable to hold the entire crew; two men, Indians, were in the water until rescued by the submariners. The other crew members were Chinese who, as explained by the patrol report, “not having room for all, had drawn the race line.”45 The Blenny transferred the survivors to a sampan headed for Terengganu with a load of dried fish two days later, compensating them with a sack of canned goods.46
Some Southeast Asians apparently served willingly within the Japanese military organization while others were incorporated under duress. In these cases, the lines between survivors and prisoners often seemed blurred. When in late 1942 the USS Tautog came across a seventy-five-ton fishing schooner in the Sulu Sea, it fired across the vessel’s bow. After the schooner hoisted a Japanese flag and hove to, the Tautog crew found that the craft was manned by a dozen Japanese and four young Filipinos. In this case the Japanese were treated kindly; After they abandoned ship in a small boat, they were given food, water, and directions to land. The four Filipinos were brought on board the submarine, where they claimed that the Japanese had impressed them into service from Zamboanga and kept them prisoner with no pay.47 Charles Lockwood suggested that the young men might be employed as submarine mess attendants, claiming, “I have been urging all skippers to do a little recruiting and this is our first batch.”48
As Lockwood’s comment suggests, submariners sometimes demonstrated an inherent sympathy for the people of the Philippines, millions of whom had been killed or dislocated by the Japanese occupation.49 The USS Gudgeon collected more Filipinos After using its deck guns to sink a small trawler off Nogas Island in the Sulu Sea on 4 May 1943. The ship, identified as the Naku Maru, carried a load of lube oil, ice, and fishhooks. From among the twenty people left in the water, the Gudgeon crew picked up three Filipinos, who claimed they had been forced to work for the Japanese. Perhaps believing there were further Filipino survivors still in the water, skipper Bill Post had a rubber boat with provisions put over the side.50
On the way back to Fremantle at the end of its second war patrol in January 1944, the USS Puffer encountered a trawler and fired a warning shot across its bow. Instead of stopping, the vessel turned away and increased its speed. After being hit about fifteen times, the craft finally stopped and hoisted a white rag of surrender. The Puffer signaled for men on the deck of the trawler to swim over to the submarine, and the two who complied proved to be Javanese. One of the young men could speak a little English, and he indicated that most of the sixteen left on board were Japanese. The Puffer then sank the craft with gunfire but also left an inflated rubber boat stocked with water, canned goods, and a can opener for survivors.
The English-speaking Javanese identified himself as Abdul Hamid, and the trawler as the Nansing Maru No. 16 out of Surabaya. He had apparently learned to read and write at Dutch schools. The Puffer’s patrol report noted that “the two Javanese are apparently very happy to be aboard, Abdul professing a distinct dislike for the Japs and great friendship for the Americans and Dutch.”51 Just how genuine these sentiments were, of course, is questionable, but the Javanese appeared to fit easily into the Puffer’s routine. They were assigned to cleaning duties and impressed the crew with their hard work.
Survivors picked up by the USS Raton on its fourth patrol were similarly put to work. After sinking a small freighter with gunfire, the submarine picked up the Japanese engineering officer as well as ten islanders from Celebes. It picked up an additional eight Chinese After sinking a small sampan. The Chinese were employed as mess cooks, while the others were put to work cleaning en route to Fremantle. One of the Raton officers, Donald “Pete” Sencenbaugh, later boasted that “we had the cleanest, polished submarine that ever landed in Australia.”52
Keeping survivors in such large numbers was rare, however, and posed potential management problems both on board and back at base. On one patrol in the Straits of Malacca, for example, the HMS Thule accumulated thirty-five survivors on board, close to half the number of British crew. When the Thule was depth charged, the survivors threatened to mutiny and had to be beaten back by the crew with spanners.53
Early in 1945 the Bashaw operated in tandem with the USS Flasher off the east coast of Hainan. On 21 February the submarines attacked two boats described in the Bashaw’s patrol report as “pathetically small.” When one of the craft capsized, twenty people were left in the water; desperately clinging to debris, they “set up a terrific wailing.” The men of the Bashaw were not prepared to take all the survivors on board, deciding that two “was the greatest plenty.”54 In the meantime the Flasher picked up one man from the water, but as the submarine backed away the crewmen discovered another person clawing his way aboard. The patrol report commented, “Didn’t have the heart to push him back, so took him too.”55 Both the people picked up by the Flasher proved to be Chinese teenage boys who spoke some English. According to their information, each of the boats sunk had carried about fifteen Japanese troops, but about half of the crew members were Chinese.
With increasing numbers of small craft boarded and sunk during the closing months of the war, it became common practice for some submariners to off-load the occupants before sinking their vessel. The USS Bugara, under command of Arnold F. Schade, searched and destroyed a total of fifty-seven junks, schooners, and other coastal vessels in the Gulf of Siam during July–August 1945. Armed with two five-inch/25-caliber guns, the Bugara expended more than 200 rounds of five-inch ammunition in addition to nearly 700 rounds of 20 mm and 40 mm ammunition.
The Bugara crew began the patrol by boarding and releasing a number of craft unharmed, but Schade received permission from the Commander Task Force 71 to attack vessels carrying supplies. On 24 July the submarine sank a schooner loaded with spare parts for aircraft. Most of the craft attacked carried food as part of a Bangkok–Singapore supply line. The crew of one coaster from Singapore was reportedly delighted to be boarded and begged to remain on the submarine. The Bugara did retain one of the men, apparently educated at a British university, to act as an interpreter. There were other crews that cheered when their vessels were sunk, saying such things as “The Japs are finish—no more work for Japs.”56
In one notable incident, on 2 August, the Bugara approached a 150-ton schooner at anchor, surrounded by Malay canoes. The schooner proved to be a Japanese vessel with a Chinese crew hauling rice to Singapore, while the Malays turned out to be pirates. The pirates had already killed two of the crew on the schooner before being driven off by the Bugara. The submarine then off-loaded the Chinese and sank the schooner with its cargo. Schade believed that those Chinese who lost their ships would be killed if they returned to Singapore, so most “took to the hills” once put on shore.57
In the Bugara’s experience, any Japanese aboard a vessel usually jumped overboard as soon as he spotted a submarine. Before the Bugara’s crew destroyed a craft, the local crews were either allowed to get into lifeboats or were temporarily taken on board the submarine with their personal belongings until they could be transferred to another boat or to shore. This was apparently the preferred method of operation by this stage of the war, since an endorsement of the Bugara’s patrol praised: “Excellent judgment was used in following the force policy of examining all cargoes and providing for the safety of friendly native crews.”58 “Friendly” was the operative word, however, and often determined by submarine crews on tenuous evidence within a matter of seconds.
A similar pattern is illustrated by the actions of the USS Icefish when it encountered a lugger in the Hong Kong area during the late Afternoon of 7 August 1945. The boat, estimated at fifteen tons, carried building bricks, rice, and oil and was apparently traveling from Singapore to Borneo. One of the Japanese crew jumped overboard rather than be taken. The remaining crewmen (described as “five Chinese, two Malaccans, and one Jap”) were brought aboard the submarine. The Icefish then destroyed the lugger using the deck guns.
Once on board the Icefish, the men from the lugger were cleaned up and given clothes from new Red Cross survivor kits. The lone Japanese prisoner remained isolated, but the others messed in the After-torpedo room and were given access to a head in the maneuvering room. According to the patrol report, the Chinese and Malaccans “kept very clean and worked hard, specially the two Eurasians who were excellent mess cooks and tackled their work with pride and gusto.”59 The Icefish subsequently received instructions to transfer the lugger’s crew to another submarine or put all but the Japanese on a local craft. On the morning of 11 August all eight were transferred to the USS Croaker for transport to Subic Bay, where they arrived a few days later.60
Although space for survivors was at an even greater premium on British submarines than on the American boats, some British captains adopted similar practices. When the HMS Storm under Edward Young attacked a small wooden two-masted schooner on 1 August 1944, most of the schooner’s crew jumped overboard. The submariners discovered later that the captain, first mate, and chief engineer were Japanese, while the rest of the crew consisted of five Malays, two Chinese, and two Indians. The Japanese had already shot some of the crew when they attempted to abandon ship.
The surviving Japanese avoided being picked up, but the submarine took on board two men described as Indians, both with serious wounds. Young’s attention was then drawn to a young Malay man who waved and shouted excitedly. Against the advice of his executive officer, Young directed for him to be brought on board. As it turned out the fellow, named Endi, spoke excellent English. Expressing joy at coming under British authority, he quickly proved himself useful. When the Storm attacked another coastal vessel the same day, Endi warned that it might be an ammunition ship; luckily the Storm kept its distance, because the craft exploded in a shower of potentially lethal debris.61 Endi represented a small select group of survivors who actively served as intermediaries between Allied submariners and local seafarers.