us navy submarin pacific world war two periscope japanese

The submarine rigged for a crash dive to avoid attack from bombs or depth charges. local time, lookouts spotted a Japanese plane five miles astern. The submarine was cruising on the surface west of Iwo Jima, heading toward the rotating patrol area called the “Hit Parade” between Tokyo Bay and the Northern Nanpo Islands.Īt 4:45 p.m. Mann, was starting her second war patrol.

The story begins in the afternoon of March 20, 1945, when the Devilfish, under the command of Lt. Out of the hundreds of these attacks, one was quite unusual: the only kamikaze attack on an American submarine, USS Devilfish (SS 292). When most people hear the term kamikaze, they think of swarms of planes flying through a torrent of antiaircraft fire and plowing into the decks of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, taking the lives of sailors and damaging or sinking the ships in this desperate act. THE IMAGE OF desperate Japanese pilots purposely flying their planes into American warships in the closing months of World War II figures prominently in American popular culture. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons) “A look at the organization and methods of the kamikaze units shows why the Devilfish incident was considered so unusual in the history of kamikaze attacks during World War Two.”īy Nathaniel Patch This article originally appeared in a 2014 issue of Prologue, the magazine of the U.S.

Us navy submarin pacific world war two periscope japanese