The Silent Service

These actions have not been announced in any previous communiques.

Thus the Navy Department pauses occasionally to announce that a good fistful of Japanese ships has been sunk, and to tell all that is ever told officially about U.S. submarines. By last week the "silent service" had accounted for something over 750,000 tons of Japanese freighters, tankers and warships--9.4% of Japan's pre-war 8,000,000 tons of ships and perhaps one-fifth as much tonnage as German U-boats had sunk of U.S. shipping. This week's Navy announcement credited the subs with seven more ships; three large, two medium, two small, and damage to three others, including a converted carrier which was left burning.

From their bases in Australia and Hawaii, from secret spots in the vast expanse of the Pacific, U.S. submarines range up to Hong Kong. The first sub sinking admitted by Japan (last January) was only 75 miles southeast of Yokohama. Some U.S. subs have penetrated Tokyo Bay to gather information on enemy fleet dispositions and to sink Jap merchantmen as they sailed, loaded, out of the harbor. Last month a French flyer who stole a 14-year-old biplane and escaped to Chungking from Indo-China reported that U.S. subs had made it so hot in that area that the Japs no longer used Cam Ranh Bay as a naval base. Nowadays Jap warships are forced to provide convoys for supply ships.

The average submarine man is an introvert. Long weeks under the sea, as well as the secrecy of his work, have made him the least talkative of all military men. He may go months without receiving news, or giving any. He cannot make any but the tersest official reports until he returns for his three weeks ashore between missions. And so his philosophy necessarily is: "It will keep." The pale-faced submarine man lives a crowded, dehydrated existence which may cause him to lose as much as 20 Ib. during his three months or so at sea. But he eats well, especially in the newer, larger ships, which stock fresh fruits, frozen steaks and turkeys.

Thus far in the Pacific war the U.S. submarine man has had phenomenal luck, has lived in relative safety, despite the fact that he must risk death at the hands of friend or foe. Up to last week only three U.S. subs were "overdue and presumed lost," as the Navy communiques intone their fate. One more was demolished by its own crew to prevent its capture in the Philippines; another sank in a collision off Panama. But German submarines in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic have had less luck, a higher rate of loss.* In World War I Germany lost 178 out of 390 submarines. The U.S. Navy sank two; 14 others were sunk by the Navy's mines.

The U.S., facing a dreaded winter of renewed German submarine warfare in the Atlantic, could look to the Pacific and take some consolation in its own taciturn submariners' deadly efficient work.

* In Collier's last week, Chairman Vinson of the House Naval Affairs Committee reported that TNT depth charges must explode within 15 feet of the hull in order to rupture a modern submarine.

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