Podcasts History Odin & Aesop War in the Boats

War in the Boats

Published: June 26, 2021, 6 p.m.

The U.S. Navy started World War Two leaning towards the idea that its submarines were supposed to remain hidden and cautiously scout ahead of the surface fleet.\xa0 With the surface fleet destroyed at Pearl Harbor, that idea got turned around.\xa0 Instead a new generation of aggressive commanders rose up.\xa0 They roamed the vast Pacific on independent war patrols that lasted months.\xa0 By war\u2019s end the Japanese merchant fleet had lost close to nine million tons of shipping and was only 23% its pre-war size.\xa0 Over half of those losses came at the hands of U.S. submarines.\xa0 U.S. submarines also sank close to seven hundred Imperial Japanese Navy ships over five hundred tons.\xa0 William Ruhe\u2019s \u201cWar in the Boats\u201d offers a first hand account of the submarine campaign in the Pacific.\xa0 We were privileged to be joined by Rear Admiral Scott Pappano for this episode.\xa0