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Wahoo: The Patrols of America's Most Famous World War II Submarine

Wahoo
Richard H. O'Kane

Dick O'Kane was at sea when America entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At the time he was serving as third in command of U.S.S. Argonaut, the only purpose-built minelayer submarine in the U.S. fleet. Argonaut, which was off Midway, immediately commenced her first war patrol. O'Kane was clearly fond of the giant sub, but his writing makes it clear that he also recognized her deficiencies. She was slow to dive, maneuvered poorly, and could dive safely no deeper than 250 feet. Argonaut was huge—she would be the largest American sub ever built until the advent of fleet ballistic missile subs—with her huge bulk in large part the result of her designed mission. Mines are big and take up a lot of room inside the hull.

Argonaut never managed to get into a position to attack what was, at the time, thought to be a Japanese invasion force heading for Midway (it was actually a pair of destroyers and not an invasion force at all), despite the best efforts of her captain and crew to do so. Given the boat's problems, O'Kane didn't seem to think this was such a bad thing. Argonaut was never intended to be used as an attack sub; she was designed to sneak up into enemy shipping choke points and sow mine fields, and be long gone before enemy anti-submarine forces could find her. During her first patrol she was also plagued by electrical fires.

When Argonaut returned to Pearl Harbor, her XO was sent ashore to a staff job, and her Commanding Officer, Stephen C. Barchet, who was due for rotation after three years in command, took the submarine back to Mare Island for a much-needed overhaul. O'Kane stepped up to XO for the voyage back to California.

And it was there that he left Argonaut, reassigned to the under-construction U.S.S. Wahoo as Executive Officer. He would hold that job during Wahoo's first five war patrols.

Wahoo would become one of the two or three best known American submarines of World War II. O'Kane writes that, at first, this didn't seem likely to be the case. Wahoo's first CO, Marvin Kennedy, comes across as perhaps a little too much of what we would now call a micro-manager. He was also, possibly, a bit too much by-the-book, where it would before long be recognized that submarines did better with a commander who was more willing to take risks and go with his instincts. One result was that O'Kane found himself looking over the OOD's shoulder far more than he should have, at his captain's insistance, while never getting sufficient rest. Kennedy also tended to ignore his XO's advice. This is a captain's prerogative, but O'Kane clearly felt he would have been better off listening, and that opportunities were missed.

Kennedy, it should be noted, recognized his own limitations, and was apparently as surprised as everyone else when he found himself still in command on Wahoo's second war patrol. This time they had a passenger, Dudley W. "Mush" Morton, who was riding along on a PCO (Prospective Commanding Officer) cruise. Morton was there to observe, and to get used to the day-to-day and combat operations of a fleet type submarine, after which he would receive his own command.

That command turned out to be Wahoo. Morton took command for her third patrol and would remain in that job for the rest of Wahoo's career. Morton, according to O'Kane, was a completely different type of officer than Kennedy. While Kennedy tended to caution and extreme concern with the possibility of being detected, Morton was aggressive almost to the point of recklessness. He figured the job of a submarine was to sink enemy shipping, and that the job entailed the risk of being discovered and attacked.

He also had some unorthodox ideas about attacks. He wanted O'Kane, his XO, to make all the periscope observations. Morton would then be free to concentrate on the overall tactical situation. It was a system that worked very well indeed for these two men. Morton knew tactics, and he certainly knew how to find enemy ships. O'Kane, who would go on to become the top-scoring American submarine commander of World War II, was an outstanding shot.

Morton and O'Kane worked very well together. Then, following Wahoo's fifth war patrol, O'Kane took command of the brand-new Tang, and Wahoo, following an overhaul, returned to action. Her sixth war patrol produced no results. Morton complained of poor torpedo performance. Patrol report endorsements faulted Morton for firing single torpedoes instead of spreads, a complaint O'Kane strongly disagreed with. If the torpedoes hit, he argued, they should have blown up, and he had little doubt they would have hit. But the magnetic exploders had been de-activated before that patrol and, with the benefit of hindsight, O'Kane suggested that the magnetic exploders, while very unreliable and prone to premature detonation, had still probably been responsible for most of the sinkings. It would be a while longer before the problems with the contact exploders were also diagnosed and fixed.

O'Kane used the patrol report to write up Wahoo's sixth patrol. For the seventh he was forced to speculate, basing his guesses on his knowledge of Morton's procedures and reports of Japanese shipping losses during the period in the Sea of Japan.

In Wahoo, O'Kane presents us with a first-hand account, written with a clear flair for narrative and an obvious affection both for the submarine and the men who served in her. Wahoo is one of those books that belongs in every submarine library.