"Slade Cutter's heroic feats as an athlete and World War II submarine commander left an indelible mark on the U.S. Navy. From a humble upbringing on a depression-era farm in Illinois, he won an appointment to the Naval Academy and went on to become one of America's most formidable and decorated naval officers in World War II. As commander of the USS Seahorse, he sank twenty-three enemy ships in the Pacific, earning four Navy Crosses and a Presidential Unit Citation. Although Cutter's brilliant tactics and unusual exploits are the stuff of legend, this is the first biography published about him. With complete and exclusive access to his subject, journalist Carl LaVO presents a remarkably candid portrait of the storied captain. He draws on countless interviews with Cutter and with many of his shipmates and admirers - as well as a few detractors. Cutter's own views about his naval career and the inner workings of the Navy's hierarchy are always forthright and contribute uniquely to the official record."--BOOK JACKET.

World War II submariners rarely experienced anything as exhilarating or horrifying as the surface gun attack. Between the ocean floor and the rolling whitecaps above, submarines patrolled a dark abyss in a fusion of silence, shadows, and steel, firing around eleven thousand torpedoes, sinking Japanese men-of-war and more than one thousand merchant ships. But the anonymity and simplicity of the stealthy torpedo attack hid the savagery of warfare -- a stark difference from the brutality of the surface gun maneuver. As the submarine shot through the surface of the water, confined sailors scrambled through the hatches armed with large-caliber guns and met the enemy face-to-face. Surface and Destroy: The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific reveals the nature of submarine warfare in the Pacific Ocean during World War II and investigates the challenges of facing the enemy on the surface. The surface battle amplified the realities of war, bringing submariners into close contact with survivors and potential prisoners of war. As Japan's larger ships disappeared from the Pacific theater, American submarines turned their attention to smaller craft such as patrol boats, schooners, sampans, and junks. Some officers refused to attack enemy vessels of questionable value, while others attacked reluctantly and tried to minimize casualties. Michael Sturma focuses on the submariners' reactions and attitudes toward their victims, exploring the sailors' personal standards of morality and their ability to wage total war. Surface and Destroy is a thorough analysis of the submariner experience and the effects of surface attacks on the war in the Pacific, offering a compelling study of the battles that became "intolerably personal."

Eugene Fluckey was one of the great naval heroes of World War II. His exploits as captain of the submarine USS Barb revolutionized undersea warfare and laid the groundwork for a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine fleet. He retired as a rear admiral and was awarded numerous presidential, congressional, and military honors, including the Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses. In the war against Japan, Fluckey fired the first ballistic missiles from a submarine, sank more tonnage than any other U.S. submarine skipper, including an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, a destroyer, and blew up a train after landing submariners-turned-saboteurs on mainland Japan in 1945. Here is the legendary submariner's story, told with the exclusive access to Fluckey's personal papers and based on interviews with him, his family, Barb shipmates, official Navy documents, and the recollections of his contemporaries.

From unpromising beginnings in March 1942, the Allied submarine base at Fremantle on the west coast of Australia became a vital part of the Allied offensive against Japan. Pushed back from the Philippines and the Netherlands’ East Indies, American submariners, accompanied by a small group of Dutch forces, retreated to Fremantle as a last resort. The location was chosen for its good harbor and the fact that it was outside the range of land-based Japanese aircraft. Unfortunately the base was also far from their patrol areas and supply lines, and it was difficult to reinforce should the enemy attack. Thanks largely to a welcoming civilian population, morale quickly improved. The hospitality and sense of belonging fostered by Western Australians became legendary among Allied submariners and remains central to their wartime memories. Perhaps as a result of such a positive experience, the Allied forces became much more successful in combat. Intertwining social and military history, Fremantle’s Submarines relates how courage, cooperation, and community made Fremantle arguably the most successful military outpost of World War II from the standpoint of troop morale.

This epic World War II saga follows the USS Squalus and Sculpin as they play out their dramatic destinies in the Pacific. The author, a seasoned journalist, re-creates their entire perilous journey. The i>Squalus sank during a test dive in 1939, but thirty-three trapped crewmen were saved thanks to the revolutionary use of the McCann diving bell. The Sculpin's role in that historic rescue is just the first of many incongruous twists of fate that brought the two subs together after the i>Squalus was salvaged and rechristened the Sailfish. Carl LaVO skillfully weaves together the tragic loss of the Sculpin to a Japanese destroyer with the frenetic wrath of its sister sub. Their intertwined fates come to an eerie climax as the Sailfish unleashes a ten-hour attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier Chuyo amid a raging typhoon, unwittingly killing twenty-two of the forty-three Americans captured from the sunken Sculpin. The saga comes to a close with a moving description of the surviving Sculpin crewmen as they face incredible hardship, torture, and disease as POWs in Japan. This book is certain to instill a renewed appreciation for the intrepid men and stealthy boats that were the soul of the Pacific campaign's silent service.

The remarkable true story of Dudley “Mush” Morton, the most admired—and feared—submarine commander of World War II Mush Morton was a warrior without peer. At the helm of the USS Wahoo he completely changed the way the submarines fought in the Pacific War. He would relentlessly attack the Japanese at every opportunity, burning through his supply of torpedoes in record time on every patrol. Over the course of only nine months and five patrols, Morton racked up an astounding list of achievements, including being the first American skipper to wipe out an entire enemy convoy single-handedly. Here, for the first time, is the life and legend of a heroic submarine commander who fought the war on his own terms, and changed the course of the undersea war in the Pacific.

Capt. Edward “Ned” Latimer Beach, Jr. USN is known primarily for his bestselling novel Run Silent, Run Deep, which was made into a film in 1958 with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster and his record setting voyage as commanding officer of USS Triton (SSN(R) 586), that was the first submarine to circumnavigate of the globe while submerged. A highly-decorated United States Navy submarine officer, during World War II, he participated in the Battle of Midway as well as other 12 combat patrols, earning 10 decorations for gallantry, including the Navy Cross. His career also offers insights into the inner workings of power, from inside the Pentagon in the years right after World War II, to inside of the Eisenhower White House, to the politics of the Republican Party in the United States Senate in the 1970s,. In addition to serving as an officer aboard U.S. submarines in the Pacific during World War II, he was a prolific author publishing two novels in addition Run Silent, Run Deep, as well as numerous works on naval history. Ned Beach is a biography that weaves together the personal, professional and writing life of a man who for many was the public face of the submarine community in the years after the Second World War. With a father, who was a naval officer and the author of thirteen published novels in the 1910s & ‘20s, as the eldest son Ned Beach was greatly influenced to follow in his father’s footsteps and to become both an officer and a writer. From his youth in Palo Alto, California during the Great Depression to his service in the Pacific in the war against Japan to the epic submerged circumnavigation of the globe in early 1960 commanding one of the early nuclear powered submarines, Ned Beach’s career encompasses a revolutionary period in American naval history. Not only did he experience it, he wrote about it. This book tells the story of his remarkable life, career and writing.