They blanketed the areas around the Japanese home islands and outposts throughout the Pacific. These losses were serious, but a far more serious loss brought about by our submarines was the failure of the Japanese merchant marine to provide the Japanese home islands with critical war materials. Devastating, too, was the loss of thousands of troop reinforcements when they went down with the transports sunk by our submarines. Cold statistics on ship sinkings do not describe the plight of the Japanese outposts when guns, ammunition, tanks, fuel and food failed to arrive. Consequently, it was essential that the same Japanese ships that distributed food, fuel, war materials and troops to the many scattered Japanese outposts carry raw materials back to the Empire. This ocean traffic was the life blood of Japan's war effort for she had few natural resources and was dependent upon imports of oil, coal, iron, food and other materials for her war effort. Japanese shipping routes spanned the Pacific from the Gilbert Islands in the east to the Malay Peninsula in the west, and from the Kuriles in the north to the Dutch East Indies in the south. As a result they were immediately assigned the new role, and a basic military strategy of strangulation of Japan was fashioned about them. However, by good fortune, they had the speed, endurance, and weapon load to make them admirably suited for another role attacking Japanese shipping throughout the Pacific. Our Fleet Class submarines had been designed as advanced scouts for that force. Pacific Fleet able to retaliate after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The fifty-one submarines at Pearl Harbor, on the west coast of the U.S., and at Manila, Philippine Islands were the only ships of the U.S. The Japanese Situation at the End of the WarĪ Bit of World War 11 History in the Pacific Theater SubmarinesĪ Few Submarine Counterattack Experiences "Bud" Gruner Jr., class of 1935 in the US Naval Academy who eventually commanded USS SKATE during WW II.Ĭontents A Bit of World War II History in the Pacific Theater PACIFIC SUBMARINES IN WORLD WAR II", by William P.
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