Final Patrol Read Free

“seeing” only with sonar pings and sea charts.
    The men who have chosen such duty ride around in vessels that have been called “sewer pipes,” “devil boats,” “pig boats,” and “plunging boats.” They do their work in black depths, intentionally keep their heads down and out of sight until they are able to creep up on their targets, fire their weapons, and then skedaddle, running and hiding.
    Except for a few Hollywood movies, we have little to go on in picturing the environment in which they worked, how they lived, how they fought, how they did what they did; and those few films, such as Run Silent, Run Deep , are limited in how well they are able to serve reality.
    Without undergoing a similar experience, it is nearly impossible for us to put ourselves in the place of the World War II sailors, to identify with the submariners who did the work. What manner of man would volunteer to dive beneath the waves to such an uninviting place, knowing full well that the odds were stacked against him? What would compel someone to willingly choose to serve in a force that automatically gets hazardous-duty pay all the time, not just when the nation is at war, because of the unique danger inherent in the job?
    The conditions are much better today, but in the 1940s, submarining was a rough life. Only the best were selected to go. Their training was rigorous. They didn’t just need to know how to perform a particular task—they were required to qualify at all duty stations on the vessel, just in case they were needed to step in should a man fall. Each sailor was expected to be ready to keep the boat righted, to pull her out of a potentially deadly dive, or to bring her to the surface for a breath of sweet, fresh air. And that was true of every man aboard, whether he was the captain of the boat or the mess cook.
    The living conditions on the World War II boats were not much better than in a foxhole or trench. Imagine six to seven dozen men living in cramped spaces, sharing for weeks on end two bathrooms and a dining room not much bigger than a typical suburban house’s walk-in closet. Picture having to sleep on a narrow cot, often hung from the wall among explosive torpedoes, and sharing that same cot in shifts with other crew members.
    It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that the men who rode the plunging boats constitute one of the strongest brotherhoods going, that even those who served in World War II, over sixty years ago, continue to meet at reunions, to stay in touch with each other. This should also help you understand why they are so determined that the story of what they did does not die with them. Not their own stories, mind you—submariners tend to be very humble types and reluctant to talk of their war experiences—but the stories of their shipmates, and especially those who did not come back.
    And that’s also why they and others have worked so hard to preserve some of their submarines, to restore and authentically reequip them, and to fix them up so that they, you, and I are all able to visit them. They wanted to help us to see what life was like for them and their brothers—to learn a little bit about their shipmates and their boats as we stand on the bridge, as we walk her decks and climb up and down her ladders, as we peer through the periscope at rush-hour traffic across the harbor.
    These submarine sailors are adamant that we breathe in the lingering perfume of diesel fuel, still fragrant in the various compartments throughout their vessels, even sixty years after they swam in the warm Pacific waters. They even want us to know what it smelled like aboard them.
    In 1941, the American submarines being built were the most advanced military machines yet developed. And crewing each one of those boats were some of the bravest young men in the history of warfare. Amazingly enough, many of them were still in their teens. The average age of most of the