A tale of two subs An untold story of World War II, two sister ships, and extraordinary heroism

Jonathan J. McCullough

Book - 2008

"There was no way for the commander of the USS Sailfish to know that the Japanese aircraft carrier he just torpedoed actually had on board several crew members of the USS Sculpin, the sister sub to the Sailfish which had been sunk just days earlier by enemy fire. This is the extraordinary story of the events that led to this amazing twist of fate and what happened to the Sculpin survivors."--Provided by the publisher

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

McCullough, an editor at Lyons Press, debuts as an author with this disappointing popular history of WWII submarine warfare. The USS Sculpin and USS Sailfish were built "side by side" at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Both subs were assigned to the Pacific Fleet, where, in 1943, the Sculpin was sunk by the Japanese destroyer Yamagumo. The Japanese transferred 41 survivors to two aircraft carriers--the Unyo and the Chuyo--bound for Japan. Unaware of the Sculpin's fate and acting on intelligence from the naval code breakers, the Sailfish intercepted and sank the Chuyo;. only one of the Sculpin's men on board survived. He and the Unyo's contingent of Americans spent the remainder of the war in Japanese captivity. Not only is the link between the two American subs tenuous, but the author tries with limited success to assimilate an account of the U.S. Navy's code-breaking operation that resulted in "hot tips to the submarine command." The account of the Sculpin's sinking is harrowing, but it's the singular highlight in a tedious narrative weighed down with extraneous material. (May 13) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Spirited literary reportage of life-and-death battles, heroism and failure aboard two U.S. submarines in World War II's Pacific theater. On November 19, 1943, the USS Sculpin was damaged beyond repair during a naval battle off the coast of Japan. Most of the crew was taken prisoner. The captain scuttled the submarine, going down with his ship--and with the secrets he held about the Navy's capacity to break Japanese radio signal codes. Two weeks later, the USS Sailfish torpedoed a Japanese carrier that happened to hold half the Sculpin survivors, en route to a POW camp. The story of this encounter is the culmination of first-time author McCullough's far-reaching military history. Yet the bulk--and real meat--of the book takes place in the years before. We learn of the two ships' early patrols, successes and failures, day-to-day routines, nerve-fraying attack and defense maneuvers during battle. McCullough employs novelistic techniques, taking us into submarine control towers, torpedo rooms, sweaty living quarters and the quiet chambers of Naval code breakers, standing them beside Japanese spies and POW camp torturers. He surely had to reimagine some events, but his compelling narrative is solidly based on information from patrol reports, eyewitness accounts, interviews with surviving sailors, diaries, notebooks, letters sent home, etc. And anyone who thinks the nail-biting suspense isn't credible in this kind of nonfiction clearly hasn't read James Calvert's classic memoir Silent Running (1995). The Battle of Midway is one of several oft-told Pacific war stories rehashed here, but this background is required to make clear later events enveloping the Sculpin and Sailfish. A natural for military historians, war buffs and even teenagers looking for an authentic adventure story. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.