Submarine Diary

An ensign aboard an American submarine at the time of Pearl Harbor recounts his experiences and describes the difficulties, triumphs, and costs of submarine war

The men in the U.S. submarine service comprised less than 2% of the total naval personnel yet accounted for more than half the enemy ships sunk during WW II. The cost was high: 22% of American submariners were lost in battle. Mendenhall's diary reveals in vivid detail what it was like to fight the submarine war in the Pacific. Beginning his combat career as a junior ensign and rising to the rank of lieutenant commander, he served variously as navigator, torpedo officer and executive officer over the course of 11 action-packed patrols, seven aboard USS Sculpin , four aboard USS Pintado. In his low-key journal the retired rear admiral describes stalking enemy convoys, coping with unexpected engineering problems and dangerous accidents at sea, surviving air and depth-charge attacks--and not so incidentally sending some 30 Japanese warships and merchant vessels to the bottom. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

One of the most interesting memoirs of the American submarine campaign in the Pacific during World War II. Mendenhall was an ensign assigned to the fleet submarine USS Sculpin and stationed at Manila in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. This book is a diary of the seven war patrols he made aboard the Sculpin and the four patrols on the newer Pintado . Though armed with defective torpedoes, these boats were for a time the only U.S. naval force carrying an offensive war to the Japanese. Mendenhall provides a vivid and detailed account of life aboard these World War II subs. He describes attacks on enemy ships, retaliatory depth charging, and life in a small, cramped space with 70 men unable to bathe for 40 or more days. Through Mendenhall's diary, the reader can follow the course of the submarine war and glimpse the sailors' daily life. Highly rec ommended.
- George F. Scheck, Naval Underwater Systems Ctr. Lib., Newport
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.