Review of "War Fish," by George Grider as told to Lydel Sims

 Review of

War Fish, by George Grider as told to Lydel Sims

Five out of five stars

Firsthand account of the undersea war

 There seems little doubt that the submarine service produces the highest return for the resources expended. In both World Wars in Europe, the German U-boats came very close to winning the war for Germany, as they came close to starving out the British. In the Pacific theater, the amount of damage done to Japan by US submarines was significant. Over 1,300 merchant and 200 warships were sunk by submarines. Overall, the Japanese Imperial Navy lost 334 warships and 2000 merchant ships in World War II. In both case, roughly two-thirds of the ships sunk were by submarine.

 This of course the effectiveness of the submarines is not without cost. Approximately 22% of the US Navy men in the submarines were lost at sea. For the German submariners in World War II, 75% did not survive the war. These were the highest death rates of all the services. Conducting the war in a submarine was a dark and brutal business, stealth and cunning were the skills most needed.

 However, as submariner officer George Grider points out several times, in some cases success is more a matter of luck. This book is his recollection of his time in a submarine operating under combat conditions in the Pacific theater of World War II against the Japanese. He was an officer, eventually rising to the level of commanding his own boat. There were many times when his ship torpedoed and sunk a Japanese ship, yet there were few face-to-face encounters. In most cases, they moved in for the kill, dodged depth charges for a while, and then after escaping, if they had more torpedoes, they went back to the hunt.

 Despite the tremendous success rate of the submariners in both World Wars, their exploits are generally not given the credit and exposure that they should. For their work was the most dangerous and achieved the most damage to the enemy. In this book, the reader is exposed to the tedium and terror of the submariner.

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