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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