Thomas F. (hardtack) -
While I would never wish to serve in submarines (the Marines was tough enough for me and I got to breath fresh air), I am, for whatever reason, fascinated by the stories of submarines in WW II. I have a number of books about them - American, British, German and Japanese. They are all unbelievable tales.
This one was very interesting, as I wasn't aware that such a mission ever took place.
The only problem I had was that the author made the point again and again that the lives of the men on the boat that was sunk were wasted as the atomic bomb would have ended the war without their sacrifice. And he blamed several high-ranking Navy officers for it.
I imagine that while sitting in his easy chair decades after World War II this was an easy assumption to make. However, it doesn't explain why the United States was spending millions of dollars shipping men and equipment from Europe to the Pacific IF the people who were actually running the war thought the atomic bomb was going to win it for us anyway. If you read enough about WW II in the Pacific, no one was convinced that the Japanese were going to surrender even if all of their cities were a-bombed. Fact is, we only had two such bombs and the U.S. hoped that Japanese leadership thought we had more. Another fact is that the fire-bombing of the Japanese cities was killing even more people than the a-bombs did.
Otherwise, this was a very good tale.
This one was very interesting, as I wasn't aware that such a mission ever took place.
The only problem I had was that the author made the point again and again that the lives of the men on the boat that was sunk were wasted as the atomic bomb would have ended the war without their sacrifice. And he blamed several high-ranking Navy officers for it.
I imagine that while sitting in his easy chair decades after World War II this was an easy assumption to make. However, it doesn't explain why the United States was spending millions of dollars shipping men and equipment from Europe to the Pacific IF the people who were actually running the war thought the atomic bomb was going to win it for us anyway. If you read enough about WW II in the Pacific, no one was convinced that the Japanese were going to surrender even if all of their cities were a-bombed. Fact is, we only had two such bombs and the U.S. hoped that Japanese leadership thought we had more. Another fact is that the fire-bombing of the Japanese cities was killing even more people than the a-bombs did.
Otherwise, this was a very good tale.
