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"Japamese began repoting that American submariners were suddenly reporting torpedos that reglarly exploded. Some innovtion had come to the American submarine torpedoes. The sinking rate of torpedoed ships began to suddenly jump up." Hedated the change to August 20. 1943.
-- Vice Admiral Shigaru Fukadome, post-War intrerogation
Admiral Stark in the WhiteHouse issued the order to launch unrestricted submarine warfae within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack. The submarine service was not damaged by the Japanese attack. The initial results, however, were very disappointing. The American submarine campaign was hampered by two major problems: 1) poor strategic and tactical concepts and 2) ineffective torpedoes. American naval tactical doctrine was to use submarines as scouts and screening vessels. The idea of using submarines as commerce raiders was not adopted. as part of inter-War planning. In fact such usage was considered a war crime. The Germans were condemned for just such tactics in the Atlnic. As a result, submarine captains were not trained to conduct or tactical doctrine developed for commerce riding. The initial American submarine campaign was also hampered by ineffective torpedoes. Many mistakes were made by the American military in the years leading up to the War. Perhaps the single most incompetent matter was the Navy's failure to develop an effective torpedo. The Navy developed a magnetically activated firing mechanism. Because of the cost, the Navy did not adequately test it torpedoes and throughout 1942, American submarines were achieving hits but the torpedoes were failed to explode. The trigger mechanism had faults and the Navy had not taken into account differences in the earth's magnetic field. American submarines averaged only about half a Japanese vessel sunk per mission during 1942. It took over a year to resolve the technical problems and effective torpedoes began to reach the American submarinesin the second half of 1943. Not only were the torpedoes finally working and aggressive commanders in olace, buimproved radar and Mgic decrypts increased the effectiness of American submiunes. It was not until October 1943 that the American submarine campaign began to significantly affect the delivery of raw materials to Japan, but the Japanese began boticin it even sooner. The number of marus sunk began to reach sizeable numbers. Americn submariners reported remarkable results. American submariners sank more than 600 Japanese ships (nearly 3 million tons) in 1944, more than 1941-43 combined.
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