Customer Reviews

Pigboat 39: An American Sub Goes to War

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This fine book, written by the wife of a submarine officer who served on S-39, provides a unique look at the lost world of late-1930's submarine duty in the US Navy's *Asiatic Fleet* as well as early war patrols. Tales of pre-War submarine training and Navy life and liberty in the Philippines and China set the backdrop for the story. Unlike some WWII submarine books this one includes lots of perspective from the sailors, and their wives and sweethearts, as well as the ship's officers.

In December 1941, S-39 and several other *pigboats* (a term for the already obsolete S boats used by sailors on the then-modern *fleet boats* which, themselves, came to be called pigboats by the nuclear-powered submarine generation) made the first war patrols. When it became clear the Japanese would conquer the Philippines S-39 withdrew, shooting, from the ruined Cavite Navy base near Manila: foraging for supplies among island villages, sinking two Japanese ships, suffering depth charge and bomb attacks, refitting in soon-to-be-conquered Dutch-dominated Indonesia and finally limping into Fremantle, Australia on one engine. By March 1942, S-39 had three war patrols under her belt.

A few months later, after extensive repairs and operating from Brisbane with a new skipper, S-39 makes a short breakdown plagued patrol and then, on her fifth patrol in August 1942, runs hopelessly aground off a remote island near New Guinea. Unable to re-float the stranded sub, S-39's crew scuttles the vessel and swims through dangerous stormy waves to a nearby reef to await rescue from an Australian destroyer. After some of the crew spends the night standing on a reef in water that rises above their waist during high tide, everyone makes it safely back to Australia. In an afterword we learn, sadly, that both of S-39's skippers and several other crew members we've come to know through this book perish in other submarines lost during the War.

There are useful sketch maps of each patrol. The best feature of the book may be the 57 black and white photos. Most of them are of the men whose words and actions are portrayed in the book. I found myself referring to them often as the story unfolded.

I recommend this book highly to everyone interested in naval and submarine history. It's a chance to look beyond the *big picture* of strategies and admirals to recall the importance of the day-to-day struggle to persevere and succeed even when circumstances or equipment are not ideal. Even though S-39 was not the ideal vessel to aggressively pursue the Imperial Japanese Navy in early 1942, her officers and crew lived by a code articulated, many years later, by none other than Miss Piggy: *You gotta go with whatcha got.*

I came across this book by accident while looking through reviews of other Amazon reviewers. It is an interesting account of U.S. submarine S-39 covering a period from roughly early 1939 to mid-1942 when the S-39 was lost due to running aground on a reef. This is a narrative account moving between crew members, and sometimes the women they left behind, as the story moves forward.

Many of the crew members were children of the depression who joined the Navy because it furnished room, board, and clothing along with steady pay. It also furnished a chance to see the world, and service on submarines meant extra pay and a certain elite attitude. Men who qualified, usually after 6 months aboard, could wear the submariner's dolphins. The officers and men on S boats lived together elbow-to-elbow in cramped quarters and developed a certain esprit de corps. The early part of the book covers service in the Asiatic Fleet prior to the outbreak of war, and the expectations that war was on the horizon.

The S class of submarines were obsolete, and due to be replaced by the new fleet submarines, but as a previous reviewer pointed out, you have to go with what you've got. When the war started, the S-39 made its first combat patrol and sank an enemy cargo ship that was part of the force invading the Philippines. The book gives a good picture of conditions. With the Philippines being lost, the S-39 made a second patrol ending in Java, and from there a third patrol (during which it sank an enemy tanker) ending in Australia.

Operations of the submarine force moved to Brisbane, Australia, from where the S-39 made its fourth, and then its fifth patrol during which it ran aground and was destroyed. It would be nice to think that everyone survived, but the men went on to serve on other submarines, and many did not survive the war. The book was prepared by the wife of one of the survivors using extensive reference material including interviews/correspondence with other survivors. It is an interesting account of day to day events including shared hardships aboard and comradery ashore. Some men went to great lengths not to miss the boat when it sailed, or to catch up if separated.

There is a short afterward that covers the fate of a few of the individuals. Most of the individuals were in the same age group as one of my uncles who served in the Army during the war. Their ranks dwindle as the years pass.

As an additional feature, the book provides accounts of real observations of the poverty in China during that time period, the hatred that some Filipinos had for Americans, and the slavery/servitude of natives in Indonesia under Dutch rule. In one case a woman was riding in a rickshaw in China when the man pulling the rickshaw collapsed and died. Other people just ignored his body, going around him on the road, and other coolies immediately solicited the woman's business because they wanted the fare she would pay at her destination. Life was cheap.