Customer Reviews

A Tale of Two Subs: An Untold Story of World War II, Two Sister Ships, and Extraordinary Heroism

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The intertwined histories of two USN WWII submarines - USS Sculpin and USS Sailfish - are supposedly the subject of this 2008 book from Grand Central Publishing. I say supposedly because the book is so poorly focused you wonder exactly what's in author Jonathan McCullough's periscope sights.

Sculpin (SS-191) and Sailfish (SS-192) had two tragic connections. In May 1939, SS-192, then named Squalus, sank; Sculpin aided in the rescue of her surviving crew. In November 1943 Sculpin was sunk by Japanese destroyers. Some of her survivors were put on board escort carrier IJN Chuyo to be ferried to Japan. Tragically Chuyo was then sunk by Sailfish/Squalus in December 1943. Only one of 21 Sculpin crewmen survived the sinking of the carrier.

Had McCullough told that story, he would have had a great book on his hands. Unfortunately he runs aground for several reasons. First, he devotes pages and pages of A TALE OF TWO SUBS to USN codebreaking operations in WWII. I don't understand why he introduced this totally unrelated element into the book. There isn't a large enough connection between the codebreaking efforts of Joe Rochefort, Jasper Holmes, etc. and the Sculpin/Sailfish story to justify the verbage. As a result, in reading the book, Sailfish often seems like a bit player in a book supposedly detailing its career! Second, the book's organization seems out-of-whack. Sailfish and Sculpin's first cosmic connection came in 1939 yet McCullough doesn't get to that until p. 182. Third, although both subs attacked Japanese shipping, McCullough doesn't include details of the damage they actually inflicted versus what they claimed; such information is readily available in standard sources on the Silent Service.

Sorry to say, I can't recommend A TALE OF TWO SUBS.

The Sculpin and Sailfish were two of the U.S. Navy's attack submarines. They, along with the other submarines of the U.S. fleet, were charged with "unrestricted" attacks on all types of Japanese shipping. The submariners carried this task out with cold efficiency. However, in the early days of the war, American submarines were plagued by faulty torpedoes which would "porpoise" or fail to explode upon striking an enemy vessel. Many Japanese ships escaped sure destruction as a result of these inferior weapons.

The Sailfish began its life as the USS Squalis. In the spring of 1939, the Squalis sank during a test dive off the Eastern coast of the United States. Over half of the crew was killed, but some managed to survive the sinking by moving toward the front of the boat, which was undamaged. In a remarkable feat of engineering, these surviving men were rescued from the doomed sub with a diving bell which could be attached to the sub's hull. The Squalis itself was raised from the ocean, repaired and refitted, and re-commissioned as the USS Sailfish. However, many considered the boat to be cursed due to its earlier sinking. Still, the Sailfish began its new service to the Navy.

The USS Sculpin, sister to the Squalis, had been insturmental in assisting with the rescue efforts. Now, the two subs were in service against the Japanese. On November 19, 1943, the Sculpin was attacked by a Japanese destroyer. Forced to surface due to the large amount of damage it received, the commander of the Sculpin decided to fight it out on the surface with the Japanese destroyer while making preparations to scuttle the sub. One of the men who perished aboard the Sculpin was Commander John P. Cromwell, who made the ultimate sacrifice rather than risk being captured and forced to reveal his knowledge that the Americans had broken the Japanese war code. The surviving Americans were taken aboard the Japanese destroyer, which headed for its base on Truk island. Upon reaching Truk, the prisoners were divided into two groups; one group was assigned to the Japanese aircraft carrier Unyo, while the other group was assigned to the carrier Chuyo. One group would live; one wouldn't.

Several days later, the USS Sailfish was patrolling in enemy waters. Acting on secret ULTRA information, the skipper knew that a Japanese convoy was due to pass by. Despite battling high seas and winds, the Sailfish managed to shoot its torpedoes at the enemy ships. Unknown to the crew of the Sailfish, the ship it targeted was the Chuyo, which carried survivors from the Sculpin. The group of survivors from the Unyo would ultimately reach Japan and serve out the remainder of the war as prisoners of the Japanese. These men endured barbaric treatment at the hands of their captors.

This is an exciting story. The lives of these two subs were forever intertwined. It was an unfortunate accident that the Sailfish torpedoed the enemy ship that was carrying survivors from the Sculpin.

I recommend this book highly. The author does a good job of describing the background of these two submarines as well as the code breaking efforts of the men at station HYPO. The book is written in a style that places the reader in the heat of battle. The chapters dealing with the Sculpin's battle with the Japanese destroyer are the best of the book.

Fans of submarine warfare will definitely want to read this book.

A Tale of Two Subs is a good attempt at historical writing however Mr. McCullough missed the mark on his title. In the title he promises to tie the story of the U.S.S. Sculpin and U.S.S. Sailfish (formerly U.S.S. Squalus). The two submarines are tied by fate and misfortune. In 1939 U.S.S. Squalus sank in a diving test in which 26 men lost their lives but the ship was salvaged and renamed as U.S.S Sailfish. In 1943 the U.S.S. Sculpin is sunk by a Japanese destroyer rescuing 42 men from the Sculpin. Some of the Sculpin crewmembers decided to stay onboard for a variety of reasons. The most important person deciding to stay onboard was Captain John Cromwell. This man and and his friendship with the Navy' top cryptographic officer in the Pacific is the heart of McCullough's book not the submarines as advertised in his title.

It was difficult to understand the topic of the second chapter in relation to the title and supposed focus of the book about submarines since the chapter focused on the code breaking effort before and during the war based on one man. This would be acceptable if the main focus of the book was not on the submarines but rather Jasper Holmes the commanding officer of the code breaking effort. McCullough kept on coming back to Holmes rather than focusing as the title promises two sister ships. The story is compelling but the submarine aspect of the book is secondary rather than primary as the title suggests. McCullough kept switching from the Sculpin to Holmes and often included the Sailfish as an after thought and in reality McCullough only discusses the Sailfish's history briefly and only when the Sailfish was something relevant to Holmes and the Sculpin.

McCullough's writing style made me reminding myself I wasn't grading this book or even editing it. McCullough's short biography states he has experience in editing books which this book needed. McCullough switches from first person to third person often and often uses vernacular in trying to describe facts. For example "We do not know where Lieutenant Commander Connaway or Lieutenant Defrees were at this point, only they did not die in the conning tower. Lieutenant George Brown succeeded to command" (page 243 A Tale of Two Subs). This passage is an example of McCullough not being able to maintain which person he is actually using. In future History classes I will use the passage as an example of how not to write History. On page 121 McCullough writes " The disagreements ignited in what could be called a 1940's flame war..." McCullough is depending that his reader will know what a flame war is when some of his readers might not. It was quite clear that McCullough started out interested in the submarines but found a more compelling story which is interesting.

The book is a good read if the reader isn't reading for any insights into the submarine war in the Pacific or expecting a book about two submarines with compelling stories. McCullough's book held the promise of telling some to be akin to Carl LaVo's Back From The Deep which has covered but never delivered to that promise. It is an interesting book about code breaking which is fascinating but not relating to the title. This book would not be disappointing if it were actually titled with something to do with McCullough's focus.

This book is a real page-turner. Its hard to put down, and meshes the various themes beautifully. Like most good books it takes a level of concentration andintelligence, plus some imagination. I hope the public has enough of both to appreciate a real gem of a history book. There are three basic themes - the pairing of the submarines, the code-breaking that was so essential to effective sub warfare, and the personal ties between submariners, even, in this case, between naval neighbors, much to the disadvantage of Cromwell - the knowledge would kill him. The personal touch - what was it like to face depth charges- makes the book real and the service more than admirable. As a child a knew a fearless diver who couldn't bring himself to go down into a sub in the Chicago River, such is the courage it takes to be a submariner. In the end, the fate of the Sculpin crew is sealed almost as a Greek tragedy. Classic stuff.

I bought this on impulse, but once I started reading it I got completely sucked in and read the whole book in 2 or 3 sittings. A fascinating tale full of gut-wrenching twists and turns.
The author recounts what it was actually like to serve on a WWII sub in minute detail. It is cleary well-reseached. The descriptions throughout the narrative are oustanding, and the explanations of military terminology and protocol are interesting and easy to understand.
Really an amazing story that is well written- truly a tribute to these incredibly brave men.

Yes, A TALE OF TWO SUBS is about the Silent Service and codebreakers of World War II, but it's more about the Pentagon Bureaucrats who punish every genuine hero, or sabotage every good deed and good idea that comes down the pike during the war. It's about premeditated SNAFUs and Desk Commanders & Apple Polishers jealous of real warriors.

I personally enjoyed the diversity of topics in the book. I learned a lot about submarine service and codebreaking. And its all written in a dramatic style that's easy to read and very entertaining. It's a book of fascinating tales NOT charts and graphs and maps and colorless reports.

Its a terrific book for vacations or business travel.

Jonathan McCullough has put together a very ambitious, exciting and informative book. He writes with the authority of an old salt--I'm sure due to exhaustive research. How did we win the war with those lousy torpedoes? I felt the claustrophobia of being in a sub under attack. Who knew that it could be so hot in a submarine. One would think that being submerged in water would keep a sub cool. After reading about the Japanese treatment of our sailors I feel a little guilty owning a Nissan. McCullough's info on breaking and then protecting the secret of having broken the Jap code is fascinating. The book holds the ingredients of a great underdog / hero story. What tragedy, the sinking of a vessel carrying your own men. Thank god for men like Captain John Cromwell. A compelling read.

I give this book 4 periscopes. It is a fearless account about life aboard submarines during WWII. As such, it adds an important and very realistic dimension to what we know about this form of battle. This is a suspensful book; one which deals with life aboard submarines and also with the interface of battle and bureaucracy. if you are a WWII buff, then this should be required reading.

It's argumentative, but let's do it anyway.

There were plenty of heroes to go around in the western Pacific theater of operations during World War II. The Army grunts, the Marine Corps gyrenes, the Navy and Army Air Corps fliers and the ones who supported them afloat and ashore come to mind easily.

But there was another class of hero who served silently against the might of the Japanese imperial forces on missions made all the more difficult by know-nothing Navy bureaucrats in Washington and a loud-mouth, racist politician from Kentucky.

The biggest heroes in the Pacific may have been the volunteers who wore distinctive and coveted pins on their uniforms. The pin shows two dolphins facing inward toward a submarine and testifies to the wearer as a qualified submariner. They were the sailors who slipped quietly out of port, submerged, and went hunting for Japanese ships. They were like no other combatants. Their casualties were the highest of any service during the war.

In his first published book, author Jonathan McCullough delivers a graphic account of what it was like aboard American u-boats in the early forties. He writes, "...each dive caused severe pressure changes several times daily, the effect caused searing, exquisitely excruciating headaches that reduced grown men to bedridden wrecks." When subs returned from a tropics patrol of several weeks' duration the crew "...were reduced to skin and bones [because] heat from the engines made the interiors of the boats feel like a blast furnace."

Sadly, the natural perils of life underwater and attacks from surface ships above were only part of the problem. The "staffies" in Washington refused to believe that Combat Information Center at Pearl Harbor, commanded by Joseph J. Rochefort, had really cracked the Japanese J-25 code. The office of the Chief of Naval Operations fired one bureaucratic torpedo after another at Rochefort, eventually sending him back to the mainland to skipper a dry dock.

The Navy's Bureau of Ordinance was as bad. Appallingly, BuOrd's designers, engineers, and apologists refused to believe the submariners who came back to port feeling betrayed and impotent because their torpedoes exploded after running only a hundred yards, or hit the sides of enemy ships and bounced off. Washington had to be right, the whole fleet of u-boat sailors that had gone in harm's way had to be wrong.

One wishes McCullough had written more about the "May Affair" involving Democratic Congressman Andrew Jackson May of Kentucky, Chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs. In May's eyes the enemies were "racially inferior, stupid yellow 'Jap' bastards." During a junket to the Pacific in 1943 May learned in secret briefings that many of the American submarines were escaping from Japanese destroyers and other sub-killers because their depth charges were set to explode at 150 feet below the surface.

May promptly held a press conference to tell reporters what he had learned about Japanese whom he considered to be idiots. The story was published around the world including Hawaii where Japanese informants probably picked it up and transmitted it to Tokyo. The Imperial Navy promptly reset the depth charges to go off at 250 feet. The U.S. Navy estimated May's mouth cost 800 lives aboard 10 submarines depth charged to the bottom of the Pacific.

The two subs of the title were sister ships, U.S.S. Sculpin and U.S.S. Sailfish, formerly the Squalus which had sunk off the New England coast in 1939 and been raised to the surface, refitted, and renamed. They were both in the Philippines on December 8, 1941 (December 7 in Hawaii, east of the international date line.) McCullough skilfully and even lovingly traces the boats' and crews' wartime patrols until fate brought these sibling vessels together again, one accidentally killing many of the other's sailors.

This is nit-picking, but it would have been nice if the author had written about decks and overheads instead of floors and ceilings. Never mind, it's not important.

Each spring at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific submariners gather for the Tolling of the Bell ceremony. Present and former submariners remember those ships and shipmates who are on eternal patrol. It's estimated that a thousand WW II veterans die each day now, and in May, 2008 when Hachette Press published A Tale of Two Subs just one member of the U.S.S. Sculpin's survivors was still alive.

Maybe next year after the Tolling of the Bell, the admiral who holds the title of ComSubPac will order his driver to stop at the ship's store so he can buy a present and send it to the writer. With A Tale of Two Subs, Jonathan McCullough has earned his dolphins.

I am behind in my reading, therefore, I have not read this book. I have read other books similar to this and after I finish reading Secret Missions, the story of a naval intelligence officer, I expect this book will be just as interesting as the other captains and crews of ships and subs that took on the enemy.