The Bravest Man / William Tuohy / Admiral Richard "Dick" O'Kane, USN / USS Tang SS-306 / SubmarineBooks.com

This is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Tuohy's powerful story of Richard H. O’Kane, America's undersea ace of aces. It is also the tale of a few fearless men, submariners all, set against the backdrop of the U.S. submarine war in the Pacific. The grueling battle beneath the waves saw 10 million tons of Japanese shipping sunk by U.S. submariners, but the cost to the U.S. Navy was terrifying. One in five of its boats was destroyed—the highest causality rate of the entire American armed forces. But the fight against a determined enemy was only half the battle. U.S. Navy command problems were kept secret from the men, and in scandalous disaster, submarines were provided with torpedoes that failed in action.

O’Kane participated in the most dramatic war patrols of the Pacific War, with duty aboard USS Argonaut (SS-166) USS Wahoo (SS-238)and finally his own boat, USS Tang (SS-306). In a final irony, on it's fifth and final patrol Tang was tragic sunk by its own torpedo. The dramatic escape of nine survivors, including Commander O'Kane, makes for compelling and uneasy reading. Author Tuohy skillfully mixes the heat of battle action with the antics of the tough skippers and their crews to relive an age when heroism was in fashion, a time of threat, danger, challenge and sacrifice.

This new Paperback edition (7 by 4 inches) has 432 pages, 32 black and white photos, one fleet boat diagram, and an index.

Just $6.99

BOOK REVIEWS

"(...) this is one fine book. This book contains facts not covered in the other books I have found. Sure it covers the great history of U.S. submarines. But it also covers what went on behind the actions. It also uncovers some of the gross blunders made. If you are into WWII submarine history this is one book to have. It is also backed up by those that have been there and done that. That is in addition to the usual history found in the archives. Unfortunately this book is probably the last of it's kind." Mr. Scott

"It's a big ocean," Dick O'Kane once told me. "You don't have to find the enemy if you don't want to." O'Kane was 60 when we met. He was a compact man, straight as a ramrod, with a small smile and bushy eyebrows. He loved to talk, especially on technical matters, but he seldom spoke about what it was like to be a submariner in the Pacific, in a war that claimed the lives of 22% of the Americans who went to sea in the pig boats, as submarines were called. It was a pleasure to meet him again in "The Bravest Man" and to learn more about his remarkable accomplishments in World War II. That a submariner need not find the enemy was brought home to O'Kane in 1942 on his first patrol in Wahoo, under an older captain who had learned caution in the peacetime Navy. The cautious skipper was replaced by Dudley "Mush" Morton, who with O'Kane's support made Wahoo the deadliest American boat in the Pacific, sinking nine ships on one ferocious patrol through the Yellow Sea, between China and Korea. "You can't afford to flinch," Morton said; "you can't afford to give up. You must constantly keep 'rassling, and keep shooting till you destroy him." Wahoo was later lost with all hands, not including O'Kane, who by then—the fall of 1943—had command of Tang. He soon proved that he too had a great desire to keep 'rassling and to sink Japanese ships, despite the second-rate torpedoes supplied to American submarines. On its first patrol, Tang sank five ships; on its second, it rescued 22 American airmen, shot down in the battle for Truk [Island] at the center of the Pacific's Caroline Islands. On its fourth patrol, it set a U.S. record by sending 10 enemy ships to the bottom, despite new torpedoes that were sometimes as balky as the old. As a skipper, Richard O'Kane was audacious, persistent and inventive. He was willing to go up against the shore, if that's where the enemy was to be found. Yet he always had an escape route in mind—and he took care of his people. Sailors clamored to join Tang, despite its record of going in harm's way. Alas, having a good captain is never enough. On Tang's fifth patrol, the odds caught up with O'Kane, and he had the unhappy experience of watching his 24th and last torpedo circle back to explode on the boat's stern. The men on the bridge were thrown into the water, but their troubles were scarcely over. It was the middle of the night, and they had no flotation gear. When morning came, 9 of the 87 crewmen were still alive, including some who had made the first-ever escape from a submarine sunk in combat. They were picked up by a Japanese destroyer, whose captain treated them decently but delivered them to starvation, torture and slave labor at Yokohama. Like aviators, submariners were classified as "special prisoners of Japan," imprisoned in the foulest camps with their existence unreported to the International Red Cross. Again O'Kane survived the impossible, to be reunited with his family and to receive the Medal of Honor from the hand of President Harry Truman. The author of "The Bravest Man" is himself a U.S. Navy veteran, who in 1968 won the Pulitzer as a reporter in Vietnam. Mr. Tuohy takes a curious approach to his story, first writing about Wahoo, then O'Kane's earlier life, and finally Tang and later events, interrupted by chapters on what the rest of the American sub pack was doing. This can sometimes be confusing. And the line-editing in the book is sometimes careless. But "The Bravest Man" is well worth reading, especially in a year when the USS O'Kane is on watch in the Arabian Sea, carrying the bravest man's name and legacy into the 21st century." Daniel Ford