United States Submarine Operations in World War II

United States Submarine Operations in World War II

Artwork from the book depicting the sacrifice of CDR Howard W. Gilmore in saving USS Growler (SS-215)
Author	Theodore Roscoe
Illustrator	Fred Freeman
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	U.S. submarine campaign against the Japanese Empire
Genre	Military History
Publisher	United States Naval Institute
Publication date	1949
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	577 pp (first edition)
Followed by	United States Destroyer Operations in World War II

United States Submarine Operations in World War II by Theodore Roscoe is a classic history of the role of the United States Navy submarines in World War II, earning him the title of "grandfather" of World War II American Submarine historiography. Because the book was written shortly after the war, later scholars have found errors or omissions in its facts. Nevertheless, the book's sweeping narrative maintains it as a classic text in the American submarine force; excerpts are often read at ceremonies where submariners earn their Submarine Warfare insignia.

After World War II, John M. Will of the US Navy Bureau of Personnel hired Roscoe to reduce Richard Voge's 1,500-page Operational History of the submarine war to publishable size. His resulting book was published in 1949 by the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland. "It is a truncated version of the Operational History (sometimes reproduced word for word)...the Operational History in more manageable form." The work was further condensed in paperback by Bantam Books as Pig Boats.

In 1975 Clay Blair Jr. authored Silent Victory (see references). Silent Victory was acclaimed by Ned Beach as "an extraordinary book...the definitive submarine history." Written by a competent professional historian a generation apart from Roscoe's work, each book casts reflections upon the other. At the end of each narrative, both authors appended tables of the history of World War 2 from the individual submarine perspective.

Blair's Appendices E and F, organized chronologically by submarine patrol, include the departure point for each patrol, its start month, submarine commanding officer, patrol duration, wartime assessed ships and tonnage sunk (usually as made by Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood), post-war JANAC-assessed ships and tonnage sunk, the applicable patrol area, with minimal footnotes about the involvement in any special missions the submarine might be undertaking, and footnotes that indicate shared-credit sinkings.

The ultimate JANAC assessments were about 50% of Admiral Lockwood's post-patrol judgement, as relayed to him by the commanding officers. The reasons are various: