Submarines: Impact in the Pacific Front
Lawrence F. Teder now lives in Lafayette, Indiana at the age of eight-eight years young. Mr. Teder volunteered for the Navy in 1939. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, “a date that will live in infamy,” United States submarines and aircraft carriers were luckily not seriously damaged. At that point, the Navy had one hundred eleven submarines with seventy-three under construction. Twenty-two submarines began the counterattack on the Japanese. Submarines would later be a key factor in the outcome of the war in the Pacific, and Mr. Teder was aboard one of these submarines (Teder).
Mr. Teder, upon entry into the Navy, had been assigned to the USS Philadelphia. His ship went to relieve help relieve Pearl Harbor and Mr. Teder saw the damage inflicted by the Japanese or as Mr. Teder says, “Japs.” Mr. Teder decided he wanted to be on a submarine so he volunteered for the risky job. He said he wanted to do it because it doubled his pay. Mr. Teder was assigned to the Grunion, a submarine, but did not make it aboard due to traveling difficulties and not enough training. Later, Mr. Teder would find out that the Grunion would be “lost with all hands.”
A few weeks later, Mr. Teder boarded the Guardfish commanded by Lieutenant Commander Thomas B. Klackring and became part of the crew. The Guardfish was approximately three hundred feet long and could travel at a speed of twenty knots. It also had ten torpedo tubes and twenty-four torpedoes used to sink many Japanese ships. Each torpedo cost about $10,000 so testing was sparse which led to many malfunctioning torpedoes (Teder).
Mr. Teder had many adventures and anxious moments while aboard the Guardfish including the following: passing through a mine field by Panama on the way to Pearl Harbor, being depth charged, running aground on a reef, and rowing to shore in Japanese infested waters to rescue seventy-five people. The submarines’ main object was to cut off the Japanese supply lines. Mr. Teder said he went on many “runs” or missions.
Many US subs began WWII without radar but the Guardfish had it from the beginning. They had a great advantage because the “Japs” didn’t have radar. Mechanical computers, operated by Mr. Teder, were used to target the enemy and give exact locations. Mr. Teder and the Guardfish were depth charged, which “was very dangerous and nerve racking.” Subs usually surfaced at night to keep from being detected by the Japs to charge the electric storage batteries used to power the sub along underwater. The Guardfish was so closes to Japan they could see horses racing on the mainland. They would wait close to the mainland and wait for Japanese ships to pass by. The Guardfish set a record by destroying a ship from 7,500 yards away (Teder). A run usually lasted between fifty to eighty days because a sub could only travel about 10,000 miles or until they ran out of torpedoes. Later in the war, U.S. subs used the “wolf pack strategy” where they would hunt for the enemy in packs which was much more effective and safer (www.history.sandiego.edu).
After his seventh run ending in February of 1944, Mr. Teder returned home to Indiana and married his girlfriend that he had been separated from for four long years at sea. Mr. Teder and the Guardfish sunk nineteen Japanese ships and went on many special missions. The 
Guardfish was honored with two Presidential citations, and Mr. Teder was honored with the Silver Star. In August of 1945 two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan that essentially ended the war. Mr. Teder said that the dropping of the atomic bombs was the best thing because it saved many American lives (Teder).
Submarines were very important in the Pacific. Subs helped destroy Japanese transport boats and merchant vessels. The United States submarines also were able to venture close to the Japanese mainland and create havoc. Although submarines were very important in the Pacific front, they would not have been successful if it had not been for the sacrifices of ships in the Navy. Japanese Submarine warfare in the Pacific Theatre was the cause of the worst disaster in the history of the United States Navy. This disaster was the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The ship was commissioned on November 15, 1932 in the Philadelphia Ship Yard. She was a Portland-class heavy cruiser in the US Navy. With an overall length of 610 feet and powered by eight White-Forster type boilers turning four propellers. She was the flagship of the Navy before the war and carried President Roosevelt on numerous occasions (USS Indianapolis).
On December 7, 1941 the Indianapolis was performing a mock bombardment of Johnston Island. When news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reached the Indianapolis the ship quickly joined the ranks of Task Force 12 and searched the area for remaining Japanese vessels. The Indianapolis docked at Pearl Harbor on December 13, 1941 and joined Task Force 11. The Indianapolis's first action came in late February 1942 in the Japanese invested waters of the South Pacific. During the action the U.S. shot down sixteen of the eighteen planes that attacked. The Indianapolis's second battle was in the waters off of New Guinea, where the U.S. again scored a victory with a surprise attack on the fleet located there. After this battle the Indianapolis returned to the United States to undergo an overhaul and alterations (USS Indianapolis).
The Indianapolis came back to the fight by escorting a convoy to Australia. In the weeks that followed unpredictable weather and fog hindered the progress of the task force. However, around August 7, 1942 the force found an opening that allowed to see the Japanese stronghold on the island of Kiska. The Indianapolis opened fire on the island with devastating effects. The scout planes sent out reported multiple Japanese ships sinking and numerous fires all along the shore. The surprise felt by the Japanese was so total that the batteries on the island opened fire into the sky thinking they were being attacked by the air.
By far the Indianapolis's most dangerous mission came in July 1944. The Indianapolis received word to report immediately to Pearl Harbor from San Francisco. This meant the Indianapolis was to skip the usual post repair check-up. The Indianapolis arrived at Pearl Harbor on the sixteenth of July where she received parts essential to the building of the atomic bombs that were to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These parts were to be taken to Tinian. The Indianapolis sailed at a record speed, covering the 5,000 mile journey in only ten days. The Indianapolis proceeded unescorted from Guam to help in the waters off of Okinawa (USS Indianapolis). This was to be the last voyage of the Indianapolis.
The Indianapolis had received no word that the water they were sailing in were infested with Japanese submarines. The captain of the Indianapolis, Capt. Charles Butler McVay, without the information made no attempt to make his ship less susceptible to submarine attacks. The Indianapolis was rocked by two torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-58 on July 30, 1945. The remaining crew abandoned ship and floated in the water for five days. "There were 130 men who found a loading net", remarked Lebow. The Navy never reported the ship overdue and thus never sent a rescue to look for the ship. The Navy had claimed that they had never received the SOS because the ship was under a radio silence order. However, this claim has proven false by declassified records (Military).
The men who were in the water for five days suffered horrible hardships. Without food or a drinkable water source some of the crew could not handle it and drank oil saturated water. The rest of the crew faced another type of horror, sharks. Tiger sharks came by the hundreds and killed a majority of the sailors who were waiting to be rescued. On the fifth day of being out in the water a plane on a routine patrol flight spotted the sailors and radioed back to headquarters. Mr. Cleatus Lebow says, "When I saw that plane come I was as happy as a man could be (Lebow)." The Navy immediately sent a rescue mission to the sailors. "We had to tie 56 of the men to the wings with parachute string", said Lebow. Of the 1,196 men who were ship only 316 were pulled out of the water alive (USS Indianapolis).
Submarine warfare played a huge part in the WWII in the Pacific Theatre. U.S. submarines had the upper hand throughout the war, but Japanese subs also inflicted damage on the United States Navy. The sacrifices of the men and women that gave their lives for their country will never be forgotten. The United States of America was attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. It is indeed, “A day that will live in infamy.” This day was a terrible and tragic day, but it led way to show how courageous the Americans really were. Men aboard the Guardfish and the U.S.S. Indianapolis truly exemplified what it is to be an American. We will never forget what these men and women sacrificed for us, and we hold the utmost respect for them.
Works Cited
Teder, Lawrence F. Personal Interview. 15 April 2006.
Submarines in the Pacific War. 2 August 2005. 26 April 2006. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/ww2Timeline/subpacific.>
Patrick, Bethanne Kelly. "Rear Adm. Charles McVay III". Military.com. 26 April 2006.
http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent?file=ML_mcvay_bkp
Finneran, Patrick J. The Tragedy of The USS INDIANAPOLIS (CA-35). 1999. 27 April 2006. http://www.ussindianapolis.org/pfinnstory.htm
Lebow, Cleatus. Personal Interview. 29 April 2006.
By: Joe Hughes, Ryan Sterling