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Japanese Naval
and Merchant Vessels Sunk
During WWII By All U.S. Submarines
World War II U.S. Submarine
Force in the Pacific
A record of all enemy ships sunk in WWII listed alphabetically by
submarine
as compiled by JANAC (Joint Army Navy Assessment Committee)
The following pages
list the detailed statistics of all enemy merchant and Man-O-War vessels
sunk by each individual U.S. submarine during World War II. The tonnage
scores indicated are the adjusted JANAC (Joint Army Navy Assessment
Committee) totals. The actual number of ships sunk and the tonnage
assigned to the "kill" by American submarines was quite often found by
JANAC after the
war had ended to be erroneous and frequently wide of the mark. This is
very understandable as skippers would report the tonnage of enemy ships
sunk based on their best calculation of the actual size of the target. Realizing that the submarine captain's
estimate of
the target's size was largely based in part on frequent but momentary
views through the periscope and on the identification of specific
vessels made by the comparison of the image of enemy ship silhouettes
printed in the recognition manuals supplied by the Navy, these estimates
were made during highly stressful and tension filled moments. Depending
on the combat situation, an attacking submarine would only rarely stick
around long enough to watch their torpedoed target actually sink, as the
possibility of an imminent counterattack by escorting vessels was
usually forthcoming. Kills would also be credited for ships sunk, quite
often without any solid, concrete verification. In many cases, only the
sounds picked up by the hydrophones of a ship breaking up, or the
discovery of floating debris in the patrol area the following day was
considered sufficient enough evidence of a sinking. In their post war
investigations, JANAC teams used Japanese resources as well as war time
radio intercepts (ULTRA) of U.S. submarine attacks and those results in
their determination of actual tonnage ultimately awarded.
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Record of enemy
vessel sinkings
listed alphabetically by submarines
beginning with the letter:
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