Warbird Information Exchange

Paul,

Thanks for the link. After finding the Lagarto this past summer it would be wonderful if they could add another long lost U.S. sub to the "found" list!

John

Good on them! The private sector comes through. It must be very hard not to know what happened to a family member. Hopefully this will help to bring some closure.

interesting thread. i'll throw a little irony in for good affect...... the sub's commander was named mannert l. abele...... the uss mannert l. abele, named in memory of the sub captain was a destroyer ship, & was the one of the few ships sunk during ww2 by a kamikaze oka rocket powered suicide plane dropped from a betty bomber with an explosive charge in the nose. weird that the captain & his namesake both perished.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/10/05/lo ... index.html


Another cnn.com article on it.

Thanks for posting the second link Paul.

It's interesting to note in the article the account made by the commander of the Japanese freighter. He mentioned that all but one of the sub's torpedos either bounced off the hull or missed!!

When the family and I toured the WWII Sub, U.S.S. Cobia in Manitowoc, WI, the tour guides pointed out that the torpedoes used early on in the war had serious design flaws and were prone to bouncing off a target rather than exploding. Must have been maddening for the sub skippers!!

John

Should be interesting next summer when they explore the site again with the underwater cameras.

the mark 13 torpedo used in the early stages of the war up to the start of 1943 was a notorious dud & totally unreliable, whether it was launched from a sub, surface ship, or aircraft. the advent of the mark 15 torpedo worked out all the bugs in the mark 13. it was appropriatley designated with the lucky # 13 when it was designed.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Don't you guys remember? John Wayne worked the bugs out of the torpedoes by dropping the warhead from the top of a crane. Found that the aluminum firing pins were breaking.

Right...Hollywood style quality control.