Back from the Deep: The Strange Story of the Sister Subs 'Squalus' and 'Sculpin'

by Carl P. LaVO

This epic World War II saga follows the USS Squalus and Sculpin as they play out their dramatic destinies in the Pacific. The author, a seasoned journalist, re-creates their entire perilous journey. The Squalus sank during a test dive in 1939, but thirty-three trapped crewmen were saved thanks to the revolutionary use of the McCann diving bell. The Sculpin 's role in that historic rescue is just the first of many incongruous twists of fate that brought the two subs together after the Squalus was salvaged and rechristened the Sailfish .

Carl LaVO skillfully weaves together the tragic loss of the Sculpin to a Japanese destroyer with the frenetic wrath of its sister sub. Their intertwined fates come to an eerie climax as the Sailfish unleashes a ten-hour attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier Chuyo amid a raging typhoon, unwittingly killing twenty-two of the forty-three Americans captured from the sunken Sculpin . The saga comes to a close with a moving description of the surviving Sculpin crewmen as they face incredible hardship, torture, and disease as POWs in Japan. This book is certain to instill a renewed appreciation for the intrepid men and stealthy boats that were the soul of the Pacific campaign's silent service.

Genres: History, Family, Naval History

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1994

Reviews

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

The account of two WW II submarines who, through a weird twist of fate, had their stories intertwined. The Sculpin, in 1939, had helped located and rescue sailors from the Squalus when it went down in 240 feet of water off New Hampshire. Later in the war, the Sailfish, the rechristened Squalus lined up her torpedoes and attacked an enemy escort carrier which, it happens, was transporting prisoners that had been captured from the Sculpin. Many were drowned.

The Sculpin and Squalus were sister submarines launched in 1938. On one of her final trial runs, the induction valve (the huge air intake for the diesel engines) failed to close during a test crash dive and the Squalus sank. This was to be the first test of the Momsen lung (Momsen himself was to participate in the rescue) and the diving bell the Navy had installed and built following numerous submarine losses in the preceding decade. The survivors were now trapped in the control room and torpedo room. Fortunately the sub was not on its side but held a slight 11% upward angle (at 320 feet long, technically the bow, had it had enough buoyancy, I suppose could have stuck up out of the water. One option considered was to attach high pressure air lines to the sub and fill it with enough air to blow it to the surface. They decided to use the rescue bell instead, the first time it was used to rescue sailors trapped in a sub.) A big problem was that the last transmission before they dived to indicate their transmission was garbled slightly in the last digit so they were actually five miles away from where they had reported diving.

Well, enough spoilers. This is a fascinating account of overlapping coincidental tragedies. Submarine service was risky enough and submariners lost their lives at a rate 6 times that of any other service during WW II.

P.S. Excellent detailed website regarding the salvage of the Squalus at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/oth...

Another book about the original sinking and salvage of the Squalus is Peter Maas' The Terrible Hours

alsoA Tale of Two Subs An Untold Story of World War II, Two Sister Ships, and Extraordinary Heroism

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for anyone, not just World War II buffs. I'm actually not that interested in that era, especially the military battles side, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It helped me gain a real sense of what submariners go through and even made me want to learn more about submarines and their history - something I've never cared about before!

[Rachel Parham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sister ships. Not a new idea in the world of maritime technology. Shipyards throughout time have built repeats of a single type of craft, creating a series of “identical sisters” that have plied the waters together. But in the deeply superstitious world of sailors and mariners, sister ships often share more than an identical design – they can share lives, fates, and destinies.

Not that journalist Carl Lavo subscribes to maritime superstition, but in this fascinating look at the World War II “sister subs,” USS Squalus and USS Sculpin, he definitely creates a sense of fate in the dramatic lives of these two ships.

Built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine in 1938, the two subs were off to a dramatic start when the Squalus experienced a technical malfunction and sank during a test dive off the coast of New Hampshire on May 23, 1939. Miraculously, half of the crew aboard survived the initial sinking and kept themselves alive in a frozen tomb at a depth of 240 feet until they were located by the crew of the sister sub, Sculpin. Following a dramatic rescue of the surviving crew using the new McCann Rescue Chamber, the navy quickly decided to refloat the Squalus and return her to service.

It took 4 months and over 600 dives to the sunken ship to get her back to the surface (and, in one particularly dramatic moment during the salvage, an enterprising photojournalist managed to snap a picture of the Squalus nose leaping up through the waves before she splashed back down and sank to the bottom, forcing the rescue efforts to start all over again. The dramatic photo won the Pulitzer prize that year), but return, she did, and after major overhauling, the USS Squalus was relaunched as the USS Sailfish in 1940.

Sailfish caught up with her sister Sculpin in March 1940 at Pearl Harbor, and the two were deployed to join the Pacific Fleet in the Philippines. Both subs were heavily involved in combat operations until November 19, 1943 when the Sculpin was attacked by a Japanese destroyer, the Yamagumo. Damaged badly by depth charges and firing from the Yamagumo’s deck guns, the sub’s senior officer ordered the Sculpin scuttled. Survivors were eventually rescued by the Yamagumo and taken to the Japanese naval base at Truk, where they were questioned, and then put on aircraft carriers for transport to POW camps. Unbeknownst to the Sculpin survivors, the USS Sailfish was close by, and when the latter found the aircraft carriers steaming back to Japan, she fired – having no clue her sister sub’s survivors were aboard.

At the end of it all, the two subs affected every man that served aboard them, and changed their lives forever. Lavo explores the life of a submariner in Back from the Deep, taking the readers into the world of the submarine academy in New London, Connecticut, and carrying us through the daily toil of living and working in a “floating coffin.” We experience the excitement of the dive, the monotony of endless swimming in an empty ocean, and the horror of the destructive depth charges.

And, always, we feel the hand of fate. From the Squalus’ disastrous first dive to the Sculpin’s final one, and everything in between. Lavo has created a unique work of history in Back from the Deep, and a new appreciation for maritime lore.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Submarines are both fascinating and fear invoking. There is just something about stealth deep beneath the sea that captivates the imagination. Dudes have got to be hero material just to step aboard, especially in those early days. Back from the Deep documents the history of 2 American Submarines and the men who served aboard them during days of peace and war. A worthy, if somewhat slow moving, read. We must never forget the bravery and sacrifices of the men who served aboard the Squalus/Sailfish, and Sculpin.

http://www.lostliners.com/Peril/squal...
http://www.pigboats.com/subs/191.html

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Seriously, it's months since I finished this book and it's still hard to articulate how much I was completely sucked in. The story itself could be straight out of Hollywood, but it's all true. From being trapped in a sunken submarine to life as Japanese prisoners of war, there are all the horrors a WWII submariner could face. Heroic rescues, twists of fate, and determined characters, it's all here. And LaVo is an incredible writer and storyteller -- I am so glad he chose to tackle this story, and I intend to track down everything else he's written.

[Stephen Cluff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of the sister submarines Squalus and Sculpin and their ‘adventures’ during World War II. It is a fantastic book that gave me a nice inside view of the submariner’s life on board those frightening little ships during the Second World War.

[Kenney · Rating 4 out of 5]

My read was an earlier hard cover account.