Lockwood was COMSUBPAC, the high rama-lama ding-dong in charge of all US submarines based in the Pacific in WWII. This is an outstanding book for those wanting to know more about this portion of the war. It covers everything from the bombing of Cavite in the Philippines to the submarine presence at the signing of the article of surrender in Sep. 1945. He recounts his fight for reliable torpedoes in the early years of the war including one incident where a skipper shot all 20-ish torpedoes at a single Japanese ship with 0 explosions.
It isn't all politics as he recounts successful and unsuccessful war patrols and surprisingly also goes at length into the technological advancements made during the war and his role. It even contains excerpts of patrol logs which were fascinating reads.
One complaint is that at times he refers to ship classes that aren't in popular lexicon now, including one class of aircraft carrier. Occasionally he calls a light cruiser a destroyer and vice versa, but this is all probably as simple as what they called them then vs. what we call them now.
Minus the above nitpick,. it is a great book.
It isn't all politics as he recounts successful and unsuccessful war patrols and surprisingly also goes at length into the technological advancements made during the war and his role. It even contains excerpts of patrol logs which were fascinating reads.
One complaint is that at times he refers to ship classes that aren't in popular lexicon now, including one class of aircraft carrier. Occasionally he calls a light cruiser a destroyer and vice versa, but this is all probably as simple as what they called them then vs. what we call them now.
Minus the above nitpick,. it is a great book.
