Tvs american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places. Next we visit the National World , War Ii Museum to learn about the uss tang and her crew. A submarine that conducted several recordsetting missions against the japanese in the pacific theater. Seth my name is seth paridon. I am the manager of Research Services here. Right now, we are standing in the uss tang submarine experience. Uss tang was built in 1943 and commissioned in 1944 during the Second World War. She was a vallejo class submarine, which at the time in 1944, was the most modern submarine of the day. From the size, she was a rather large submarine. She had a crew of about 70 officers. Her sole main purpose was to patrol the Pacific Ocean and sink japanese war and merchant ships. By 1944, Technology Advanced and so much so that the boats that were commissioned earlier in the war, they were not obsolete by any means, but the ones commissioned such as the tang balaoclass had better radar, sound detection gear, and theoretically better torpedoes, which the submarine was plagued by in 1943 and even in 1944 with faulty torpedoes that would not explode, they would have circular runs and would not do their job and it was costing u. S. Sailors their lives. This space we are in is a mockup of the inside of a balaoclass submarine. It is not to scale for ada reasons, but it is the best that you can do in modern times. Most of the things on the wall, dials, gauges, torpedo tubes, they are modeled after original material down to the screw and rivet and brass and everything. They are very accurate reproductions, that they are not to scale. What you are standing in what is supposed to be inside of the uss tang. This exhibit is designed to bring visitors as close as possible to what sailors and americans fleet submarines in 1944 experienced in fighting the japanese. The submarine force evolved so that earlier in the war, most submarine attacks made by u. S. Submarines were made underwater by periscopes. There was an evolution in Commanding Officers during late 1942, all the way into 1944, that song a lot of submarine skippers throw the book out. The book prewar was to remain unseen, undetected, strike when not expected and sink by torpedo when submerged. It was quickly realized that that was not the best way to get the job done. Submarine skippers like dudley, walker, they were nicknamed mush, and people of this john his genre developed tactics to where the submarines were no longer trying to stay unseen. It was the opposite. They were hunters, killers. They would attack on the surface. They would attack on the surface at night, get in the midst of japanese convoys, create as much havoc as they could, sink as many ships as they could and escape unscathed. Morton and guys like sam dealey and later Richard Okane really took those tactics and honed them to a fine edge and made the submarine in the u. S. One of the finest fighting forces that ever went to war. Okane was the first and only commanded officer of the tang and he had served as executive officer under Dudley Walker. They combined to be a deadly team. Morton was an officer that kind of broke the rules. He did things his own way. He drove the boat while Richard Okane manned the periscope. That was not done in the prewar navy. The skipper was the one that manned the periscope and did everything. Morton did not believe that was the best way to get things done. He had pretty much mentored okane to this finely tuned machine, without a doubt, the finest submarine skipper of the Second World War for the United States navy. Anyway, okane took command of patrolg on her first war and she set sail in 1944. This is a facsimile of the scorecard. She went on five war patrols, from the 22nd of january to the fourth of march, 1944. On her first, she sank five japanese merchant ships. That is a pretty good score for the first patrol. You have to understand a submarine, as any ship or military force, they operate as a team and it took a little while, even though they were welltrained, it took a little while to get them oiled up. And ready to go. The second patrol on the 15th of may, 1944, she was not assigned her normal duty. Normal duty was to find any enemy ships and sink and kill them. It was the opposite on the second patrol. The second patrol was that of a lifesaving mission. She was set up as a lifeguard, if you will, during the American Naval airstrike on truck island. What her job was was to locate downed american pilots who were shot down or forced to ditch and go and rescue them. The submarine would surface, they would get the downed airmen, bring them aboard the submarine, submerge, find more and pick them up, basically a relay to bring the back to pearl harbor so they could live to fight another day. In that patrol, in the course of about three days, tang picked up 22 american aviators, a record that obviously still stands today. She saved 22 guys lives which is contradictory to what she was designed to do. But nonetheless, it was an impressive mission, so much so that tang gained national recognition. Pictures of her skipper, okane, some of the crew, and there is a famous picture of okane standing surrounded by the 22 aviators that he and his crew made nationalt news. It was a big deal. Okane had already been in the news before as executive officer under morton, but the tang was getting recognition that most of the time submarines did not get, they were called the silent service for two reasons. One of which is because they are supposed to operate silently and sneak up on enemy shipping and sink them. Two is a lot at the summary they were not talked about because they were topsecret. It is true, they were a secret force and by exposing a lot of secrets, they could have and would have cost a lot of meant their lives. She rescued 22 american aviators. Several of her crew were highly decorated, including one, james milton, he was a gunner aboard the tank. He was awarded the silver star for rescuing i believe to naval aviators by jumping into the water and going to get these guys and bringing them back aboard. He was from the state of louisiana. He ultimately perished aboard on the fifth patrol and several years ago, members of his family donated artifacts that were his,ncluding his silver star purple heart, and parts of his uniform here. On the third war patrol on the 14th of july, 1944, tang set out from pearl harbor to do the job she was built to do, which was to sink japanese shipments. On the third patrol, tang set a thenrecord of sinking 10 enemy ships. That was kind of unheard of. Most patrols resulted in three ships to six ships and tang came back with 10. It showed the aggressive spirit of not only okane, but his crew. After the war, okane wrote two books, one of which which was called clear the bridge. It is basically the story of the uss tang as written by her skipper. The other one was called wahoo. In clear the bridge, okane talks about tactics he employed in sinking enemy ships. One of the ones he did fairly often, as i mentioned, was to get on the surface and sink japanese ships in the middle of the night. They could not see him. Japanese had radar but it was not like our radar, and a lot of the japanese ships did not have radar. Radar was a new thing for them. They could not detect american submarines until the torpedoes started exploding, not all the time but a lot of the time. Okane knew that, it was common knowledge, and he used that to his benefit. On the fourth patrol, it was not as successful as the third, she did sink five enemy ships and she was able to come home in one piece. Okane, by this time, he had made four patrols with the tang and he had five or four aboard a previous submarine. He had seen a lot of action. Admiral Charles Locke word, the boss of the submarines in the north pacific, had told okane in no Uncertain Terms that your next patrol, which would be the fifth, is going to be your last. You have done your duty, it is time to go home to your wife and children. Thank you and we will find another job for you somewhere, but you have done enough. Okane was not the kind of man to take that well. He believed he was a crusader, he believed that he was in the navy before the war, he was a career officer, he wanted to finish the job. He had learned previously that his mentor and best friend, Dudley Walker morton, had been reported missing in action when the uss wahoo was sunk. When they were generally reported missing in action, that meant they were killed in action if they were not found. He felt like he had a mission to complete, not only finish the war, but avenge the death of his friend. On the fifth patrol, tang set out on september 24, only one month long, and the patrols were short because she would sink what she could and get out of there. Her patrols were significantly shorter than a lot of submarines in the pacific. The fifth patrol was no different. The fifth patrol by the tang was by far the most successful than any other submarine in the world war ii. She sunk more than any other did and she almost doubled her personal record of scores. By the end of the fifth patrol, the tang had sunk a total of 33, and that has never been even close to that since. The fifth patrol ended with her final torpedo. As i mentioned, okane was told that this is your last rodeo, the last time you are going out. The tang encountered a japanese convoy on the night of the 23rd, morning of the 24th of october. He employed his familiar tactics of surfacing in the middle of the japanese convoy, attacking at night and sinking as many , ships as he could. Unfortunately, he hit several ships and damaged one in particular, it was a freighter, and it was sinking but not sunk. It was heavily damaged and just kind of sitting there. Okane was not one to let things just sit there, especially if he had two more torpedoes. He fired his final two torpedoes and on the final torpedo, as it as it left the tube, it cleared the boat and got out several yards ahead of the submarine and the submarines cruising on the surface at very slow speed. And as the submarine clears in torpedo, it starts to come back, boomerang, it jumps out of the water like a porpoise that is coming out leaving a phosphorescent wake. The guys on the bridge can see it. Okane being one of them. They could see the torpedo and they could see that it was coming right for them. It was coming back right toward the tang. It was evident that it was going to hit the submarine. Okane, who was generally a very customer realized this is a moment of extreme crisis. He basically, he ordered engines forward to try to get out of the way of the torpedo, he tried to turn it and get it out of the way of the torpedo coming back at them. Unfortunately, a submarine that was moving at a slow speed, it is not like an automobile, you cannot just floor and it takes off. Although she did gain speed and she did do her best to get out of the way of the torpedo, but it was not enough. The torpedo blew an enormous hole and instantly killed just about everybody in the rear of the boat. Tang immediately started to go down by the stern. As she went down, okane ordered the hatch be closed and the final words of the crew could hear was, close the hatch, close the hatch. He was screaming at the top of his lungs. The hatch was closed and every aboard the bridge, including okane were washed overboard into the water. Tang settled down stern first at 180 feet of water. There were survivors inside the boat at the time. Those people that were in their had enough knowledge to note know that the only way they could possibly get out of that submarine was if they dropped it level and tried to escape to the escape hatch, so that is what they did, they floated and it settled down at 182 feet of water, flat, straight at the bottom of the ocean. Previously, earlier in the war, they had designed the United States navy had designed escape kits for submariners to get out of sunken boats. There was one piece of equipment that closed your nose and allowed you to breathe through basically two bags, kind of like an oxygen tank but not really, it was designed for a short amount of breathing and it allowed you basically to get out of the sunken submarine. That was the sole purpose of it. To cut a long story short, several hours later, several of the crew members inside the tang were able to get out. They used the lung and one guy basically held his breath and exhaled as he rose 180 feet. One gentlemen, an incredible story, there were a total of nine survivors. This shows the men aboard during the fifth or patrol. Those denoted by a purple heart are those we have not found photos for, but the images with the lights behind them signify those who survived the sinking, who were washed overboard from bridge as in captain okane or those who escaped from the sunken boat under 180 feet of water. Jesse da silva and Clayton Decker were both survivors of the sinking as well as william ld, officerlibo larry, truckey was another, hank flanagan, and captain okane and pete and floyd were all survivors from the sinking of the boat. Most of these gentlemen lived well into their later years. Right now, as of october 6, 2015, there is only one survivor from the uss tang, william. He was the chief mate and he also retired as commander in the u. S. Navy. Later, he became close to his captain, captain okane who died in 1994. This is a facsimile of the battle flag of the uss tang. American submarines in world war ii took on the role of pirates of the pacific. Each crew developed their own bravado, personality, and a lot of these crews designed battle flags. Our flights were actually did to american submarines and they are fascinating because each one is based off of crews designs, they were not authorized by the navy. The crew decided to make them. This one here is a simile of the tang and it is called the strangest japanese flag and the original story, and this is not the original, because the original is down 180 feet with the tang, the crew took the japanese flag and one of the crewmen painted this black panther bursting through the japanese flag because the tang was called the black panther of the pacific. These boats would paint little japanese flags for each kill that the submarine had. When they would come and deport at pearl harbor, they would fly this thing like a pirate flag. There are several archival photographs of submarines tied up in pearl harbor and you can see very clearly below the American Flag are these very odd looking but cool looking battle flags that were designed by the crew. This is a facsimile of the tang . Tangs. This represents all 33 ships that she sunk during the war. The final 15 were added after the fifth patrol by a few survivors of the tang. This was created based off the memories of the few survivors who live today. For the fifth patrol, okane was awarded the medal of honor and the tang was awarded the president ial unit citation. While this exhibit is focused on the uss tank and in particular the fifth patrol, which was the most successful of any u. S. Submarine in history. This exhibit is placed here in remembrance of the 52 american submarines that were sunk during the war. The wall behind me lists the names of all those sailors who served aboard the submarines and who did not come back. It is what the navy and submarine force call eternal patrol. The bodies had never been recovered and the submarines are still at the bottom of the ocean. Many have not been located. A few have, but many have not. This exhibit is really dedicated to not just the crewmen and survivors of the tang and those who did not survive, but all submariners especially those of , the 52 boats who did not make it and the crewmen listed on the wall. When visitors come aboard the tang theyre given a card, and the card is from random members of crew, and it uses these photographs and what we call a watch bill. What it does is give a brief history on the uss tang and on the flipside, it has a gentlemans photograph and their name, and it tells you their job. They were either a radar operator, torpedo man, or what have you, and it lets you know that this was not a machine. It was manned by human beings, a crew of men. This exhibit tries to put you in touch with the men and give you an experience of what they saw, what they did and what they endured. This exhibit to the best of our ability recreates the final attack of the tang on the japanese convoy on the morning of the 24th of october and recreates a circular run of the final torpedo as she slams into the side of the tang and it goes down. If you do not know that history when youre going through this exhibit, it is rather shocking, frankly, you do not know what is going on. Neither did the guys inside the sub. They had no idea what was coming, what would hit them, and when it did hit them, they had them they never knew what hit them. It kind of gives you that same experience as best as it can. [indiscernible] [video clip] fire standby. Fire torpedo away. Forward. [indiscernible] seth when you exit this recreation of the uss tang, the video features three of the survivors. Those three members were the only three we were able to locate that gave an oral history. We interviewed william in 2011 and what is important to know about the tang and the crew, when those guys were washed overboard and they escaped the submarine, they floated in the water for several hours and they were picked up by a japanese destroyer. The japanese destroyer that picked them up was escorting the convoy that the tang just destroyed the night before, so when the guys were picked up by the japanese crew, needless to say, they were not treated nicely by the japanese crew. They were sent to several prison camps along the way and finally ending up in the most infamous japanese prison camp which is right outside of tokyo. It was a camp reserved for special prisoners and they were not considered prisoners of war. They were considered pirates and war criminals because they sank japanese ships and killed japanese merchant men and not men of war, although the tang did both. They were regularly submitted to torture. Basically, they had resigned themselves to their fate that they were not going to endure an easy life for the remainder of the war. These guys languished in japanese prison camps for months until they were finally liberated after the United States ended the war with the atomic bombs on japan and the ultimate capitulation in 1945. When they were liberated in august 1945, all of the survivors of the tang all those who survived were still alive which cannot be said for a lot of prisoners of the japanese. Okane had lost over 100 pounds and he was on deaths door, a lot of guys, including the chief mate who had doubts as to , whether okane would make it back to the United States because he was in such poor health. Thanks to the treatment of american medical personnel and okanes will to live, he did survive to the ripe age of 94 years old. I had known about the uss tang and read about it as a historian for several years. When we were putting this exhibit together, i poured my self into the history and story of the boat and crew and captain. It was hard to get the commander to do an interview with us because he was rather reluctant to speak. But once he did allow us into his home, he was one of the most gracious human beings i have ever met in my life and his story is incredible. He is a hell of the man, but to meet someone who served aboard the boat, who endured not only a harrowing experience of war on the u. S. Submarine during world war ii, but the experience aboard the tang, and the experience in a japanese prison camp, it was rather incredible. Unfortunately, it is a onceinalifetime kind of a thing. It is about as close as i will ever get to experiencing this. The value of telling this story is of sacrifice, to me, the story of ultimate sacrifice. I have a sixyearold little boy and threeyearold little girl, and my son is in absolute awe of submarines as most boys are and , he thinks this is a real submarine. Or at least he likes to think that. [laughter] i dont think he really does. As a sixyearold boy, he is enamored by the light, flashes, gunfire explosions, the video, factor of it all. But what i try to do every single time we come through here, we stop right here. Most people decide to stop and watch the video and they look at their card that was given to them and they look to see if the ir person lived or died. We hope that that sacrifice, because there were only nine survivors, we hope that sacrifice hits people. One of the things i do with my son every time we come here, because he gets a different card every time, we stocp and i point out the persons picture that he has. I got the which one he gets, he gets a different one every time, and i try to explain that he