Give Credit to Electric Boat
Paul Merkle
Congratulations on continuing to provide well-researched and stimulating articles. I read with interest Captain Rodney Watterson’s submission, “Midwife to the Fleet Boat,” in the August issue (pp. 34–39). Watterson’s background and familiarity with the subject of submarine fleet boat design are impressive.
I did find his criticism of the Electric Boat Company quite harsh. Certainly, it was a profit-making private enterprise, and its development of submarine designs before World War I was undoubtedly aimed toward profit. But the problem with its pursuit of its own designs and neglect of the actual needs of the submarine sailors was due more to the governmental regulatory structure of the time (or lack of it) than it was to any callous pursuit of monetary gain. If a better structure had been in place, the efforts of Electric Boat and Lake Torpedo would have been a much better fit for the needs of the submarine service.
The Portsmouth Navy Yard no doubt had a natural “built-in” relationship with the Navy of which it could take advantage. Formal and informal communications links between sailors’ operational needs and the yard’s design department already were established. And perhaps the Navy’s own pride of ownership also favored Portsmouth over private contractors.
Captain Watterson’s overview of the refinement of fleet submarine designs before World War II rightly points to the excellent Gato class. But he also should credit John Holland and Electric Boat for the first practical submarine designs that set the Navy on course eventually to develop such fine boats as the Gatos.
And when the Navy’s General Board, President Woodrow Wilson, and Congress finally established a better regulatory relationship, the Electric Boat and Simon Lake companies responded with better designs.
Chief Petty Officer Lee H. Hoffman, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Thomas Wildenberg’s “Armaments & Innovations” article on the submarine inertial navigation system (SINS) (June, pp. 11–12) also prompted my memory. In 1958, I was an aviation electronics technician third class serving in Patrol Squadron (VP) Nine on deployment to Kodiak, Alaska. We flew the Neptune PV2-7 patrol bomber on mostly antisubmarine patrols from Kodiak, and from detachments at Adak, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, over the Bering Strait and Arctic Ocean.
During our deployment, the first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), made her famous trip under the ice at the North Pole. I recall being told that she was equipped with an inertial navigation system, but that the system needed occasional updates to ensure accuracy. Since this was before the advent of satellite navigation, we were tasked to follow the Nautilus and keep her up to date as to her location. This ties in well with what Paul Bent wrote in the August issue (see “In Contact: SINS Diagnosis and Reset,” p. 5).
As I recall, the operation was secret at the time but, of course, was made public as soon as the Nautilus surfaced from under the ice in the Atlantic Ocean. Each member of the squadron received a copy of a letter commending VP-9 on its involvement in the Nautilus’ accomplishment.
Legendary ‘Devil Dogs’
Lieutenant (junior grade) Eric Byman, U.S. Navy (Retired)
In your June issue, the cover story (“The Corps’ Day of Destiny,” pp. 16–21) mentions the legend that, at the Battle of Belleau Wood, German soldiers were so impressed by the fighting spirit of the U.S. Marines that they nicknamed them “Teufel Hunden”—“Devil Dogs”—as a mark of respect. While it makes for an inspiring story, it almost certainly is not true.
The problems with the legend are many. The first known reference to Devil Dogs is found in a U.S. newspaper article dated 27 April 1918, five weeks before Belleau Wood, although still attributing the term to German soldiers who had fought against the Marines. However, German soldiers in World War I were not known to come up with nicknames for their opponents, and German historians have never come across the term in any context. Also, it is not clear that the Germans involved in the battle knew the Marines were in a separate military branch from the U.S. soldiers they were fighting. Finally, the term Teufel Hunden is grammatically incorrect, indicating it was created by someone other than a native German speaker.
Of course, none of this detracts from the tenacity and valor of those Marines who fought at Belleau Wood. The Marines’ accomplishments there, and in a century of subsequent battles, have certainly earned the U.S. Marine Corps the honor of being called Devil Dogs.
Battle over B-24s
Senior Chief Petty Officer Paul H. Sayles, U.S. Navy (Retired)
In the April edition, Commander In H. Ha presents an excellent study of the Royal Navy’s use of technological advances and changes in operational doctrine to help turn the tide of World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic (“Turning Point in the Atlantic,” pp. 14–19). But I would refer readers to Correlli Barnett’s Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (W. W. Norton, 1991).
In it, Barnett describes, in detail, the constant internal battle the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force’s Coastal Command fought to obtain and retain very long range aircraft—i.e., B-24s. The Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command thought any use of these aircraft other than bombing Germany was a squandering of scarce resources. If this fight could have been resolved sooner, a turning point—finally closing the air gap in the North Atlantic—could have been reached earlier than mid-1943.