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Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II Hardcover – May 9, 1996
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Ultimately, World War II was the first war won by technology, but within only a few weeks after the war began, the U.S. Navy realized its torpedo program was a dismal failure. Submarine skippers reported that most of their torpedoes were either missing the targets or failing to explode if they did hit. The United States had to work fast if it expected to compete with the Japanese Long Lance, the biggest and fastest torpedo in the world, and Germany's electric and sonar models. Hellions of the Deep tells the dramatic story of how Navy planners threw aside the careful procedures of peacetime science and initiated "radical research": gathering together the nation's best scientists and engineers in huge research centers and giving them freedom of experimentation to create sophisticated weaponry with a single goal―winning the war.
The largest center for torpedo work was a requisitioned gymnasium at Harvard University, where the most famous names in science worked with the best graduate students from all around the country at the business of war. They had to produce tangible weapons, to consider production and supply tactics, to take orders from the military, and, in many cases, also to teach the military how to use the weapons they developed. World War II grew into a chess match played by scientists and physicists, and it became the only war in history to be won by weapons invented during the conflict.
For this book, Robert Gannon conducted numerous interviews over a twenty-year period with scientists, engineers, physicists, submarine skippers, and Navy bureaucrats, all involved in the development of the advanced weapons technology that won the war. While the search for new weapons was deadly serious, stretching imagination and resourcefulness to the limit each day, the need was obvious: American ships were being blown up daily just outside the Boston harbor. These oral histories reveal that, in retrospect, surprising even to those who went through it, the search for the "hellions of the deep" was, for many, the most exciting period of their lives.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenn State University Press
- Publication dateMay 9, 1996
- Dimensions6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
- ISBN-10027101508X
- ISBN-13978-0271015088
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“The U.S. Navy's failure to provide its submarines with effective torpedoes was one of the great near disasters of the Second World War. Gannon offers us a finely crafted, thoroughly informative study of the failure and the successful technical effort to develop winning weapons for the fleet.”
―Harvey M. Sapolsky,Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Product details
- Publisher : Penn State University Press (May 9, 1996)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 027101508X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0271015088
- Item Weight : 1.39 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,006,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,526 in Ship History (Books)
- #8,455 in Naval Military History
- #33,942 in World War II History (Books)
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The work covers the topic in a clear, easy to understand format delving in to the development of these weapons systems. It covers the technical developments without becoming so technical as to make the text difficult to read.
This book will make any reader aware of this story and the tecnology/development of a weapons system that is often mentioned but rarel explained in any depth.
The reason for the four star rating is because the work contains some minor errors and is unclear in some more important areas. OK first the minor errors. Page 68 describes hydrogen peroxide as "H2O2O". Funny when I received my degree hydrogen peroxide was H2O2. Next the line drawing on page 42 illustrates what is known as a "steam" type torpedo and yet the illustration is labelled with an electric motor as being the propulsion unit even though the illustration contains no batteries. It does show the air and fuel flasks of a "steam" type torpedo and the description accompanying the drawing is consistent with a "steam" type torpedo. Actually, although small, the drawing shows what appears to be a turbine and bevel gear unit- again consistent with a "steam" type torpedo engine- even if they are labelled as an electric motor.
OK So much for the minor errors. I consider them unimportant as they in no way detract from the value of the book and any skilled reader can easily compensate.
The problem comes on page 48 where the Japanese "Long Lance" type 93 torpedo is described as being driven by "liquid hydrogen peroxide". Although not a US torpedo this book is so authoritative and well written that all its disclosures clearly carry weight. Given the state of the art in the 1930's I would tend to believe that compressed pure oxygen gas was used in the type 93(ie not H2O2) and indeed a number of web pages support this view. (search for yourself to check this out).
Unfortunately the author does not help matters as at page 135 he says "during the war the japanese skippers preferred the "oxygen" hydrogen peroxide torpedoes". Now although when hydrogen peroxide decomposes it does produce oxygen as well as high temperature steam it is a different chemical species to oxygen and within the naval world an "oxygen torpedo" is one that uses compressed O2 gas. A peroxide torpedo is a peroxide torpedo. I have been unable to track down the authors references for the peroxide Long Lance but from the book they do not appear to be primary sources. Given that the Japanese Long Lance had twice the speed and around five time the range of the best US torpedo and came as an almighty shock to the allies I would have preferred some more details from the author to support his views on the Long Lance.