The Mark 14 Torpedo: Three Faults, Each Hiding the Next

On 24 July 1943 the submarine Tinosa fired fifteen torpedoes at a stopped tanker, struck her thirteen times, and did not sink her. Her captain stopped firing, kept the last torpedo aboard, and carried it back to Pearl Harbor so the base could take it apart. This film is built from the boats' own war patrol reports, read at page-image level, and from the Bureau of Ordnance's own history of the weapon. It covers three faults in the Mark 14. The weapon ran deeper than it was set, its magnetic exploder fired early, and its contact pin jammed when a torpedo struck square on. Each fault hid the one behind it. Some of what follows isn't the received account. Haddock's commanding officer diagnosed deep running rather than duds, and said so in his own remarks. Twenty-two pages of his report were withheld from the 1970s microfilming as not declassified, and they're read here from the National Archives copy. The failure rate everybody quotes can't be recovered from the record at all, for a reason the forms themselves make plain. Synthetic narration. Human research, human argument, and the mistakes are ours as well. Sources, corrections and the full documentary basis: https://actionreporthistory.com/video... CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open 0:57 The weapon 3:00 What the tests could not see 6:05 Ten feet 9:07 The twenty-fourth of July 15:28 What the record could hold 19:51 The fix SOURCES, in the order the film uses them USS Wahoo, report of third war patrol. Summary of Submarine Attacks, attacks 1 to 3, Wewak, 24 January 1943. National Archives, naId 74859023, frame 0186. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74859023 Rowland, Buford, and Boyd, William B., U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II. Washington, 1953. Chapter 6, Torpedoes, printed pages 98 to 129. Read from the HathiTrust scan of the University of California copy, uc1.b3907811, at 600 dots per inch. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i... USS Haddock, report of fifth war patrol. National Archives, Record Group 38, naId 74821874, frames 0583, 0588, 0598 and 0599. Enclosure A pages 18 to 39 were withheld from microfilming and are read here from the National Archives copy. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74821874 USS Tinosa, report of second war patrol. naId 74856183, frames 1084, 1085, 1090 to 1092, 1094, 1103 to 1107. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74856183 USS Steelhead, report of third war patrol. naId 74851315, frames 1189, 1193 and 1203. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74851315 USS Tinosa, report of third war patrol. naId 74856215, frame 1137. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74856215 USS Wahoo, report of sixth war patrol. Third endorsement, ComSubPac Serial 01235, 20 September 1943. naId 74859138, frame 0280. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74859138 USS Wahoo, war patrol track charts. Record Group 313, naId 502321707. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/50232... PHOTOGRAPHS All U.S. Navy or National Archives, held by the Naval History and Heritage Command. In order of appearance: 80-G-35738, NH 84499, NH 82844, NH 94116, NH 94119, 80-G-256439, 80-G-451125, 80-G-398230, 80-G-35725, 80-G-705052, 80-G-12171, NH 56199, 80-G-35733, 80-G-35726, 80-G-60948, 80-G-217624. A NOTE ON ONE PHOTOGRAPH The frame that opens this film shows the destroyer Harusame at Wewak. The Navy's wartime caption on that print says she was torn completely in two and sinking. She wasn't. She beached herself, was refloated, towed to Truk, rebuilt at Yokosuka, and back in service by November 1943. Wartime intelligence, reading the same photograph, got her class wrong too. CORRECTIONS Known errors reached the delivered narration and were not re-recorded. They are listed in full on the page linked above, with what the documents actually say. The claim register and the frames on screen are right in every case. #Mark14Torpedo #SubmarineWarfare #NavalHistory