Badoeng Strait (CVE 116) - Naval Cruise Book

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s 1 1 At the beginning of World War II, the Germans again took the initiative with her fleet of 60 U-Boats. British losses of warships and merchantmen were heavy and caused the United Kingdom to concentrate much of her war effort on the U-Boat menace. The Hunter Killer Force, essentially as we know it today, was devised shortly after the United States entry into the conflict in 1941. At the same time, long range patrol planes from both continents patrolled all but the central portion of the Atlantic Ocean ; and this is where the escort carrier and her destroyers waged the offensive battle that subdued the wolfpack and finally the U-Boat menace. Since the war in the Pacific with the Japanese was primarily a Naval war, the submarine figured even more prominently in eventual history than it did in the Atlantic. Japan relied on her merchant fleet to provide the home islands with the necessary raw material needed to forge the weapons of war. It was on this fleet that submarines of the U.S. Navy concentrated their offensive might immediately after Pearl Harbor. Over half of the Japanese losses of Naval and Merchant Marines tonnage was accounted for by submarines, These lethal killers not only wrought havoc to the Japanese with their torpedoes and deck guns but also served as scouts for the fleet and as life guards for rescuing downed airmen. The latter proved especially effective during the closing days of the war when a U.S. submarine surfaced off the very coast of Japan to pickup an airman shot down in raids over the Japanese homeland. Ironically, the last major Japanese Naval vessel to be sunk in World War II was a Japanese submarine sunk by a U.S. submarine on August 14, 1945. Today, with the advent of the Atomic Powered submarine and the first true submersible, we enter into a new and comparatively unexploited phase of underseas warfare. Our mission to combat the submarine menace by offensive action in the event of hostilities but primarily — to preserve peace through preparedness. And so tomorrow aca i t net t eu teat

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7 f came fawt The submarine first became a major factor in naval warfare during World War I when Germany demonstrated its full potentialities. However, its advent at that time, marked by the wholesale sinkings of Allied shipping, was in reality the culmination of a long process of development. Ancient history includes occasional records of attempts at underwater operation in warfare, but in none of these records is there a direct reference to the use of submersible apparatus of any kind. In 1580, a British Naval officer, William Bourne, designed an enclosed boat which could be submerged and rowed under the surface but it was never built. During the period up to the civil war many submarines of all types were patented and many were actually seaworthy and able to submerge for short periods of time. In the Revolutionary War, a submarine was first used as an offensive weapon in Naval warfare when the Turtle , a one man submersible invented by David Bushnell, attempted to sink a British man of war in New York Harbor ; but its effectiveness was limited to forcing the ship to move to a new berth. Lack of propulsion held the development of tiie submarine back until about 1900 when the Holland shipyard designed and built what proved to be the basic design of all future submarines. The vessel was propelled by steam while on the surface and by electricity when submerged. At the end of the first three years of World War I it appeared that the Germans were winning the war with their U-Boat fleet. They were being built faster than they were being destroyed and allied shipping was bearing the brunt of their fur) ' . One out of every four vessels that left the British Isles during April 1917 never returned. Not until the United States entered the war in April 1917 and after the convoy system was evised, did tin- tide of battle turn in favor of the Allies.

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