Beyond a “best submarine” ranking
World War II submarines operated in different oceans, under different doctrines, against different targets. Tonnage claims were revised after the war, and celebrated patrols came with the deaths of merchant mariners, naval crews, prisoners, and submariners. Ranking boats from “worst” to “best” erases those differences. These five cases are useful because each illuminates a distinct part of the undersea conflict: commerce war, intelligence capture, technical risk, special operations, and submarine-versus-submarine combat.
USS Wahoo: aggressive tactics and their cost
The American submarine USS Wahoo became known for successful patrols under Dudley “Mush” Morton and for the later achievements of executive officer Richard O’Kane. Its history also includes persistent torpedo failures early in the war and a controversial attack on survivors of the transport Buyo Maru, an episode that resists heroic simplification.
Wahoo entered the Sea of Japan in 1943 and was lost with all 79 aboard while attempting to leave through La Perouse Strait. Japanese records and later investigation indicate an air and surface attack on 11 October. The boat shows how tactical innovation, faulty weapons, intelligence limits, and extreme risk converged in the Pacific campaign.
USS Tang: performance, technology, and catastrophe
Commanded by O’Kane, USS Tang completed five war patrols and received two Presidential Unit Citations. On its final patrol in October 1944, the submarine attacked a convoy in the Formosa Strait. Its last torpedo made a circular run and struck the firing submarine.
Most of the crew died; nine men, including O’Kane, survived and became prisoners of war. Tang is often cited through disputed or historically adjusted sinking totals, but its deeper significance is clearer: even an experienced crew operating an effective boat could be destroyed by the unreliability and danger of its own weapons.
German U-505: capture as an intelligence operation
On 4 June 1944, a U.S. Navy hunter-killer group centered on USS Guadalcanal forced the German Type IXC submarine U-505 to the surface off West Africa. A boarding party entered while the abandoned boat was flooding and prevented it from sinking. The Allies recovered code material, equipment, and the vessel itself, while keeping the capture secret to protect intelligence advantages.
The operation demonstrates that antisubmarine warfare relied on aircraft, escort ships, signals intelligence, training, and rapid damage control—not simply a duel between captains. Preserved in Chicago, U-505 also offers unusual material evidence of conditions inside a German long-range submarine.
USS Barb: a platform for unconventional operations
Under Eugene Fluckey, USS Barb conducted aggressive Pacific patrols, including operations along the coast of China. The submarine used deck guns and later carried rockets for attacks on shore targets. In one mission, crew members went ashore to place an explosive charge on a railway line—an unusual extension of submarine operations onto land.
Barb illustrates adaptability, but “innovation” should not become a synonym for spectacle. Its effectiveness depended on intelligence, crew training, maintenance, and calculated exposure to shallow or mined waters.
HMS Venturer: a submerged duel
In February 1945, the British submarine HMS Venturer, commanded by James Launders, encountered German U-864 off Norway. Both boats were submerged. Using hydrophone information, periscope observations, plotting, and prediction of the target’s changing course, Venturer fired a spread of torpedoes. U-864 attempted evasive action but was hit and lost with everyone aboard.
The engagement is widely noted as the only confirmed case in which one submerged submarine sank another submerged submarine in combat. It foreshadowed the three-dimensional tracking problem that would become central in postwar antisubmarine warfare.
What these cases actually teach
- Records require caution. Wartime claims and postwar assessments can differ.
- Technology was uneven. Torpedoes, radar, sonar, radio intelligence, and batteries shaped outcomes as much as hull design.
- Submarines worked in systems. Tenders, codebreakers, aircraft, escorts, bases, and logistics made patrols possible.
- Human cost belongs in the account. Success statistics represent ships destroyed and lives disrupted or lost.
- Preservation changes understanding. Wreck research, patrol reports, and museum vessels let historians test inherited stories.
These submarines are historically important not because they can be arranged into a universal league table, but because together they show the changing tactics, intelligence, technology, and moral complexity of undersea war.
Sources: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command: Wahoo; NHHC: Tang; Griffin Museum of Science and Industry: U-505; National WWII Museum: USS Barb; Royal Navy: Venturer and U-864.
