The Submarine Sunk by the Last Torpedo It Fired
In October 1944 USS Tang, the deadliest American submarine of the war, fired her last torpedo. It turned in a circle and sank her. Of 87 men, nine lived.
Nautical
Ships, navies and the sea.
The British Cruiser That Torpedoed Itself in the Arctic
In March 1942 HMS Trinidad fired a torpedo at a crippled German destroyer in an Arctic snowstorm. It circled back and hit her, killing 32 of her own men.
The Admiral Who Knew Japan Would Lose the War
Isoroku Yamamoto planned Pearl Harbor while warning that Japan could not beat America. He gave it a year. Sixteen months later he was dead in the jungle.
The Ice Cream Ship That Sailed to War With the Pacific Fleet
In 1945 the US Navy towed a million-dollar concrete barge across the Pacific. Its job: to make ten gallons of ice cream every seven minutes for the fleet.
'Those About to Die Salute You': The Battle on Lake Fucinus
In AD 52 Emperor Claudius made 19,000 condemned men fight a real naval battle on an Italian lake, with soldiers and catapults waiting to kill any who fled.
The Most Successful Pirate That Ever Infested Any Sea
Rahmah ibn Jabir terrorised the Persian Gulf for forty years. Blind, partially crippled and surrounded in 1826, he took his young son below decks and lit the powder.
The Lioness of Brittany: A Widow's Revenge at Sea
When France beheaded her husband and spiked his head over Nantes, Jeanne de Clisson took up arms, massacred a garrison and went to sea to kill French merchants.