A Tale of Two Subs: An Untold Story of World War II, Two Sister Ships, and Extraordinary Heroism
McCullough, an editor at Lyons Press, debuts as an author with this disappointing popular history of WWII submarine warfare. The USSSculpinand USSSailfishwere built side by side at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Both subs were assigned to the Pacific Fleet, where, in 1943, theSculpinwas sunk by the Japanese destroyerYamagumo.The Japanese transferred 41 survivors to two aircraft carriers—theUnyoand theChuyo—bound for Japan. Unaware of theSculpin's fate and acting on intelligence from the naval code breakers, theSailfishintercepted and sank theChuyo; only one of theSculpin's men on board survived. He and theUnyo's contingent of Americans spent the remainder of the war in Japanese captivity. Not only is the link between the two American subs tenuous, but the author tries with limited success to assimilate an account of the U.S. Navy's code-breaking operation that resulted in hot tips to the submarine command. The account of theSculpin's sinking is harrowing, but it's the singular highlight in a tedious narrative weighed down with extraneous material.(May 13)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.