Talk:USS Tang (SS-306)

message: The image doesn't look very much like a submarine! RKernan 22:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like one to me ... what do you think it is? ➥the Epopt 22:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been changed now... before it was just a picture of a man with a nametag displaying "Tang" RKernan 18:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image question

message: This article has a lot of dates listed as just "February 4", "April 16", etc.  This needs to be fixed... even I can't ascertain which years are being referenced. -Rolypolyman 04:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguous dates 

message: "On 30 June, while she patrolled the lane from Kyūshū to Dairen, Tang sighted another cargo ship steaming without an escort. After making an end around run on the surface which produced two torpedo misses, Tang went deep to avoid depth charges, then surfaced and chased the hapless ship until she closed the range to 750 yards. A single torpedo blew Nikkin Maru in half, and the merchantman sank."
Whose depth charges was Tang avoiding?  This excerpt implies that the "cargo ship steaming without an escort", apparently the only other vessel present, depth charged the submarine.  I don't think that's possible, so I found this quite confusing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.66.20.174 (talk) 10:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It is possible. The freighters often carried depth charges.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.207.19.90 (talk) 21:52, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Depth charging merchants? 

message: The Smithsonian "Hell Below" video (excerpts of which are on YouTube, and mentioned in the article) says the self-hit left the Tang stern down and bow sticking up out of the water "like a knife".  In order to prevent the Japanese from seeing it, the remaining crew took on water forward until the bow landed on the bottom.  This article makes no mention of that, but does says "Those who escaped the submarine were greeted in the morning by the sight of the bow of the transport they sank the previous night sticking straight out of the water."  I have my doubts that both accounts are right.  Which is correct? Mcswell (talk) 23:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bow up 

message: Put a reference to the new book http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/dacapo/howtoorder.jsp?isbn=0306815192 - did I do it correctly? Dnklu (talk) 09:07, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely. The old girl had plenty of fight left in her when she took her own fish aboard. Clear The Bridge is quite a good book (on my second copy) and it was a damned shame that Dick O'Kane 'paid off' with so few of his shipmates to see him home. God bless and God Speed. Oh, and about that cribbage hand...Foamking (talk) 07:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new book about the sub 

message: I think the math about the survivors is wrong, or at least it isn't explained very well. It says that 13 men escaped, of those 13 only 9 made it to the surface, and of those 9 only 5 could swim long enough to be rescued. The next paragraph begins by saying "The nine survivors". Did 5 survive or did 9 survive?
Nine survived: five that survived escape from forward torpedo room; four from the bridge, including Commander O'Kane.
: I just read O'Kane's book "Clear the bridge", and nine survived. If that is true, then "Ten of the crew managed to reach the surface, and four managed to stay afloat until eventually captured by the Japanese." must be wrong, and should be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.174.233 (talk • contribs) 00:03, 10 September 2015
:: Clear the Bridge, 1989, page 444–445.
::  5: Thirteen escaped from the forward torpedo room, but only five were able to cling to the buoy until picked up. Three had reached the surface but were unable to hang on or breathe. Five were not seen after escaping.
::  3: Nine officers and men were on the bridge. Only three were able to swim throughout the night.
::  1: One officer escaped from the flooding conning tower.
::  9: total survivors.
:: Glrx (talk) 00:37, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survivor Count 

message: Some Tang survivors were first to use Momsen lung.
http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/blowballast/momsen/momsen4.htm has 8 escaping with lung, and 5 surviving.
There was some screwy ring that was supposed to be pulled on the lung, and I think some did not pull it or ascended too fast. I think Chief of the Boat had breathing problems on the surface.
I believe some recent reference pointed out that steward Walker was only man on fifth patrol who was not decorated.
Glrx (talk) 06:07, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The intro paragraph stating that 9 survivors were picked up by the Japanese disagrees with the Momsen Lung page, which states that 13 escaped with or without the lung, of which three were known to have died and five were MIA, leaving only five captured.96.240.128.124 (talk) 15:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Momsen lung escape 

message: Turnabout Island (Kiushan Tao (a.k.a. Niu Shan Dao or Turnabout Island, a small island south-east of Haitan Dao)) is mentioned in the north boundary of the South China Sea. An IP substituted Dongyin Island, but that looks too far from the coast. A travel guide gives [[coord|25.43|119.93|dim:5000}}; that fits with Clear the Bridge map for 5th patrol. It appears that island, however, is called Pingtan Island. At  there is a very small island. Glrx (talk) 23:52, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Turnabout Island 

message: What is the source for this assertion in Note #5:  In 1980, the relevant JANAC section "was officially replaced by the credits in the patrol reports."  Suffice it to say, the JANAC page makes no such assertion.JMOprof (talk) 02:03, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The quotation is from O'Kane 1989 -- cited at the beginning of the note. Glrx (talk) 17:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's on page 472 actually, but what's the official method by which the Navy did that?JMOprof (talk) 18:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  JANAC Assertion 

message: This article repeated a common mistake: it assumed that the tonnage figures reported in the sources are displacement.  For merchant ships, they are not.  Most merchant ships are most often measured by register tonnage, which is volumetric and not a unit of weight.   Naval vessels are measured by displacement, which is weight.  In this article, a weight conversion was given for a number of Japanese merchant vessels (Maru).  That is wrong; these vessels were not measured by displacement.  Where the DANFS source gives tonnage, it means tonnage in nautical usage, not displacement or weight.  I have removed these erroneous conversions.  Kablammo (talk) 01:48, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tonnage 

message: This page does say the Momsen Lung was used (& IIRC, so do O'Kane & Blair); "only use", no...  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 13:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great pair of lungs 

message: I corrected this at some point in the past, but this sentence stating that "this was the only time that a Momsen lung was used to escape a sunken submarine" needs to be corrected. The correct statement is that "this was the only known time". 
Several USN submarines during WWII were lost under unknown circumstances with no survivors. We thus can't know if in one of these sinkings if survivors trapped aboard a submarine resting on the bottom used their Momsen lungs to attempt an escape or perhaps even successfully reached the surface, only to perish later on without rescue in the water or in captivity (since Japanese POW records were so incomplete, a ship that picked up survivors could easily have been sank by another submarine while in-transit, etc.). 2603:7081:C02:5700:B8F5:76BC:7986:5360 (talk) 08:32, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Momsen lung usage