“hey… you have the next watch”

Watches in the military have been around since the beginning of recorded time. The Jews, like the Greeks and Romans, divided the night into military watches instead of hours, each watch representing the period for which sentinels or pickets remained on duty. The proper Jewish reckoning recognized only three such watches, entitled the first or […]

Tally-Ho… An unhappy Valentine ’s Day for the UIT – 23

Many of my early days of submarining were spent in and around areas that are considered choke points for global navigation. Without revealing too many details, the hunting near certain places has always been richer because of the availability of certain vessels of interest.The Bluejackets manual I received in Boot Camp at Great Lakes Illinois provided the […]

Welcome Aboard Undersea Warfare Magazine

If you look to the right where I list my Blogroll, you will see some new additions. Some folks at the Magazine liked my latest blog (Grand Theft Submarine – Stealing the U-111) and asked for a salute on the page. I really like their Facebook Page and back in the day spent a lot […]

Grand Theft Submarine – Stealing the U-111

Note: This article is a result of some research I have been doing in the past few days about an amazing submarine story related to the technological development of American submarines. The story was researched and developed using two reference books: United States Submarines, Naval Submarine League, published in 2002 and United States Submarines by […]

Inflict Maximum Damage on Enemy Shipping

Victory At Sea ~ Full Fathom Five – HQ The threat of death at full fathom five is always in the backs of the minds of the submariners according to the steady voice of the narrator. Yet they still went on many patrols and exacted a toll on the enemy that brought him to a […]

Lessons learned at theleansubmariner – 2013

Looking back over the past year of blogging, I have learned a few things about what people seem to like. Like most blogs, I have the ability to see what gets hits and what does not. The top post for the year (and frankly since the beginning of the blog) was I’d like to be […]

The First Thanksgiving (Updated from Original Post in 2013)

The First Thanksgiving If you are expecting a traditional story about Pilgrims and Indians, you might as well go back to your search engine and try again. This is a story about my real first Thanksgiving that occurred somewhere in the western Pacific Ocean about 150 feet below the ocean exactly forty years ago today […]

I’d like to be a submariner. How hard could that be?

Caution: Some salty language may be found in this post I belong to a number of very fine military organizations that all have special purposes. The Navy League for instance is a group that supports and promotes the sea services. I think this is important because of the dangers still present in the world at […]

Three Remarkable Days in Japan

Fast attack submarines play a key role in our nation’s defense and have done so for as long as I have been alive. For the record, that’s more than at least 59 years. I was a crew member on three different fast attacks although I only really deployed on one: The USS San Francisco SSN […]

Submarine Force Issues 2013

Its probably no coincidence that submarines are the focus of this article during a week that marks the highs and lows of US Navy submarine history. Save Our Subs: Prioritizing The Attack Submarine By Rep. Randy Forbes and Rep. Joe Courtney AOL Defense, April 9, 2013 For a host of security and economic reasons, […]