U.S. Struggled With Faulty Torpedoes in WW II

On 23 July 1943, the USS Tinosa, an American submarine on war patrol in the Pacific, spent the entire day trying to sink the Tonan Maru, a high-value, unprotected Japanese oil tanker. The Tinosafired fifteen torpedoes and the net result was that twelve torpedoes hit the target but only one of them exploded. The Japanese ship eventually escaped and when the Tinosa returned to headquarters at Pearl Harbor, the commander of Pacific Fleet submarines describes the young skipper as still being almost speechless with rage.[1] This episode was the most egregious example of a strategic problem that plagued the U.S. Navy during the first half of World War II in the Pacific. The Pacific War was primarily a naval war and American submarines were intended to play a strategic role but they began the war armed with Mark 14 torpedoes that suffered from not one but three crippling design flaws. Even more surprisingly, it took almost two years during the war to identify and correct the problems with this highly classified and advanced weapons technology. This state of affairs imposed unnecessary delays on the United States as it sought to exploit Japanese vulnerabilities and frustrate Japanese strategic plans.