You may remember the tragic sinking of the submarine, the U.S.S. SQUALUS off the New England coast in the summer of 1939. Some of the crew were lost, but others were saved by the speed and the efficiency of the surface rescue crews. The SQUALUS itself was tediously raised from the bottom of the sea.
She was repaired and put back into commission, and eventually she sailed again under a new name, the U.S.S. SAILFISH. Today, she is a potent and effective unit of our submarine fleet in the Southwest Pacific.
The SAILFISH has covered many thousands of miles in operations in those waters.
She has sunk a Japanese destroyer.
She has torpedoed a Japanese cruiser.
She has made torpedo hits—two of them—on a Japanese aircraft carrier.
Three of the enlisted men of our Navy who went down with the SQUALUS in 1939 and were rescued, are today serving on the same ship, the U.S.S. SAILFISH, in this war.
It seems to me that it is heartening to know that the SQUALUS, once given up as lost, rose from the depths to fight for our country in time of peril.
One more story, that I heard only this morning:
This is a story of one of our Army Flying Fortresses operating in the Western Pacific. The pilot of this plane is a modest young man, proud of his crew for one of the toughest fights a bomber has yet experienced.