ao-class had better radar, sound, and better torpedoes, which the submarine was plagued in 1943 and even in 1944 with faulty torpedoes that would not explode. they would have circular runs and would not do their job and it was costing u.s. sailors their lives. the space we are in is a mockup of the inside of a balao-class submarine. it is not to scale for reasons, but it is the best that you can do in modern times. most of the things on the wall, dials, gauges, torpedo tubes, periscopes, they are modeled after original material, down to the screws and brass. they are accurate reproductions, but not to scale. we are standing and what is

supposed to be inside of the uss tang. designed to is bring visitors as close as possible to what sailors and fleet summary and experienced in fighting the japanese. the submarine force involved so that earlier in the war, most submarines were made underwater with periscopes. there was an evolution in commanding officers during late 1942, all the way into 1944, that saw a lot of u.s. submarines skippers throw the book out. the book prewar was to remain unseen, undetected, strike when not expected and sink by torpedo when submerged. it was quickly realized that that was not the best way to get

the job done. dudley,e skippers like walker, they were nick nine cash nicknamed-- they were mush, and people of this john developed tactics to where the summaries were no longer -- they wereelop developing tactics to where summaries were no longer trying to stay visible. they would attack on the service at night, getting the midst of a japanese convoys, create as much havoc as they could, sink as many ships as possible and escape unscathed. morton and guys like sam dealey

obtain, theyhard really took those tactics and honed them. and made the submarine in the u.s. one of the that ever went to war. richard ok and was the first and only officer of the tang in that he served as executive officer. with dudley walker, they combined to be a deadly team. morton was an officer who tended to break the rules. demand theout and periscope. the skipper was the one that manned the periscope. cocaine finely tuned -- cocaine tuned thefinely

machine, without a doubt, the greatest summering skipper. annually, he took command of the summary and and set sail in 1944. she went on five more patrols, her first was in the 20 -- her first was in january of 1944. on her first, she sank five merchant ships. that is pretty good. , they operate as a team and it took a little while, even though they were well trained, it took some time to get them oiled up. the second ending on the 15th of may, 1944, she was not assigned her normal duty. her normal duty was to find ships and sink them. it was the opposite on the second patrol. it was a lifesaving mission. she was set up as a lifeguard, if you will, during the american

naval strike on track island. what her job was was to locate american pilots who were down and forced them to ditch and rescue them. the summering with surface, they would get the airman, they would , and then aboard submerge. find more later, pick them up, basically to bring them back to fight another day. in that patrol, and the course of about three days, she picked up 22 american aviators, a record that obviously still stand today. she saved 22 lives, which is contradictory to what she was designed to do. nonetheless, it was an impressive mission. so much that the summering -- submarinemering gained national attention. this picture, very famous of

o'kane, some of the crew, and there is a him surrounded by the 22 aviators that he and the crew had rescued. it was a big deal. o'kane had already been in the news before as executive officer under morton, but the tang was any recognition of most of the time they did not get. they were called the silent service for two reasons. one of them which is because they were supposed to operate silently and sneak up. two, a lot of the veteran say that the assignment was difficult because no one had ever talked about them. it is true, they were a secret surf -- they were a secret service. on the second patrol, instead of sinking and taking lives, she rescued 22 american aviators. several of the crew were highly decorated, including one, james milton, who is a gunner on

board. he was awarded the silver star for rescuing naval aviators by jumping into the water and going to get these guys. he was from louisiana. ultimately he perished aboard the fifth patrol, members of his family donated artifacts that were his, including the silverstar and a purple heart. on the third patrol, july 1944, 10 -- tang set out to do her job which was sink japanese shipments. on the third patrol, etc. record for sinking 10 enemy ships. that was unheard of on these the trolls. it showed the aggressive spirit of the submarine. wrote twowar, o'kane

calledone of them was "clear the bridge." the other was called "wahoo." in "clear the bridge, o'kane talks about tactics he employed in sinking enemy ships. one of the things they did fairly often, was get on the surface and sink ships in the middle of the night. they cannot see him. japanese had radar, but it was not like our radar. everything for them. they cannot detect american troops until the torpedoes started exploding. o'kane knew that, it was common knowledge and the use of that was the cruise benefit. on the fourth patrol, it was not as successful as the third, she

sank five enemy ships and she was able to come home in one piece. ok, by this time he had made for patrols with the submarine and he had five or four aboard the previous submarine. he had seen a lot of action. the boss of the north pacific, admiral charles had told him that your next patrol, which was the fifth, was going to be his last. you have done your duty, it is time to go home to your wife and children. thank you, we'll find another job for you. but you have been enough. he was a career officer, he did not want to go, he wanted to finish the job. he had learned previously that his mentor and best friend, dudley walker morton had been reported missing in action. that usually meant that they

were killed in action. he felt like he had a mission to complete, not only to finish the war, but to avenge the loss of his friend. tange fifth patrol, the set out on september toy for, only one month long, and that was short, because she would sink ships and get out. was noth patrol different. the fifth patrol was by far the most successful patrol of any american submarine in the second world war, shipping -- sinking more ships than any other did and almost doubled her own personal record. by the end of the fifth patrol, she had sunk 33 enemy ships. no other submarine is close to

that. the fifth patrol ended with her final torpedo. o'kanentioned earlier, was told that this was his last rodeo, this was the last time he was going out. he employed his familiar tactics ofsurfacing in the middle the japanese convoy and the , in the middle of the night, he was able to hit several ships and damage one freighter. it was sinking, but the freighter was not sunk. it was damaged and just sort of sitting there. and o'kane was not one to let things sit there. he fired two more torpedoes. on the final torpedo, as it left

the tube, it cleared the boat, got out several yards and the marine is on the surface and as the torpedo goes, it starts to circle back, jumping out of the water like a porpoise. and the guys on the bridge, on ,op of the summering can see it one of them, and they could see that it was coming right for them, like a boomerang. evident that was it was going to hit them. o'kane who is generally very home -- calm and collected, he basically orders emergency flank

speed to get out of the way, trying to fishtail it to get out of the way that -- of the torpedo that was coming back. unfortunately, a submarine that is moving at a slow speed, it does not go very fast, you cannot floor it and take off. unfortunately the mother is not enough time. it slammed into it and blew up an enormous hole and pretty much instantly killed everybody in the rear of the bow. it immediately started to go down by the stern. as she went down, o'kane ordered closed, so the final words that the crew could hear was close the hatch. , on theybody on board

bridge, including o'kane were washed overboard into the water. there were survivors inside the boat at the time. they knew that the only possible way to get out of their alive was to try to flood the boat and go through the escape hatch. so that is what they did. they floated and is settle down at 182 feet of water, straight at the bottom of the ocean. previously, earlier in the war, they had designed in escape kit for people to get out of sunken boats. there was a piece of equipment and a closed your nose and allowed you to breathe through basically two bags, kind of like an oxygen tank, but not really. it was designed for short amount of breathing, just to get out of a sinking boat. that was the so purpose of it.

to cut a long story short, several hours later, several of the crew members inside the tang theseble to get out using bags. one man basically held his breath and exhaled as they went up. and another man, an incredible story, they were told there were nine survivors. above, theseewmen with the purple heart, these are from the families. the images with the lights behind them signify those who survived the sinking, who are either washed overboard from the those who escaped from the second boat below the water. jesse da silva and clayton

decker were both survivors, as well as william libel, officer larry, trucke was another survivor. hank flanagan and of course captain o'kane and pete and floyd cavalry were all survivors from the sinking boat. most of the german lived well into their -- gentleman lived well into their later years. of october 6, 2015, there is only one survivor tang, william libel -- libold. in later years, he became close with his captain, who died in 1994. this is the battle flag of the uss tang.

they took on the role of pirates of the pacific. each crew developed their own bravado, their own personality, and a lot of crews designed battle flags. and the battle flags were a tribute to american submarines in the war and they are fascinating, because each one is based off crew designs, they were not authorized by the navy or anything like that. this one is if a simile of the isg's, it is strange that the japanese flag. the original story, with the crew members did, they took the japanese flag and one crew man painted a black panther bursting through the japanese flag, theuse the tang was called black panther of the pacific.

they would paint the little flags for each simmering -- a submarine that they took down. and they would fly this when they would come in two different ports. they would fly at like a part flag. there are several photos of submarines tied up in pearl harbor and you can see the american flag and very all looking battle flags that were designed. this represents all 33 ships that they sunk during the war. the final 15 were added after the fifth patrol by a few non-survivors and survivors of the tang. this was created based off of the memories of a few survivors. for the fifth patrol, o'kane was awarded the medal of honor and the tang was awarded the

presidential citation. this is focused on the uss tank ng and in particular, the fifth patrol, which was the most successful of any u.s. submarine in history. this exhibit is placed here in remembrance of the 52 american submarines that were sunk during the war. the wall behind the lists the names of those sailors who served aboard them. and who did not come back. it is what they call the eternal patrol, the bodies have never been recovered and the submarines are still at the bottom of the ocean, which many have not been located. if you have, but many have not. this exhibit is really dedicated to not just the crewmen and survivors of the tang and those who did not survive, but all summering -- submarine men. when visitors come aboard, they

are given a card and the card is from random members of crew and it uses these photographs and it will be called the watch bill. on thes a brief history uss tang and on the flipside, and has a gentleman's photograph and their name, and it tells you their job. it gives you an idea of what they saw and endured. -- anere either in operator, torpedo man, or what have you. the final attack on the japanese.

this is on the morning of the 24th of october and it path ofes the circular that final torpedo as it slams into the side and the tang and it goes down. if you do not know that history exhibit,o through this it is shocking, frankly and you do not know what is going on. neither did the guys inside the summering. they had no idea what was wheng, what hit them, and it did hit them, they had no idea. it gives you that same experience as best it can. [indiscernible] [video clip]

seth: when you exit this the creation of the uss tang, the video features three of the survivors, the voice of floyd, the chief, and clayton decker.

those three members were the only three we were able to locate that would give the history. we interviewed them in 2011 and what is important to know about the tang and the crew, when those guys were washed overboard and they escaped, they floated in the water for several hours and they were picked up by a japanese destroyer. the japanese destroyer that picked them up was escorting the convoy that the tang just destroyed the night before, so when the guys were picked up by the japanese crew, needless to say, they were not treated nicely by the japanese crew. they were sent to several prison camps along the way, finally ending up in the most infamous japanese prison camp, which is right outside of tokyo. it was the camp reserved for special prisoners and they were not considered prisoners of war,

but they were considered pirates and war criminals because they sank japanese ships and killed merchants. they were regularly submitted to torture. basically, they had resigned themselves to their fate that they were not going to enter in easy life with the remainder of the war. these guys languished in japanese prison camps until they were finally liberated after the u.s. dropped atomic bombs on japan. when they were liberated, all of the survivors of the tang all those who survived, they were still alive. o'kane had lost over 100 pounds s door, they

were sure if you would make it back to the u.s. because he was in such poor health. thanks to the treatment of american medical personnel and his will to live, he did survive to the age of 94 years old. i had known about the uss tang and read about it as a historian for several years, but when you are putting this together, i poured my stuff into the history of this thing, the story of the boat and crew and captain. it was hard to get commander libold to do an interview with us, because he is rather reluctant to speak, but once he did allow us into his home, he was one of the most gracious people i have met in my life. he is incredible. to meet somebody who served -- thishis boat on that

bill, who endured not only the harrowing experience of war, but also japanese prison camp, it was incredible. a once-in-a-lifetime thing. it is about as close as i will ever experience -- as close as i can get to experiencing something like that. the value of telling the story is of sacrifice, it is the ultimate sacrifice. i have a six-year-old little boy euros little girl and my son is an absolute awe of submarines, and he thinks this is a real submarine. is enamored by the gunfire, the explosions, the video, the wow factor of it all. but what i try to do every single time we come through

, and mosttopped here people watch the video and look at their card that was given to them and look to see if their person lived or died. sacrifice,t that because there were only nine survivors, we hope that sacrifice hits people. one thing i do with my son when neilme is we stopped and -- stop and kneel and i point out the picture of the person he gets, we get somebody different every time, and i explained that that person did not survive. i explained that these people died so that he could do the things he does today, so he can enjoy freedom today. that is hard for a six-year-old to understand and i do not think he understands all of it, but it is important for people to understand that these men aboard

the tang and the others who were on submarines during the war, they died to preserve our freedom and they sacrificed themselves for everything we have today. they sacrificed all their tomorrow's for our today. so that is something that we try to talk about here. tang, just highlight the but all the americans who died aboard submarines during the second war. host: our continuing coverage from the national world war ii museum from new orleans continues with your phone calls. lines are open. here are the numbers. 202-7 48-8900 in the eastern course time zones.

on board the bus right now is the senior curator and restriction manager for world war ii. thomas: it is a pleasure to be here. job tohat a fascinating collect artifacts from so many facets of world war ii. mr. czekanski: there are a great many things that have been interesting. one piece that comes to mind, thee was a gentleman in supply department after normandy and he managed to figure out to of thes copies requisition form and he was awarded a bronze star for his actions. he received a bronze star for figuring out a better way to file paperwork. we have a copy of the paper that awarded that. at