deserves to be told. i'm oliver north, good night. tonight on "war store p stories." they were the predators beneath the pacific. >> that's got to be a terribly frightening experience. >> even if they didn't kill you, you were going to die because you were running out of breathing air. >> like sharks, they stalked the murky depths, looking for prey. >> anything, we were after. >> silent warriors. that's next on "war stories." this is the uss bo fin in

pearl harbor, hawaii. i'm oliver north. welcome to "war stories." the devastating japanese attack here in 1941 killed 2,400 americans and sent much of the pacific fleet to the bottom of this harbor. ships became tombs. but the japanese attack missed four fleet submarines. boats not much different than this one. vessels that would help sink the empire of the rising sun. life aboard a submarine was one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs during world war ii. 1 out of every 5 men who went to war on boats like this would never see home again. join us, as we take you beneath the sea to pay tribute to the silent warriors, submarines in the pacific. >> they were all laying down, you know, with -- sticking out of the water.

huge pile of wrecked planes and buildings and stuff. it was quite a shock. >> ron smith was just 17 when he left his hometown of hammond, indiana. gone were the days when he spent carefree afternoons hanging out at the local drugstore listening to the juke box. >> we were given the assignment. if you will, guy gby god, to fi the nazis and dictatorships and the horrible things the japanese were doing in asia. there was nobody else left to do it. >> the japanese concentrated on the warships tied up around fort island and pearl harbor to the complete neglect of the submarine docks. >> thomas hatfield is a military historian and dean at the university of texas in austin. >> the submarine fleet was intact. so the main initiative, which

could then be taken against the japanese, was left to the american submarine force. >> you graduate from the naval academy which year? >> 1941. >> what went through your mind? >> they didn't get any aircraft carriers. and they didn't get any submarines. >> 23-year-old charles rush was the son of a cotton merchant and grew up in dolthan, alabama. he was assigned to a carrier after graduating from the naval academy. >> we got a message from washington requesting volunteers for submarine duty and i volunteered. >> no sub school? >> no sub school. >> i think there were five of us that volunteered to go to the submarine school. and we were accepted. >> so you went from boot camp to radio school -- >> to the submarine school. >> up in? >> new london. >> 17-year-old bill young joined the navy in june of '41. born and raised in tucson, arizona, young had never even

seen an ocean, much less a connecticut submarine base. why did you want to go on submarines? >> it seemed like an adventure, something to do. and we get time and a half for submarines. $21 a month. >> did a lot of guys wash out of sub school? >> very few. some could not stand the confinement. the claustrophobic effect. >> class i went through was a three-month course. it was originally six months. >> 26-year-old lieutenant john reid from sharon, pennsylvania, had been in the navy six years when he arrived in new london. >> you had not a lot of operating experience and you get classroom experience. >> but the reality was that most of their training occurred aboard these obsolete s boats. >> these subs were built shortly after world war i. so they had limitations in depth, speed. they were used initially in the

war as sort of a last ditch effort. >> the submarine's value as a weapon of war initially met with skepticism by the navy's old guard. the first sub delivered in 1900 was the uss holland powered by a single 45 horsepower engine. it could only dive 75 feet. it would take the success of german u-boats during world war i and the rise to power of a few former submariners before the full potential of this weapon was realized. >> the appointment of a superb commander in chief of the naval forces of the pacific, admiral chester, who was himself a submariner. >> and the support of a president certainly helped. >> i, franklin delano roosevelt -- >> from the beginning of his administration in 1933, until 1941, more than 50 new

submarines were produced. >> the new fleet boats poured out of america's shipyards at the average rate of five per month. costing $3.3 million each, they'd hit speeds up to 20 knots on the surface, half that under water, and could dive to more than 400 feet. on war patrols, the fleet was a crew of 80 could operate alone for up to 60 days. >> i knew as early as the fifth grade i was going to join the navy. >> by the time pearl harbor was bombed, 21-year-old kimball young had been in the navy for four years. a machinist, he later volunteered for the submarine service and worked on the fleet boat engines. the boats actually had two types of propulsion. one electric. the other diesel. >> v-16 diesels. four of them? >> 3,200 horsepower in the engine room. 3,200 horsepower in the after

engine room. >> the diesels propelled the boat while it was on the surface. they also charged the batteries that powered the sub while submerged. >> do the machinists have to maintain those electric motors? >> that's electricians. >> the electric motors are extremely quiet. any sound a sub makes can reveal its location. with sonar, a japanese ship can zero in on these sounds and pound a submarine with depth charges. how long could you run on just batteries? >> if you run at ten knots, for half an hour. if you ran at three knots, you could run for 24 hours. >> the men who signed up for submarine duty were all volunteers. getting into the silent service was only the first challenge. >> 109 were volunteered. they sent them over to the hospital where they would get a physical examination. only 9 of us passed out of 105 that volunteered. >> you're completely dependent on every member of that crew. any one of them could mess up on

you and get you into difficulty. so it's a real team effort. it's not one man or three men. it's the whole bloody crew that have to pull together. >> in order to qualify, you have to learn every operation on that boat. you have to learn every system. every air system. every electric system. every lube oil system. every fuel oil system. you have to learn how to do everybody else's job. >> there's a special kind of camaraderie that you wouldn't find in any other vessel. you're all there together. >> why the navy? >> it's as simple as i liked the navy. for another one, when i was a kid, i was always afraid water. i figure, well, this is one way to get over that. >> like so many americans, texas native dennis mcclarin signed up after the attack and ended up on a mine sweeper in pearl harbor. >> it was going to stay here.

and it wasn't going to move anywhere. and i didn't join the navy to sail around, mine sweep. >> you come back alive or you don't come back at all. if i was going to die, i wanted to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. i thought the submarine was the way to do it. >> there aren't many who got purple hearts in submarines. >> jake reid, smith, young, and ennis mcclarin would join the thousands of submariners chasing the japanese from beneath the pacific ocean. >> fair to say you wanted to go in harm's way? >> yes. >> well, you certainly did, brother. coming up, the navy coming up, the navy struggles to fix the pro[engine] you can't have a hero, if you don't have a villain. the world needs villains [tires screeching] and villains need cars. ♪

i built my business with passion. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... that's huge for my bottom line. what's in your wallet?

by 1942, the war in the

pacific was in full swing. that may, the aircraft carrier lexington was sunk at the battle of the coral sea. in june, the battle of midway marked america's first decisive victory over the empire of the rising sun. on the home front, american industry was making the transition to a wartime role. as industry ramped up, the navy realized submarines could be more than just support to surface fleet. they were hunters. >> the japanese home islands could be effectively strangled from the supplies and materials. japan has very few natural resources. >> after world war i, the united states had sworn to never engage in unrestricted submarine warfare. with world war ii came another vow, to put any vessel flying a japanese flag wi, whether merch or warship, in the cross hairs. >> we were assigned a grid, a

territory to patrol. each submarine had its own area so you didn't interfere with one another. >> that's the thing about submarine warfare in world war ii. we were alone. >> for the first year and a half of the war, submarine crews were plagued by problems. one was technical. the other human. too many of the navy sub's commanders lacked the killer instinct. >> a little bit hesitant to go and shoot for fear of being shot at. put it that way. >> in november of 1942, bill young was all of 18 years old and one of three radiomen aboard the uss wahoo. he and his crew were not impressed with their skipper. >> had they seen ships they did not fire at? >> oh, yes. >> also in the crew, morton. >> morton did it? >> to point at one time he was limited to his cabin. >> following that, morton was in. morton, along with richard

okane, would become legends in the silent service. >> it would require a whole new generation of submarine commanders who would aggressively take the submarine to the enemy. >> where did morton get his nickname? >> from his mouth. they called him mush mouth. >> why? >> he talked all the time. you know, he was very highly intelligent man, very aggressive. >> january 1943. with mush morton in command, the wahoo departs the u.s. sub base in brisbane, australia. >> before we left, we're going to shoot at anybody we see. anybody that doesn't want to go, can leave. we're going to go in harm's way. >> he was good to his word? >> he was good to his word. >> this is the war patrol report from that deployment. >> yes. >> right at the front end of this report, it is january 24th, 1943. he takes the submarine up into

victoria bay. up a narrow river. so narrow that the submarine can't -- >> can't turn around. >> the only way out is to back out. >> back out. >> tell me what that was like. it's the middle of the night. >> what we found is the destroyer. he found us. came charging right at us. but fortunately we hit him. backed out and went our own way. >> what's the sense on that boat? >> relief. celebration. everybody was tickled to death. not a lot of skippers would do something like that. >> one in a million. >> on that patrol, the wahoo would bag over 74 enemy ships. that number might have been higher if not for defective torpedoes. >> at the beginning of the war, americans had two types of and both were defective.edoes one was the magnetic detonator.

part of the problem was that the torpedoes ran deeper than they should have. >> that meant too many torpedoes missed, like this one. the magnetic detonator was supposed to explode the 600-pound warhead when it sensed the magnetic field around a ship's hull. in theory it just needed to get close to the target. >> the other detonator was a con tangt detonator which upon contact with the ship, then the pin would push back into the explosive which would then blow up. >> actually in some instances would hit the target and bounce off. it had never been tested in peace time. >> the navy struggled to solve the torpedo problem. admiral lockwood was set to the task off the australian coast. back at pearl hash, torpedoman ron smith went to work on the pins. >> somebody jury rigged a special rig that went back on the torpedo warhead. lifted it up and dropped it on

the steel plate. about 40, 50 feet up. then go over and see what happened. >> by december '43, the problems were fixed. running hot, straight and normal. does the crew cheer at that point? >> you bet. it was a celebration. absolutely. in fact, we all got a drunk of rum. >> medicinal purposes only? >> medicinal purposes only. >> a japanese ship don't let dust and allergies get between you and life's beautiful moments. with flonase allergy relief, they wont. when we breathe in allergens, our bodies react by over producing six key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. most allergy pills only control one substance. flonase controls six. and six is greater than one. flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill.

so you can seize those moments, wherever you find them. flonase. six is greater than one changes everything. heywhether to stay or go?re ♪ when it's go, the new choice privileges gets you there faster. and now, stay two times and you can earn a free night. book now at choicehotels.com until one of you clipst da food truck.. then your rates go through the roof. perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurance.

> the american victory at midway in june of '42 was the direct result of the navy's code breakers.

under the leadership at pearl harbor, they cracked the japanese fleet code. but midway was just the beginning. >> a very important factor in the submarine warfare was the breaking of the naval intelligence radio codes by american code breakers. and specifically the breaking for their merchant vessels. >> the men in the fleet boats were soon having a field day. >> we would get reports saying convey so-and-so is going to be becoming such and such. and we would go intercept it. >> it gave us the number of ships, the number of vessels. that's pretty useful. >> useful indeed. it's been estimated that code breaking was involved in half of all the japanese vessels destroyed by u.s. submarines during the war. breaking the japanese code was one of america's most valuable

weapons and the japanese never knew it. >> if you never got a hold of one, it meant you could see, hey, they must be breaking our code. >> as a radio man, familiar with the fact that we'd broken the japanese code, did you ever wonder if the japanese had broken our code? >> we wondered about it. we didn't think they had. we were assured they had not broken it. had no reason to suspect that they had because they didn't seem to know much about us. >> we were told to scout those places and do whatever we could. attack if we could. we sank a big japanese sea plane, big ship. >> a few weeks at the victory at midway, charles rush was aboard as they got a japanese ship in the islands. >> she went under quick. in doing so, there was an

aircraft above which saw where we were. >> so in the wake of that torpedo? >> yeah. bombed us. and unknown to us, that bomb cracked a high pressure air line. so we were leaking air bubbles. maybe half an hour later, we're banging, chanlang, clang, clang clang. along our steel hull. until it got back here. and it stopped. and then we felt this movement of the submarine lifting, the stern lifting and the diving officer, who was jim brian at the time, told the captain, i can't control the boat anymore. >> what russih and the crew didt know is a japanese ship, seeing the air bubbles escaping, had dropped a hook and cable, snagging their submarine by the tail. >> so we flooded everything as

we could and still couldn't. >> how long you been under at that point? >> wow. we'd been under, oh, since dawn. we couldn't go deep. started out 200 feet. and the next thing you know, you're at 150. then 100. and the captain said set the demolition charges. going to blow us up. we is fine, you know. we weren't going to surrender the ship. so at this point, we broke loose. we get down over 400 feet. and managed to get control of the ship. depthwise. and then as soon as it began to get dark, we surfaced and got away. >> what kind of ship was it that snagged you? >> it was an ocean tug with an electric powered towing machine. they're built to tow 10,000 ton ships across the ocean.

they easily can blow up a submarine. they could, if you didn't break loose. >> had to be a terrible sense of relief at that point. >> well, beats blowing up the ship. >> and the charges aboard the ship made for that purpose? >> well, it's just like put the plunger down if this thing boils up and the torpedo heads go up with it. that's all she wrote. >> and the crew goes down with it? >> yeah. i don't know whether that captain would let us abandon ship before he blew it up or not. i'll never know. >> the living hell of a depth charge attack. that's next. [alarm beeps] ♪

♪ the intelligent, all-new audi a4 is here. ♪ ♪ ain't got time to make no apologies...♪ we believe in the power of active management.management, by debating our research to find the best investments. by looking at global and local insights to benefit from different points of view. and by consistently breaking apart risk to focus on long-term value. we actively manage with expertise and conviction. so you can invest with more certainty. mfs. that's the power of active management. if youthen you'll know howouth, uncomfortable it can be. but did you know that the lack of saliva can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath? well, there is biotene, specially formulated with moisturizers and lubricants. biotene can provide soothing relief

and it helps keep your mouth healthy too. biotene, for people who suffer from a dry mouth. (patrick 2) pretty great.ke to be the boss of you? (patrick 1) how about a 10% raise? (patrick 2) how about 20? (patrick 1) how about done? (patrick 2) that's the kind of control i like... ...and that's what they give me at national car rental. i can choose any car in the aisle i want- without having to ask anyone. who better to be the boss of you... (patrick 1)than me. i mean, you...us. (vo) go national. go like a pro.

cloud-based libraries. keep it here for your latest business and financial news. at the beginning of 1944, operation overlord, the liberation of france, was looming.

eisenhower was commander of all allied forces in europe. in the pacific, japan was losing ground. allied victory was coming but at a horrible price. in two years of global war, 70,000 americans were now dead. among the losses, 25 boats of the silent service and almost 2,000 men. many sent to a watery grave by the depth charge. how many depth charges do you suppose you've heard go off over your head? >> 200. >> that's got to be a terribly frightening experience. >> it is at times, yeah. >> you can hear the sound and you can feel the wave of pressure go through your body, through your head, shoom, as it goes through the boat. >> i've been told the official

depth charge count was 210. >> what's it like to be under water with those things going off? >> pretty damn scary. >> a depth charge is an underwater bomb about the size of an oil bomb, packed with up to 300 pounds of explosives. sonar equipment allows a ship to zero in on the sound coming from another vessel. but a destroyer hearing the sound of a submerged sub simply rolled the charges off into the water. the idea was drop enough to damage the sub so it would never surface again. >> the way they search is with sonar. they send out a ping. if they get an echo back from you, there you are. to really do the damage, it has to be blow because when it explodes, all the pressure's coming upward. >> and when depth charges got

close, it was like holding a bucket over your head and somebody hit it with a hammer. but we were confident. >> that first time's got to be terrifying? >> first time was a little -- a little ornery. >>s it totally quiet in the ship when you're under a depth charge attack? >> they do a rig for silent running. everybody takes off their shoes. nobody talks. all the machinery is shut down. everything that's running is shut down. so that people with sonar on the surface can't hear you. >> you whisper? >> we would whisper. >> what's the longest you ever depth charged? >> oh, about three hours. seems like 30 years but it's only three hours. >> one tactic for escaping involved finding what's called a thermoklein. a temperature layer or sound barrier deep in the ocean that can help a sub hide. >> normally the water, goes deeper, gets colder. and in some instances, you get a reversal.

where it begins to warm up. the result is you have a layer there. if you're fortunate enough to get one of those depth anoma anomalies, you can get below that and then they have difficulty penetrating that with their sonar gear. they can't find you. >> beyond the sudden death of a depth charge, there was the danger of running out of air. without oxygen, the crew would suffocate. what does it feel like when you start to run out of air? >> oh, i guess probably the next time you put up the periscope there's nobody around and you get to the surface. i think one time it was 72 hours. >> air wasn't just needed for the crew. the sub needs it as well. air is vital to expel the water taken into the boat's balist ta ballast tanks. on the surface, the ballast tanks are empty. to sub american, water is added

and the added weight submerges the boat. lightened, the vessel rises. any damage done by depth charges to a sub's ballast system can make it impossible to surface. >> 3 to 5 depth charges exploded one time right over us and everything went block. >> ron smith and the crew of the seal were just off the coast of japan. after attacking a convoy, the tables turned and the hunter became the hunted. >> five around us. like indians around a wagon train. one would go loose and drop depth charges. we knew. sonar would tell you. here he comes. our batteries were completely gone. our high pressure air was gone. our oxygen was so bad we were putting up the co-2 absorbers.

commander dodge climbed up on the ladder to the tower and he said, men, we're going to go up there and die like americans, not like rats. we went flying out of there. and got out. looked around. the damn japs were gone. they'd been there two minutes before, five japanese boats. they were gone. >> severely damaged, they turned for the ocean. the luck of the draw left smith on watch. >> i'd been up like 45 hours. i would put my foot up on the torpedo stanchion. and i would put matches between my toes. and then just as i was about ready to strokleep, i'd strike light that thing, it would burn my toe and light wake me up. you can't sleep on watch. >> imagine sleeping above a 3,500-pound torpedo like this. more on life in a world war ii submarine.

the e-class has 11 intelligent driver-assist systems. it recognizes pedestrians and alerts you. warns you about incoming cross-traffic. cameras and radar detect dangers you don't. and it can even stop by itself.

so in this crash test, one thing's missing: a crash. the 2016 e-class. now receive up to a $3,000 spring bonus on the e350 sport sedan. next! come on, come on. i haven't got all day here! it doesn't come with peppers! you know you told me you wanted mustard. back of the line! excuse me! what! great sandwich. thanks. ♪you didn't have to be so nice♪ get outta here. ♪i would have liked you anyway♪

life on board a world war ii submarine in the pacific was fraught with danger. if it wasn't enemy depth charges, it was running out of oxygen or battery power. going below your depth could mean being crushed by water pressure. but charles rush and bill young had never forgotten some other factors. >> talk about the odors on board a submarine. >> yeah, it was food, feet and the other f. >> we showered with saltwater. >> once a week? >> whenever -- sometimes we didn't even -- you get used to the odor. >> it's self-defense. everybody smelled about the same? >> yeah. >> was it kind of s.o.p. to remain submerged during the day time and come up at night? >> exactly, yes.

>> you'd never see sunlight except through a periscope? >> that's right. when we get up at night and open the hatches or go up on the bridge, fresh air smelled strange. it's a funny smell. it was natural, the way we were. your reaction is what the hell is that foul smell. it's fresh air. >> i'd say 99% of the guys smoked. at that time, i smoked camels and luckies. and then if i ran out, i'd smoke o.p.s. other peoples. >> with up to 80 men cramped aboard, space was at such a premium that someone once said there's room for everything on board a submarine except a mistake. >> they would store food every place. in the bildges. in the overhead. >> the apt battery was the main

berthing area. about 30 to 40 guys sleep in there. and then after the torpedo room, had 16 bunks. >> often there were more money aboard then bunks. the solution, hot bunking. >> one guy would be on watch, you'd sleep in his bunk. he'd go on watch, somebody else would sleep in his bunk. >> which bunk was yours? >> well, this one up here. it doesn't look like much but it was very comfortable. >> one small compensation for the rigors of submarine life was better than average chow. >> food was excellent for the first two or three weeks. then you got into the canned stuff. into the spam and the rice and the canned potatoes. eggs were the worst. they were like green foam rubber. >> how about water? make your own water aboard? >> yeah. we made -- for drinking water, we made -- out of the evaporators. >> fresh water tankers got contaminated. everybody had diarrhea. 80 guys with diarrhea on a

submarine? oh, my god. they did not have a doctor on board. several instances where appendectomies or several others were carried out. >> you had a guy wounded during a surface attack. got a bullet in his foot. mangled his toes. the pharmacist made -- took him down and cut off his toes with the wire cutters. doused him with a little alcohol and sent him on his way. ♪ >> hello, yankee brothers. this is your japanese sister, the voice of truth. >> she was our favorite because it was music. tokyo rose. >> although tokyo rose was a name they gave to any japanese radio announce, iva toguri was the only one tried and convicted as tokyo rose. she's taunt the lonely allied troops with japanese propaganda. >> she knew the name of the men on the boat. that's scary.

that kind of stuff would scare you. how the hell did they get that kind of intelligence? >> she was -- would say all your sweethearts back at home are running around with somebody else. one night she said that the american submarine people complained that the japanese depth charges are too small. she says, we'll make them bigger. and i think they did. >> the crews of american submarines, they had to have complete confidence and loyalty in the commander of the ship. >> on 11 november 1943, lieutenant charles rush and the crew of the uss bill fish discovered what happens when the men don't have complete confidence in their skipper. lieutenant commander fred c. lucas was commanding the sub off the dutch east indies, now indonesia. peering through the periscope, rush reported they'd been spotted by a japanese destroyer. lucas didn't believe him. >> captain, i'm telling you, if

you don't do something, we're dead. oh. oh, so what should i do? i said, you got to go deep. he said, you're the diving officer, go deep. >> rush quickly ordered up more speed and dove to 200 feet. >> the destroyer went straight over the top. dropped six charges. they were the closest i have ever experienced in my life. they were devastating. so i went down. below 400 feet. and, man, there were three destroyers up there. they surrounded us. and took turns dropping depth charges. >> rush then dove to a bone crushing 600 feet. >> the only way we could possibly survive was at depth. and i chose that. and we stayed -- went through this for 10 or 11 hours. with the three of them just beating the hell out of us. >> rush then went to the boat's

con and found it unmanned. unbelievably, lucas was doing nothing to counter the relentless depth charge pounding the bill fish. >> the can't be wptain was out . unable to function. said, i've tried everything and nothing works. >> it was then that rush took command of the submarine. >> and i said, there's one thing that we haven't tried and i'm going to do it. and i took the control. and we were leaking oil. and so i went back underneath the oil slick. i went back on that path the opposite way. turn for turn. and these destroyers just kept looking and looking up there for us. and i came up to periscope depth, put the scope up and i could see these three destroyers back there with the lights on searching the surface. >> looking at that oil slick? >> yeah. so we just kept going away and going away.

>> two weeks after that ordeal rush watched as captain lucas turned the bill fish around rather than go after a japanese convoy. >> i tell him, you've got to go back and attack. he said, i can't do it. i said, i can do it, let me do it. he said, i can't turn over command of the ship. but i promise you, i will resign from submarines. and i let it go at that. so we went back to port. i never did see the patrol report. that he wrote when we got back to washington. but years later, complete falsification. is what it was. >> did he resign? >> he did, yeah. >> if not for the crew of a submarine like this one, america might well have had two different presidents. find out why when war stories returns. you can't predict the market. but through good times and bad... ...at t. rowe price... ...we've helped our investors stay confident for over 75 years.

call us or your advisor. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. whfight back fastts tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue and neutralizes stomach acid at the source tum, tum, tum, tum smoothies! only from tums in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. all across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, the lowest taxes in decades, and new infrastructure for a new generation attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in rochester, with world-class botox. and in buffalo, where medicine meets the future. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov

by 1945, the japanese naval and merchant fleets were simply gone. over 2,000 ships sunk. more than half by submarines. without raw materials imported by sea, japan was unable to make the weapons of war. >> towards the end of the war, targets were essentially disappearing. >> the enemy was reduced to using junks and sand pans. these low priority targets were perfect for a surface attack. >> probably considered too small, waste a torpedo on. so we'd have to sink it by gunfire. >> in battle stations, where would you be? >> on the gun crew. >> loader or gunner? >> gunner. >> pretty good? >> i thought so.

>> we were going to evacuate the coast watchers and the friendly navies. there was two mothers had babies less than six weeks old. >> allied coast watchers often alone, were positioned across the pacific on japanese controlled islands. via radio, they provided crucial intelligence on enemy movements. >> how far off shore are you? >> half mile. >> ashore, kimball young and his teammates from the fish found more people to rescue than they planned for. >> we had 16 people. we rowed back to the boat. we're really not that good a physical condition. my tongue's almost hanging out. i figure i'll just hold up my hand and have them pull me aboard. they said, young, we want you to make another trip. >> so you got two australian commandos aboard. >> right. >> where did they live aboard the boat?

>> lived in the officer's quarters. >> aboard the blue gill, 20-year-old ennis mcclarin volunteered for a dangerous mission with the commandos. >> and the second raid is to take out a radar tower, radio station, ammo deep ppot? >> yeah. >> how far off shore are you when you're getting in that rubbrub rubber boat? >> mile, mile and a half. >> what are you carrying? >> ammunition. >> you blow it up and make your way back? >> yeah. >> any thought the sub might not be there? >> no, we were sure. >> teammates would not leave you behind? >> not likely. >> americans began bombing the japanese home islands. as a result of submarines were placed on the flight pattern. and the rescued more than 500 air men during the course of the war. >> aboard the guard fish,

kimball young was just off the coast of japan waiting to pick up u.s. flyers whose planes went down over water. what would you do with the pilots once you picked them up? >> we finished up patrol. we had another two weeks. we'd have been sunk, they'd have been sunk with us. >> one aviator we rescued was the first president bush. >> lieutenant george bush was shot down on 2 september 1944. just hours later, he was rescued by the crew of the uss fin back. his son, george w. bush, was born two years later in connecticut. about 50 miles from the sub school in new london. more silent warriors of the pacific in world war ii when "war stories" continues.

[engines revving] you can't have a hero, if you don't have a villain. the world needs villains [tires screeching] and villains need cars. ♪ don't let dust and allergies get and life's beautiful moments. with flonase allergy relief, they wont. when we breathe in allergens, our bodies react by over producing six key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. most allergy pills only control one substance. flonase controls six. and six is greater than one. flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill. so you can seize those moments, wherever you find them. flonase. six is greater than one changes everything.

heywhether to stay or go?re ♪ when it's go, the new choice privileges gets you there faster. and now, stay two times and you can earn a free night. book now at choicehotels.com

the september 1945 surrender aboard the uss missouri in tokyo bay marked the end of world war ii. mighty missouri was joined by 12 submarines and their crews. >> could a sailor buy a beer at that point? >> yeah, i guess we could. next day, i was broke. they had among the highest mortality rates of any branch of the service during the war. >> among those lost, dudley mush morton and 79 men aboard the wahoo. >> can't say enough about the men. >> usss 27 -- >> william young, ennis mcclarin and kimball young are still close to the ocean they patrolled so long ago. all retired to civilian life in hawaii. ron smith settled in texas and chronicled life at sea during world war ii in his book

"torpedo men." commar lcharlie rush stayed in the navy, retiring in 1961, but it would take almost 60 years before the truth of how he saved the bill fish and its crew became known. in 2002, he received the navy cross. >> the patrol area -- >> jack reid also made a career of the navy and retired as a captain in 1967. >> looking back on it, i figure we were sailing into dangerous waters i guess, but we had a good pilot. the man upstairs. >> their record is truly remarkable. of their achievement, admiral chester nimitz said, never forget, it was our submarines that held the line against the enemy, while our fleets replaced losses and repaired wounds. with just 2% of the navy's personnel, america's submarines sank over half the japanese ships destroyed during world war ii. theirs is a war story that

deserves to be told. i'm oliver north. good night. for time life's music collection. (soft music) ♪ (narrator) these are songs that can relax and soothe you. (ray conniff) ♪ somewhere my love ♪ there will be songs to sing (narrator) songs that make you feel good. (frankie valli) ♪ you're just too good to be true ♪ ♪ can't take my eyes off of you ♪ ♪ you'd be like heaven to touch ♪ (narrator) songs that take you to wonderful places. (the 5th dimension) ♪ up-up and away ♪ in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon ♪