Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on ""Get Off My Bloody Ship!" The British Last Stand in Shanghai 1941" video.

  1. My guess is that British and American officers and crews would have fought to the last man if they had any idea what lay ahead for them as prisoners. I know I would have.
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  2. It was the job of the Japanese to silence opposition and take over the rest of Shanghai. They had a foretaste of what would happen to them from Wake Island if they didn't go in with overwhelming forces.
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  3. It wasn't the subs that failed, it was their weapons. Many boats staged attacks where they fired four and five torpedoes, all duds. Firing off a quarter of your torpedo loadout with no effect except attacks by Japanese depth charges can make a captain a little timid. Most skippers had never fired a fish in anger so it would take time for them to get good, even with good torpedoes. Time was one thing they didn't have. To top it off, all the boats with the exception of a few S class boats had a gun armament of a single 3"/50 and a Lewis gun. The 3" gun was specified because the submarine command didn't want the boats to be tempted to slug it out with enemy patrol craft on the surface. Unfortunately, the deck gun was all they had left, and some commanders fought it out on the surface anyway. The Sculpin is one example, sinking at least two and maybe four merchant ships on the surface in the opening days of the war. Many subs were tied up transporting Filipino and American treasure and taking "important" people to Java and Australia. When caught on the surface by an air attack, the single Lewis gun and, if the commander was lucky and got it set up on the conning tower in time, the single water cooled .50 caliber machine gun, didn't stand much of a chance shooting down Japanese bombers.
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