Content area
Full Text
The USS Puffer in World War II: A History of the Submarine and Its Wartime Crew. By Craig R. McDonald. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Publishers, 2008. ISBN 9780-7864-3209-7. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Appendixes. Index. Pp. xv, 335. $45.00.
The submarine USS Puffer is most remembered for suffering one of the worst depth-charge attacks of World War II. On its first war patrol in the Pacific, the Puffer attacked a Japanese merchantman in the Makassar Strait on the morning of 9 October 1943. The Puffer was subsequendy pinned down by enemy escorts which claimed they sank the submarine. They were not far wrong. The Puffer spent nearly 38 hours submerged before it finally reached the surface, surviving what was likely the most prolonged dive of the war. The submarine's atmosphere had been poisoned by increasing carbon dioxide, not to mention the stench of twenty- four defrosting rabbits that had been removed from the cold locker for dinner....