Oct. 24, 1944, near Turnabout Island in the Formosa Straight

[Bob Womack]

I read a book titled Wahoo when I was a teenager.
It was about the WWII exploits of the US fleet sub of that name. IIRC, during the time of that story, the skipper's name was "Mush" Morton and his Exec was Dick O'Kane. I found it to be such a fascinating story that I still remember some details 50 years later.

I think that was probably Dick O'Kane's book, by the way. He went on to write the story of the Tang in Clear the Bridge. It is just as captivating as Wahoo, even more, in fact. It's a great adult read. Perhaps its biggest limitation is that it is a monograph - written by the person whose experiences it represented. Because Richard O'Kane turned out to be a quite modest individual, feared overstating his case, and wanted to memorialize his crew, he understated his own contribution. Nevertheless the book is fantastic! I read it about once a year. A few years after O'Kane's death that problem was rectified when William Tuohy wrote The Bravest Man about Dick and the Tang. In it we learned just how daring O'Kane's tactics were and just how close to death he came in the torture camp.

Bob