When This Submarine Destroyed a Japanese Train — The Only US Ground Attack on Japanese Soil
WW2 Records
442,527 views
Why Commander Eugene Fluckey sent eight submariners ashore to blow up a Japanese train during WW2 — and they became the only US troops to conduct ground combat on Japanese home islands. This World War 2 story reveals how a submarine commander rewrote the rules of submarine warfare.
July twenty-second, nineteen forty-five. Commander Eugene Fluckey, captain of USS Barb, watched Japanese supply trains running along the Karafuto coastline from his periscope. Every submarine doctrine said submarines attacked ships, not trains. High Command would call this an unauthorized risk.
They were all wrong.
What Fluckey discovered that night wasn't about following doctrine. It was about adapting submarine capabilities in ways that contradicted everything the Navy taught. By the end of July twenty-third — the night eight sailors paddled ashore with fifty-five pounds of explosives — the US had conducted its only ground combat operation on Japanese sovereign territory during the entire Pacific War.
This mission proved submarines could project power beyond anti-shipping warfare. Fluckey also pioneered submarine-launched rockets, firing seventy-two at Japanese coastal targets. The principles discovered in the Sea of Okhotsk influenced modern submarine special operations capabilities today.
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20 Comments
What an awesome crew to undertake this incredibly dangerous mission & not be discovered!
When This Submarine Destroyed a Japanese Train — The Only US Ground Attack on Japanese Soil
WW2 Records
442,527 views
Why Commander Eugene Fluckey sent eight submariners ashore to blow up a Japanese train during WW2 — and they became the only US troops to conduct ground combat on Japanese home islands. This World War 2 story reveals how a submarine commander rewrote the rules of submarine warfare.
July twenty-second, nineteen forty-five. Commander Eugene Fluckey, captain of USS Barb, watched Japanese supply trains running along the Karafuto coastline from his periscope. Every submarine doctrine said submarines attacked ships, not trains. High Command would call this an unauthorized risk.
They were all wrong.
What Fluckey discovered that night wasn't about following doctrine. It was about adapting submarine capabilities in ways that contradicted everything the Navy taught. By the end of July twenty-third — the night eight sailors paddled ashore with fifty-five pounds of explosives — the US had conducted its only ground combat operation on Japanese sovereign territory during the entire Pacific War.
This mission proved submarines could project power beyond anti-shipping warfare. Fluckey also pioneered submarine-launched rockets, firing seventy-two at Japanese coastal targets. The principles discovered in the Sea of Okhotsk influenced modern submarine special operations capabilities today.
🔔 Subscribe for more untold WW2 stories: @wwii-records
👍 Like this video if you learned something new
💬 Comment below: What other WW2 tactics should we cover?
#worldwar2 #ww2history #ww2 #wwii #ww2records
He told me about it when I was a kid but I couldn't process it so thank goodness for the Internet that provides the details.