The Mark 14 torpedo could hit an enemy ship—and still fail to explode. Discover how American sailors proved their own weapon was defective.

July 24, 1943. USS Tinosa attacks the Japanese tanker Tonan Maru No. 3. The first successful hits leave the ship damaged. Then torpedoes repeatedly strike without exploding. Lieutenant Commander Lawrence R. “Dan” Daspit saves his last torpedo and brings it home for examination.

What follows is the story of the US Navy torpedo scandal: three major defects, inadequate testing, and submarine crews whose combat reports challenged confidence in a deeply flawed weapon.

This WW2 submarine warfare documentary follows the investigation from Charles Lockwood’s fishing-net depth tests to the Mark 6 magnetic exploder failures and the contact mechanism that could malfunction during a direct hit.

Discover:
• Why Mark 14 torpedoes ran roughly ten feet deeper than their settings.
• How premature detonations could be mistaken for successful hits.
• Why disabling the magnetic exploder exposed another defect.
• How the USS Tinosa torpedo failure helped drive controlled impact tests.
• Why fixing one torpedo was only the beginning of correcting weapons across the Pacific fleet.

From patrol reports and damaged firing mechanisms to production, maintenance and logistics, discover how sailors, technicians and commanders made the Mark 14 more dependable—and why earning their trust required evidence.

Which failure surprised you most: running too deep, exploding too soon, or hitting without detonating? Share your answer in the comments.

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