Why Commander Richard O'Kane fired 24 torpedoes at a Japanese convoy during WW2 — and the 24th one circled back and sank his own submarine. This World War 2 story reveals how America's deadliest submarine became the victim of a weapon defect the Navy knew existed.
October 24, 1944. Commander Richard O'Kane, commanding USS Tang, was hunting in the Taiwan Strait. His submarine had just sunk 13 Japanese ships in two days — bringing Tang's total to 33 ships destroyed, the highest record in the US Navy. Then he fired his final Mark 18 electric torpedo. The weapon malfunctioned, curved left in a circular run, and struck Tang's stern at 23:55. Every submarine commander knew Mark 18s had this defect. Two other American submarines had already been lost the same way. The Navy called it an acceptable risk — less than one percent failure rate.
They were all wrong.
What happened in the next eight hours wasn't about torpedo technology. It was about 87 men trapped at 180 feet depth with a weapon the Navy knew could kill them. Tang carried Momsen lungs — emergency breathing devices that had never been successfully used in combat conditions. The forward torpedo room had 30 survivors. The escape
