Around that time, I was going to the library once a week to take out a nonfiction book and expand my horizons. On a whim, I picked up War in the Boats by Captain William Ruhe, who served on a variety of submarines during the Pacific War. Through his amazing stories, I finally figured out why boys love submarines, and I knew I had to write this novel. A novel that would portray a young lieutenant’s first war patrol on an older S-class boat during the bloody Battle of Guadalcanal, welding a you-are-there “men, machines, action” story onto these historic events.
Crash Dive is influenced by Ruhe’s extraordinary account of his experiences on the S-37 along with many other books written by and about submariners during World War II. When the war started, only about 50 submarines were in service; by the end of the war, some 180. Though hampered by older equipment and faulty torpedoes in the early days of the war, submarines sank more than 1,100 merchant ships with a tonnage of some 4.8 million by its end. They also sank about 200 warships, including eight carriers, a battleship, and 11 cruisers. Strangling Japan’s economy and by extension its ability to fight made a major contribution to the American victory—a victory that seems inevitable today but was far from certain in 1942.
Japan’s anti-submarine tactics and equipment were arguably poor compared to the war’s other major combatants. Nonetheless, the Japanese sank more than 50 American submarines during the war, or about one in five boats. Nearly 3,500 submariners died in these actions—a casualty rate six times higher than the rest of the Navy—making service on a submarine far more dangerous than on a surface ship. The Japanese hated the submarines. They took few prisoners; some were executed, while others suffered in brutal “special treatment” camps.
From the American perspective, the men who served on the boats were heroes and, during the war, largely unsung heroes. The Silent Service valued secrecy to preserve operational security and effectiveness. In subsequent years, the silence around the boats of World War II lifted. Today, we’re able to learn about what it was like in the boats, what they did, how they lived, how they triumphed, and how much they suffered. If you enjoyed this fictional submarine adventure, you might like the real thing even more. I recommend War in the Boats by Captain William J. Ruhe, The War Below by James Scott, The Silent Service in World War II edited by Edward Monroe-Jones and Michael Green, Clear the Bridge! by Rear Admiral Richard H. O’Kane, and Submarine! by Edward L. Beach. I also recommend, for sanitized but very interesting viewing, The Silent Service, a 1957-58 TV series narrated by Rear Admiral Thomas Dykers; many episodes have been uploaded to YouTube.
These firsthand accounts went a long way in informing the writing of this novel, along with a great deal of other research that included Navy manuals related to S-class submarine operation and submarine phraseology. Any errors and omissions, of course, are solely mine, and many are intentional—artistic license to tell a simple, coherent, and dramatic story.
Thank you for reading Crash Dive. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. If you did, please review this novel on Amazon (and/or GoodReads.com, etc.) and tell your friends about it. Stay tuned for new episodes in the series at www.CraigDiLouie.com (be sure to sign up for my mailing list here). I also welcome any correspondence about my fiction at [email protected].
Thanks again for reading my work. I hope you enjoyed the voyage.
—Craig DiLouie, April 2015
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig DiLouie is an author of popular thriller, apocalyptic/horror, and sci-fi/fantasy fiction.
In hundreds of reviews, Craig’s novels have been praised for their strong characters, action, and gritty realism. Each book promises an exciting experience with people you’ll care about in a world that feels real.
These works have been nominated for major literary awards such as the Bram Stoker Award and Audie Award, translated into multiple languages, and optioned for film. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, and Imaginative Fiction Writers Association.
Learn more about Craig’s writing at www.CraigDiLouie.com. Sign up for Craig’s mailing list to be the first to learn about his new releases here.
Other books by Craig:
Suffer the Children
The Retreat, Episode #1: Pandemic
The Retreat, Episode #2: Slaughterhouse
The Retreat, Episode #3: Die Laughing
The Retreat, Episode #4: Alamo
The Alchemists
The Infection
The Killing Floor
Children of God
Tooth and Nail
The Great Planet Robbery
Paranoia
Crash Dive: a novel of the Pacific War Page 16
