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Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II Hardcover – 9 May 1996

by Robert Gannon (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars 6 ratings
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Ultimately, World War II was the first war won by technology, but within only a few weeks after the war began, the U.S. Navy realized its torpedo program was a dismal failure. Submarine skippers reported that most of their torpedoes were either missing the targets or failing to explode if they did hit. The United States had to work fast if it expected to compete with the Japanese Long Lance, the biggest and fastest torpedo in the world, and Germany's electric and sonar models. Hellions of the Deep tells the dramatic story of how Navy planners threw aside the careful procedures of peacetime science and initiated "radical research": gathering together the nation's best scientists and engineers in huge research centers and giving them freedom of experimentation to create sophisticated weaponry with a single goal―winning the war.

The largest center for torpedo work was a requisitioned gymnasium at Harvard University, where the most famous names in science worked with the best graduate students from all around the country at the business of war. They had to produce tangible weapons, to consider production and supply tactics, to take orders from the military, and, in many cases, also to teach the military how to use the weapons they developed. World War II grew into a chess match played by scientists and physicists, and it became the only war in history to be won by weapons invented during the conflict.

For this book, Robert Gannon conducted numerous interviews over a twenty-year period with scientists, engineers, physicists, submarine skippers, and Navy bureaucrats, all involved in the development of the advanced weapons technology that won the war. While the search for new weapons was deadly serious, stretching imagination and resourcefulness to the limit each day, the need was obvious: American ships were being blown up daily just outside the Boston harbor. These oral histories reveal that, in retrospect, surprising even to those who went through it, the search for the "hellions of the deep" was, for many, the most exciting period of their lives.

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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Pennsylvania State University Press
  4. Publication date
    9 May 1996
  5. Dimensions
    15.24 x 1.91 x 22.86 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    027101508X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0271015088
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Review

“The U.S. Navy's failure to provide its submarines with effective torpedoes was one of the great near disasters of the Second World War. Gannon offers us a finely crafted, thoroughly informative study of the failure and the successful technical effort to develop winning weapons for the fleet.”

―Harvey M. Sapolsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

About the Author

Robert Gannon is Associate Professor of English at Penn State University. His articles have appeared in Popular Science, Reader's Digest, Science Digest, Science and Mechanics, Audubon, Oceans, and many other popular and specialized publications.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pennsylvania State University Press
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 9 May 1996
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 027101508X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0271015088
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 635 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 1.91 x 22.86 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.9 out of 5 stars 6 ratings

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Robert Gannon

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Mr. R. Willis
    4.0 out of 5 stars An esoteric subject, well covered.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 April 2008
    If you are interested in how scientists and engineers helped their countries during WWII then this should be added to your bookshelf.
    The book could have done with better editing for an international audience to remove some of the more colloquial expressions the author uses. Given that the author is an associate professor of English, the writing could have been much better.
    The author's lack of technical background means that he fails to explain some technical points or fails to see what are major problems in development and what are not.
    However the author is to be congratulated for tackling this subject and filling a gap in WWII history.
    Overall a very interesting book but as a story of innovation in wartime it doesn't compete with Last Talons of the Eagle.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • JT
    5.0 out of 5 stars A suprisingly great read
    Reviewed in the United States on 1 December 2018
    Verified Purchase
    The title of "Hellions" leads to surprise #1: this is not a thriller, but a detailed, almost academic study of torpedo development in the U.S., its excruciatingly troubled course in World War II, and more generally about the development of the military-industrial complex. It is generally known that if U.S. submariners had had torpedoes that actually worked, the Pacific war would have been shortened by at least a year, but this work fleshes out the story of that debacle. Surprise two is that, in spite of a high level of technical detail, this is so well written that it's almost a page-turner, with many entertaining sidebars, even hilarious tales of errant torpedoes chasing nosey snoopers. There is much irony in seeing how the defense industry first, in the early urgency of World War II, brilliantly supplanted the hidebound bureaucracy of military procurement, and then itself became just as hidebound and sclerotic, leading to disastrous white elephants like the Zumwalt destroyer. This book should be much more widely read, for both information and entertainment, and it's as timely as a multi-billion dollar stealth warship with no ammunition for its guns.
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  • R. Douglas Johnson
    5.0 out of 5 stars A complete account!
    Reviewed in the United States on 4 October 2007
    Verified Purchase
    This book is as complete a work on the development of USN torpedoes used in World War II as one is likely to find.

    The work covers the topic in a clear, easy to understand format delving in to the development of these weapons systems. It covers the technical developments without becoming so technical as to make the text difficult to read.

    This book will make any reader aware of this story and the tecnology/development of a weapons system that is often mentioned but rarel explained in any depth.
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  • Museum Man
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on 5 August 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Tells tale of American torpedo development and the embarrassment behind the mark XIV torpedo scandal.
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  • Michael M.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on 3 March 2015
    Verified Purchase
    great book
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