Never Trust a Politician with Anything Important
In 1943, Congressman May was head of the Military Affairs Committee. In this capacity, he toured American military installations across the Pacific Theater. Along the way, he was privy to a great deal of very sensitive information. With the entire world at war, details regarding weapons’ capabilities were closely guarded secrets. Then, as now, public servants tended to flaunt both their positions and their access. In this case, the results were fairly catastrophic.
By 1943, the fortunes of American submarines in the Pacific were going swimmingly. Loss rates were low, and attacks on Japanese shipping were taking a vicious toll. One of the reasons for this success was that American subs could dive really, really deep. Back then, our boats could operate at least 400 feet below the surface, markedly deeper than their Japanese counterparts.
The Japanese could not imagine that Yankee submarines would be so much more capable than their own. As a result, when Japanese destroyers attacked U.S. submarines, they would set their depth charges to detonate fairly shallow. American skippers knew if they could just get deep enough, they would be relatively immune to Japanese attack. Then, Congressman May got home from his trip and scheduled a press conference.
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