James Paul Lynch served on the USS Snook [Annotator's Note: USS Snook (SS-279)] and the USS Sea Dog [Annotator's Note: USS Sea Dog (SS-401)]. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in December 1918. They lived in a middle-class area in a very communal time. Their neighbors were very good friends. Everybody knew everybody. During the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], his father lost his job. There were lines around the block with people waiting for handouts. People sold apples on street corners. Even as a young kid, it impressed upon him. His father had worked all of his life and was pretty morose for a while. He then got a job with Senator Myers [Annotator's Note: Francis John Myers, American politician] of Pennsylvania in Gettysburg [Annotator's Note: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania]. He went with the Senator to Washington, D.C. and became a contract negotiator with the Army and retired from that. Lynch went to Catholic schools and graduated in 1936. He got a one-year scholarship to Temple University [Annotator's Note: in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. He had thoughts of becoming a dentist in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. His uncle was a dentist there and had been wounded in World War 1. He was the first of Lynch's family to graduate from college. Another uncle was a Captain in the New York Fire Department. He met an unfortunate death after a surgery. His uncle made an impression on Lynch.

James Paul Lynch's father worked for a man running for Congress. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] became president. His father was promised Lynch would get a principal appointment to West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy, West Point, New York]. That turned into third alternate for the Naval Academy [Annotator's Note: United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland]. Lynch was always interested in the academies. Lynch got referred to a congressman, interviewed with him, and was promised West Point. Dick Powell [Annotator's Note: Richard Ewing Powell, American actor and musician] came out with a movie about the Naval Academy. These were propaganda movies to get young guys interested in the service. Lynch shifted his loyalties to the Navy which he has never regretted. He got a letter from the Navy. All three guys ahead of Lynch had failed to quality and got the option to go to the Naval Academy. Lynch had a year at Temple [Annotator's Note: Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] and had no military background. Plebe [Annotator's Note: newly entered cadet or freshman] year is always an experience, and he was not ready for it. He did not take to it at all, but if he sets a course, he sticks to it. He survived and got more confident in his ability to succeed. He relaxed after his second year and graduated in the first quarter of his class in February 1941. It was apparent they were going to war. Shipbuilding was in high gear. For the first time in his life, his classmates were from all over the place. The Southerners were quite different, and they did not think of themselves as Americans as much as being from whatever state they were from. One in his class that became a four-star Admiral was a great guy, but Lynch would never have thought he would become the most successful one. He was high enough in his class standing, he submitted his preference for what kind of ship he wanted. He put in for a destroyer in new construction. He got one. His ship was on its shakedown cruise [Annotator's Note: a cruise to evaluate the performance of a naval vessel and its crew] when he graduated. Lynch went to Hawaii a month before the Wainwright [Annotator's Note: USS Wainwright (DD-419)] arrived. He went to sea on another ship. He had liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] for the first time and was impressed with the parties on Waikiki [Annotator's Note: a neighborhood in Honolulu County, Hawaii]. He got a white civilian jacket and was thinking he had the greatest life in the world. He boarded the Wainwright and on the second time at sea during an exercise, the ships started blinking at each other. They split into two formations. He went through the Panama Canal and ended up in the Philadelphia Navy Yard [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. He went home and saw his parents.

James Paul Lynch was on the Wainwright [Annotator's Note: USS Wainwright (DD-419)] until June 1942 in the North Atlantic as part of the Neutrality Patrol [Annotator's Note: combined air and ship patrol of the United States Atlantic Coast, including the Caribbean Sea]. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] was at war before the country was officially at war. The Germans were sinking ships all over the place. Lynch would come alongside lifeboats and the guys would be frozen to death. He thought if he ever ended up in the water, he would shoot himself. You could only last about 20 minutes in that water before dying. They were ordered to Halifax [Annotator's Note: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada] and there were three American transports who picked up a division of British troops. The United States was not at war yet. They stopped at Trinidad [Annotator's Note: Trinidad and Tobago]. They were dropping depth charges [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum]. They were outside Cape Town [Annotator's Note: Cape Town, South Africa] on the day before Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. When they got into Cape Town, the British troops got off. Cape Town had Australians and New Zealanders. He went to the Officer's Club and saw men wearing kilts. It was like a movie. He was flabbergasted and demoralized regarding Pearl Harbor. They returned to the North Atlantic and tried to locate the Tirpitz [Annotator's Note: German battleship Tirpitz]. He is glad they never encountered it. They went to Bermuda for some repairs. Volunteers were being sought for submarine duty. All the news of the Navy's fighting was in the Pacific. That appealed to him as well as submarines. He knew he would be able to engage the enemy and was anxious to avenge Pearl Harbor. Lynch volunteered and was accepted. His ship [Annotator's Note: the Wainwright] was the squadron flagship with the squadron commander on board. He was dignified. He was a captain then but became admiral later. He wished Lynch good luck. Once on the Wainwright, Lynch was torpedo and depth charge officer. They were in a storm and depth charges got loose. He was swept off his feet by a wave and knocked onto the steel deck of the fantail. When he came to, he was on the lower lifeline and that saved him from going over the side. That was his first occasion of escaping his demise.

James Paul Lynch was going to submarine school in New London [Annotator's Note: New London, Connecticut]. LIFE magazine [Annotator's Note: an American general-interest magazine] had an article about the school that featured a water tower they used to learn how to use the Momsen lung [Annotator's Note: underwater rebreather used as emergency escape gear]. Lynch had not learned to swim well, and he wondered if he had made a mistake. He was amazed at the training though. The instructors could free swim doing it. He had no trouble with the school itself. He graduated early that summer. He was disappointed that he was assigned to one of the school boats which were from World War 1 [Annotator's Note: the USS O-6 (SS-67)]. He was on there for about six months. The skipper qualified him as a submarine officer, entitling him to wear the dolphins [Annotator's Note: Submarine Warfare Insignia]. Lynch went to Newport, Rhode Island for the wedding of a classmate and met his own future bride. They were married that October [Annotator's Note: October 1942]. In December, he came in from being out on the school boat and got orders to the Snook [Annotator's Note: USS Snook (SS-279)] in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the next day. He went to replace a fired officer. Construction had just completed on the ship. He was plank owner [Annotator's Note: nickname for a member of a vessel's original crew who were serving aboard when the vessel was commissioned] of the Snook, the Sea Dog [Annotator's Note: USS Sea Dog (SS-401)], and the Sarda [Annotator's Note: USS Sarda (SS-488)]. He had never been on a Fleet submarine. He was the only officer that had not been aboard while it [Annotator's Note: the Snook] was being built. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain of the Snook] was Chuck Triebel [Annotator's Note: later US Navy Rear Admiral Charles Otto Triebel] who retired as an Admiral. Lynch was Communications Officer.

James Paul Lynch went out to sea as officer of the deck the first time [Annotator's Note: on the USS Snook (SS-279) on 13 March 1943]. He was coming back in at the end of the operation. He expected the captain [Annotator's Note: later US Navy Rear Admiral Charles Otto Triebel] to take over but Lynch had to dock after having never had done it before. That captain is one of Lynch's heroes. He learned a lot from Chuck Triebel on the Snook. Lynch did four war patrols with him. After every patrol, people were rotated off the submarine. Triebel insisted he go back as an executive officer. He really rewarded his people that had done a good job. On Lynch's first patrols on the Snook, his focus was keeping the radars working. They were brand new surface radars [Annotator's Note: SJ radar, type of S band radar set] and they had problems keeping them working. They were invaluable for night operations. Night operations at the surface became more often later in the war. They could run faster that way. Running submerged took up the battery power quickly. The SJ radar became great. They discovered they were making detections out beyond the horizon. They were successful in tracking targets at night that were far away. They sunk several ships that way. His first war patrol was laying mines in the South China Sea [Annotator's Note: in the area of Shanghai, China] in the shipping channels. The mines were shot out of the torpedo tubes. The water was only about 100 feet deep. If they had been caught in there, they would have been in a hell of a shape. They got them laid though, and then sank about four ships on patrol. On his four war patrols, they sunk something like 12 ships. He did not make their fifth patrol which was particularly successful. That was Triebel's last patrol. The ship went back to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] for a refit.

James Paul Lynch's skipper [Annotator's Note: his captain, aboard the USS Snook (SS-279)], Chuck Triebel [Annotator's Note: later US Navy Rear Admiral Charles Otto Triebel], was quite a guy. He had a scar on his face from a brawl. Lynch was not present when Triebel departed for his fifth war patrol. He had three Navy Crosses [Annotator's Note: second-highest military decoration warded for sailors and marines who distinguish themselves for extraordinary heroism in combat with an armed enemy force] and a couple of Silver Stars [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy]. The ship was leaving Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] to go back to Mare Island [Annotator's Note: Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California] for refit. Admiral Lockwood [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Charles Andrews Lockwood] and squadron commanders were there to say bon voyage. The Shore Patrol drove up with Triebel who had spent the night in the hoosegow [Annotator's Note: informal term for a prison]. Admiral Lockwood knew he was a hell of a warrior. Triebel was really upset about the problems the Navy had with torpedoes early on. Two close friends of his, Mush Morton [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Dudley Walker "Mushmouth" or "Mush" Morton] and Sam Dealey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Samuel David Dealey], had been sunk and he attributed it to the bad torpedoes. On Lynch's first four patrols, they were depth charged [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum] like hell a couple of times. That was his most anxious time. One time, it was for the better part of six hours or so and they had leaks springing. They were bombed by their own aircraft once, and it scared the hell out of them. That was on the Sea Dog [Annotator's Note: USS Sea Dog (SS-401)]. They were lucky and did not have the problems others did. When under attack like that, you are down there trying to outwit the destroyers. You go to silent running by shutting down all the machinery you can. Everybody is sweating it. He admires the sonar operators who are monitoring the destroyers. They had great advantage in the beginning of the war because the depth charges were being set too shallow. A Congressman was making a speech and gave that away in a press conference. The losses increased substantially after that. The depth charge's force goes upward. Lynch never had severe depth charge problems. Lynch admires the enlisted men in submarines. After the war, he became an aviator. There were no more talented men that in the submarine. [Annotator's Note: Lynch becomes emotional.] He was always impressed. They had casualties at sea and was impressed how they could manufacture a part or do something to keep them operating.

James Paul Lynch had a wonderful experience on the Snook [Annotator's Note: USS Snook (SS-279)]. They had fine officers. One, Vard Stockton [Annotator's Note: US Navy Lieutenant Commander Vard A. Stockton], was the engineering officer and was an All-American football player. Stockton was off after two war patrols but was a great leader. Tragically he was killed in an automobile accident after the war. Admiral Triebel [Annotator's Note: US Navy Rear Admiral Charles Otto Triebel] tried to make Stockton a commander, but Admiral Lockwood [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Charles Andrews Lockwood] would not have any commanders who were not Naval Academy graduates. It was unfair. They were all volunteers. They were serious about taking the war to the Japanese and had no mercy sinking ships. Admiral Triebel had the custom of having a steak dinner every time a ship was sunk. He delayed their departure from Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] one time because he could not get strawberries for the strawberry shortcake. They sunk a ship once and had people topside manning the guns thinking they might pick up some survivors. One guy started shooting at them and the crew made him stop. Once on patrol, Triebel called "swimming call" and surfaced to let the men go swimming. After the Snook made its last patrol, Lynch was called to the Sea Dog [Annotator's Note: the USS Sea Dog (SS-401)]. This was about mid-1944. He was in Portsmouth [Annotator's Note: Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine] while the Sea Dog was finished. Lynch has great admiration for the shipyard in Portsmouth. They did not have nearly the problems of the submarines built in other locations. His wife was there with him. His first child had been born too. They headed out through the Canal [Annotator's Note: the Panama Canal] to Pearl Harbor. The skipper was Admiral Lowrance [Annotator's Note: US Navy Vice Admiral Vernon Long "Rebel" Lowrance] and was called "Rebel." Lowrance had two war patrols on the Sea Dog. They did lifeguard duty for downed aviators. Earl Hydeman [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Earl Twining Hydeman] came aboard as skipper. He had had no war patrols as a commander. Lynch had had six war patrols. They sank a couple of ships on their first patrol [Annotator's Note: in October 1944]. The real adventure came during Lynch's fourth patrol. They were on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands in May 1945] for refit. The Flying Fish [Annotator's Note: USS Flying Fish (SS-229)] had come in with a new FM sonar [Annotator's Note: high-frequency, short-range sonar using frequency modulation] aboard. They had been out to detect minefields off Japan in preparation for the invasion of Japan.

James Paul Lynch says the FM radar [Annotator's Note: or FM sonar, high-frequency, short-range sonar using frequency modulation] as originally designed for surface mine detection. When the commander [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Charles Andrews Lockwood] of the submarines found out, he thought it would work for them. That commander had helped find out why the Navy's torpedoes were failing so badly. They had a magnetic exploder and were running deeper than they were set for. They disabled that. The mechanical exploder was enacted by hitting the ship, but it was crushing so fast that the firing pin was not working. They fixed them but never got the magnetic features to work. The commander came aboard on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. The Flying Fish [Annotator's Note: USS Flying Fish (SS-229)] came in and a submarine needed to substitute for them. Their FM gear was put on the Sea Dog [Annotator's Note: USS Sea Dog (SS-401)]. Lynch and his crew were not happy about having to go out and detect mines. The greatest fears for submariners were mines and enemy submarines. The skipper took Lynch in and told him it was Top Secret [Annotator's Note: Operation Barney, Sea of Japan, also called East Sea, marginal sea between Japan, Korea and Russia in July 1945] that they were going to be the lead submarine into the Sea of Japan. That was not the greatest news Lynch ever heard. They were called "Hydeman's Hellcats." They were going into the Straits of Tsushima [Annotator's Note: between Korea and Kyushu, Japan]. They would then go to preordained positions for their hunting. They got in and that was the hairiest time of his career. He monitored the FM sonar. They did not detect any mines. Every other submarine detected mines. To this day, it is inexplicable. They surfaced and were waiting for the others to get through. The Japanese figured they had a sanctuary there. Targets had dried up compared to when Lynch went on his first patrols. When it came to start shooting, it was like shooting ducks in a pond. They sunk six ships out of the 19 sunk in ten days. They exited at La Pérouse Strait [Annotator's Note: also called Sōya Strait, between Sakhalin, Russia and Hokkaidō, Japan]. They had news that a Japanese mine layer had gone through. They heard depth charges [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum] to the south of them. While still in, the ships were hugging the coast to escape them. They were chasing one during a daylight submerged attack. They made their attack and sank the ship with one torpedo. The skipper sighted an aircraft and said to go deep. They hit the bottom. They joked that they were the first ship to make a landing in Japan. They did damage their sonar gear. Fortunately that was their final sinking. They had clearance cables around their propellers. One of them broke and was making noise. They knew they could not escape detection but found a speed that did not make much noise. They got out and only eight boats showed up. One had been sunk. They went out on the surface and manned their guns. They moved through at full speed. A Russian ship was coming towards them and shined their light on them. They all exhaled when they finally exited.

James Paul Lynch and his unit [Annotator's Note: the USS Sea Dog (SS-401)] left one submarine there [Annotator's Note: after Operation Barney, Sea of Japan, also called East Sea, marginal sea between Japan, Korea and Russia in July 1945] who hung around a day to see if the missing submarine showed up. They gave up and all headed back to Midway [Annotator's Note: Midway Islands, United States possession] in June 1945. They had a hell of a celebration in Midway. After the war, Admiral Lockwood [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Charles Andrews Lockwood] wrote a book called "Hellcats of the Sea". A movie was made [Annotator's Note: "Hellcats of the Navy", American film, 1957] with Ronald [Annotator's Note: Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States] and Nancy Reagan [Annotator's Note: then Nancy Davis, later Nancy Davis Reagan, American actress and First Lady of the United States] it. Admiral Nimitz [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet] and Admiral Lockwood went into quite a discussion about this adventure. The equipment they used there had been designed for ship use. Lockwood got Admiral King [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Ernest Joseph King; Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations] to give it to submarines. They figured it was important to sever the lines between Japan, Korea, and China. The Japanese were running out of supplies to continue the war. After the Battle of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan], Nimitz was convinced the Japanese were in bad shape. The Japanese had sent some emissaries to Moscow in June asking the Russians to intervene and make a proposal for peace negotiations with the Allies. Nimitz believes the Japanese would have negotiated and the atomic bomb would never have been dropped. Lynch only knew of these things after the war. [Annotator's Note: Lynch reads from a paper.] The Japanese were using the Sea of Japan to continue the war. Nimitz makes an introduction in the movie about the operation and says that the Japanese knew then the jig was up, and they would not survive. We will never really know, and it will likely be argued for years. Nimitz called the mission one of the most daring in Naval history. Lynch has concluded that it was the most significant thing he did in his career.

As James Paul Lynch looks back, there were not really normal families back in that time [Annotator's Note: the time of World War 2]. He just went and met the new daughter of a grandniece. Lynch joked that he had never changed a diaper. He had so little time during the war, and they had a son when he was on the Snook [Annotator's Note: USS Snook (SS-279)]. Another son was born as a result of Lynch's' return from the Sea Dog [Annotator's Note: USS Sea Dog (SS-401)]. The next son was born in Pensacola [Annotator's Note: Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida] when Lynch was in flight school. His daughter was born in Panama when he was with his aviation squadron. Another son was born in Bethesda Naval Hospital [Annotator's Note: now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland]. They [Annotator's Note: the US Navy submarine fleet] sank more warships and more regular ships than the rest of the Navy together. The carriers decimated a significant part of the Japanese Navy. Midway [Annotator's Note: Battle of Midway, 4 to 7 June 1942, Midway Atoll] was significant. From then on, the United States was dominant in the air. The submarine tonnage sunk, and number of ships sunk gave the Japanese hell. Lynch thinks it is important that kids learn about the war. Submariners are called the "Silent Servers." They depend on secrecy and non-detection. Lynch thinks there is a lack of appreciation of what the submariners did. He was in the Navy for World War 2, Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], and Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. The only one he is proud of is World War 2. Korea had a good excuse in they were attacked. He is very upset with the latest wars. The war in Iraq [Annotator's Note: Iraq War, 2003 to 2011] is one of the greatest strategic mistakes the country [Annotator's Note: the United States] has ever made. People of today cannot appreciate what it was like to be attacked [Annotator's Note: Lynch is referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. People were lined up to serve all over the country. Lynch would like future Americans to always be prepared to defend themselves. For Korea, Louis Johnson [Annotator's Note: Louis Arthur Johnson; American politician, 2nd United States Secretary of Defense, 28 March 1949 to 19 September 1950] was going to decimate the Navy before Korea happened. Then they realized they needed the carriers and everything. Lynch was in the Navy when the services were fighting each other regarding force levels. Lynch was in the Pentagon [Annotator's Note: headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense in Arlington County, Virginia] when Kennedy [Annotator's Note: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, 1961-1963] came in and sent McNamara [Annotator's Note: Robert Strange McNamara, eighth United States Secretary of Defense] in there. Lynch was part of trying to prove that carriers are necessary. Carriers are expensive and are one of the first things attacked to cut costs. Technology has exploded so fast, it defies imagination. As a career sailor, Lynch is great believer in the idea that every citizen owes the country some sort of service regardless of income and background. Not just the military, but the Peace Corps or some kind of service, like teachers or doctors. [Annotator's Note: The interview closes with shots of some battle flags.]