5. Not Only Did The Mark 14 Fail to Destroy Enemy Ships, it Often Destroyed the Submarines that Fired Them
If accurate depth was achieved, the Mark 14’s magnetic detonator still often exploded prematurely or failed to explode at all. The backup detonator – the contact detonator that was supposed to set off the explosive when the torpedo struck a target’s hull – also frequently failed. Even if a Mark 14 struck an enemy’s hull at a perfect angle, with a loud clang that was clearly audible in the firing submarine. Worst of all, the Mark 14 had a tendency to boomerang: it could miss its target, then run in a wide circle, and return to strike the firing submarine.
At least one submarine, the USS Tullibee, was known to have been sunk by its own Mark 14 Torpedo in that manner. The problem persisted in the new and improved Mark 18, which did a circular run and sank the USS Tang, the most successful submarine in the history of the US Navy. At least a few of the dozens of submarines that simply vanished in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean are suspected to have been sunk by their Mark 14 Torpedoes. Especially those that disappeared in areas where there was no active armed enemy presence, and where Japanese archives seized after the war did not report submarine sinkings.
