25 OCTOBER 1944 WORLD WAR II TAIWAN STRAIT USS Tang USS Tang had already turned the Taiwan Strait into a graveyard before the last torpedo left the tube. By October 1944, Tang was one of the deadliest submarines in the Pacific. With an aggressive captain and experienced crew, they had numerous patrols with confirmed sinkings. That night started with a successful ambush. Tang surfaced for a nighttime attack against a convoy moving through the strait. Torpedoes were already in the water. Targets were burning as Japanese escorts scattered. The crew was running hard inside the submarine trying to keep pace with the firing solutions while O’Kane maneuvered for another shot in the dark. But the last torpedo malfunctioned. American submariners feared “circular runners” for a reason. A torpedo gyro could fail after launch and send the weapon curving back toward the submarine that fired it. There was almost no time to react once somebody spotted the wake changing direction. O’Kane ordered emergency power and a hard turn, trying to outrun it. But submarines are not fast moving vessels. Especially at close range, in darkness, with seconds to decide whether the glowing wake in the water is real or imagined. The torpedo slammed into Tang near the stern. The submarine sank so fast most of the crew never had a chance. Men were thrown into darkness, flooding compartments, ruptured batteries, steam, fuel oil, and collapsing pressure. Inside submarines, mechanical failure does not stay mechanical for long, it becomes drowning immediately. Only nine men escaped. They used the flooded escape trunk and shot themselves toward the surface one by one from nearly 180 feet down. Several suffered burst lungs and decompression injuries. The survivors floated for hours in black oil-covered water while Japanese ships circled nearby pulling prisoners from the sea. Tang finished the war with one of the highest confirmed sink records in the U.S. Navy. And in the end, after surviving depth charges, escorts, storms, and months of combat patrols, the boat was killed by its own final shot.