TRAVERSE CITY -- Doyle Huff is used to defying odds.
Huff served from 1943-45 as a Torpedoman Third Class during World War II on four missions aboard the U.S.S. Tautog. The submarine was one of approximately 200 such vessels active during the war, 52 of which were lost at sea, along with more than 3,600 men.
Huff survived on a sub that racked up the greatest number of missions -- 13 war patrols -- and sinkings -- 26 enemy ships. His missions ranged in length from 28 to 48 days.
"We lost one in every four people," Huff said, referring to U.S. wartime submarine service. "The Tautog lost only one guy. He got washed overboard. It was at night, and we couldn't find him."
One of the Tautog's many dicey situations went beyond slinking solo through enemy formations and dodging depth charges. Commissioned in 1940, the Tautog was sturdily built, Huff recently recalled from his Traverse City apartment.
"A current grabbed us and turned (the sub) on its nose, and it was maybe 500 feet before we could get it righted," he said of an unintentional dive that doubled limits deemed safe for submarines.
The sub often carried Japanese prisoners of war, one such trio for about three weeks. They were plucked from the water after a sinking if other proof, such as a photo through the periscope, was unavailable. "We didn't mistreat them. They ate the same food we did, they slept on torpedo skids or on burlap sacks on the deck," said Huff, adding that one of the destroyers Tautog sank was the Japanese ship that had cut John F. Kennedy's PT boat in two.
Now in his 80s, Huff remains a survivor: one of approximately 2,500 submariners still alive from that era, one of a handful of Tautog survivors. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates show that 1,000 World War II veterans die each day. The ranks of submarine vets, just two percent of the U.S. Navy during the war, shrink proportionally.
"What really made it easier were your shipmates and the fun you had together," Huff recalled of how the crews handled wartime pressure. "It was a very close-knit community."
During World War II, the small submarine force had an impact far greater than its size: submarines sank 55 percent of enemy shipping, said Robert DeVore, past national president of the U.S. Submarine Veterans of World War II, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs organization.
Stealth and secrecy were key to the disproportionate impact of subs, which returned to base when they needed fuel, torpedoes or food.
"We never told anybody, there were no reporters on the piers, no photographers, nothing," said DeVore, a Kentucky resident. "When we came in, it was completely secret, we loaded up and went back out again."
Pearl Harbor launched a war and a generation into service. Huff, a Fife Lake native, was 15 when he heard of the surprise attack over a truck radio while out delivering papers. Ironically, the Tautog was moored in Pearl Harbor and survived the bombing; deck gunners shot down a Japanese plane.
"I had no idea where Pearl Harbor was or what it was," he recalled. "I asked my mother if I could (enlist) and she stomped her feet and said, 'No.'"
In August 1943, at age 17, Huff quit school and joined the U.S. Navy. A cousin home on leave inspired him to enlist in that branch and try for submarine school. The young country boy headed for Detroit and then the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Ill.
"The farthest away before had been Everett, to an ice cream shop," Huff said.
Huff's first try for sub school washed out but the second time he was accepted into a rigorous program based in Connecticut. Intense physical and psychological screenings were followed by three or four weeks of training, where the only grade accepted was 100 percent.
After the war, Huff served on three additional submarines, including the U.S.S. Silversides, now at a naval memorial and museum in Muskegon.
"When you get your dolphins, you know that boat inside-out," said Huff of the submariner's distinctive insignia.
