The Final War Patrol

Barb (SS-220) Blowing up an enemy train hardly seems like an assignment for a submarine crew. But sailors aboard the USS Barb were accustomed to offbeat tasks and this video reveals how they engaged in "torpedoing" a train. At the end of her 12th war patrol, the USS Barb, which had a record of 15 sinkings, had launched all of her torpedoes and fired all her ammunition. All that remained were three 55-pound scuttling charges. Cmdr Eugene B. Fluckey, the skipper, decided to use one of these in a last nose-thumbing at the enemy. A beach party was organized and ordered to plant the explosives beneath the tracks of a coastwise railroad. Mission accomplished, the "Pirates of the China Sea" retired to their rubber boats to watch the demolition of the on-coming train. Fluckey was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.