Leadership in Action: Dividends and Interest - A Hero at Sea, and at CCL

KEEPING THEIR COOL

Curious about the kind of duties Mr. Red might have faced aboard the sub, I spoke recently with Pete Southerland, the director of education at the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association. When I asked him about the kind of leadership challenges the Pampanito's officers faced, his first response was, “They had to keep their cool.” He explained that the average age of the enlisted crewmen on board the Pampanito was nineteen. They were in extremely tight quarters and under constant stress. The men who served on subs were all volunteers, and they knew their job was perilous. The United States lost fifty-two submarines during World War II; thirty-seven of them were lost with all hands.

Unlike modern subs, the World War ...