World War II Database

During the Pacific War, a division of US Navy's "Commander Submarines, Pacific" (ComSubPac) called Submarine Operations Research Group (SORG) kept records of every attack that an American submarine made, whether by torpedo, deck gun, or even ramming. This record kept track of time of the day, location of attack, type of approach, light conditions, weapon used, target type, the result of the attack, etc. WW2DB's partner site Imperial Japanese Navy Page (aka. CombinedFleet.com) had just published this data at this URL:

At that page, you will be able to browse the records by each submarine, or use the "Advanced Search" feature to query the database by narrowing down the date range, latitude/longitude coordinates, etc. to find specific attacks. It is our hope that this information can help Pacific War historians.

Special thanks go to Craig McDonald and John Alden for providing CombinedFleet.com this wonderful data.

On the WW2DB side, articles of American submarines will link directly to the submarine's SORG page on CombinedFleet.com; this can be found on the column on the right, titled "_____ Submarine Operations Research Group Attack Data", as seen below.

A complete analysis of the SORG attack data and attacks not in SORG is currently available in the book United States and Allied Submarine Successes in the Pacific and Far East During World War II, 4th ed., authored by Craig McDonald and John Alden.