Did loose lips really sink ships?

During WW2, there was a saying, on many posters, that “Loose Lips Sink Ships. ”It reminded everyone that intelligence matters a great deal during war, and you never know who might be listening. Certainly, information about major fleet and troop movements mattered a great deal. However, does that mean that we may have actually lost ships due to “loose lips?” Admiral Lockwood, commander of submarines in the Central Pacific, believed there was at least one time when we did.

In June of 1943, US Congressman Andrew Jackson May of Kentucky was Chair of the House Military Affairs Committee. He held a press conference on returning from a war zone junket. He let it be known that our boats were able to evade Japanese depth charges because they would explode at shallow depths. Early in the war, the Japanese depth charges had only two settings, 30 meters (98 feet) and 60 meters (197 feet.) Even our pre-war classes, which were 250-foot (depth) boats, could get far enough below that to avoid major damage.

The Japanese weren’t nearly as stupid as we wanted to believe early in WW2. They did pick up this information from Congressman May. Then they modified their depth charges to add depth settings for 90 and 120 meters as well. In the next few months, we lost more boats than usual. Admiral Lockwood believed that Congressman May’s “loose lips” cost us as many as ten boats and 800 men.

Representative May did not suffer any serious consequences for his security breach. However, he failed to win reelection in 1946 and spent nine months in prison for unrelated bribery charges. He was pardoned by President Truman in 1952 but was unable to revive his political career.