Did boats ever go out with fewer than 24 torpedoes?

That did happen at times. Some of our older submarines that we had at the outbreak of the war, only had an internal capacity of 20. Some could, but didn’t always, carry four more in containers in the superstructure. That meant they would have to lower them into the torpedo room once space became available. Naturally, the boat had to be on the surface to do this work.

Early in the war, we were soon short of torpedoes. A large number were lost when they were destroyed by Japanese bombing in the Philippines. The steam torpedoes were complex to build, and the factories were not keeping up with the demand. As a result, some boats went out on patrol with 16 or 18 torpedoes.

The situation improved when we were able to reverse engineer a German electric torpedo. The electrics were easier, faster and cheaper to make. Westinghouse developed the electric Mark 18 torpedoes and built them. That gave us better production as well as increased capacity from additional plants. By late 1943,we were building enough electric torpedoes to begin to eliminate the shortage.

There were also times when submarines were carrying special supplies or other weapons in the tubes or on the torpedo skids, such as mines. At least two mines would fit in the place needed for one torpedo. These supplies and mines took up space that otherwise could have had torpedoes.