Now there's a thank-you

USS Skate, 1943. US Navy Photo

Also from Time-Life's War Under the Pacific. This time it is relating an incident following one of the first deployments of submarines as life-guards. The USS Skate has been assigned life-guard duty, seeking and rescuing pilots downed in the waters around Wake Island. Though not as glamorous as their preferred hunter-killer missions, life-guard duty was very dangerous for submarines but a tremendous booster of morale among pilots tasked with flying hundreds of miles across open ocean in enemy territory. Skate has made several rescues in this, its first operation.

From the carrier Lexington, some of whose fliers were among those saved, came a grateful signal: "Anything on the Lexington is yours for the asking. If it's too big to carry away we will cut it up into small parts."