I saw Crimson Tide again the other day, and got to wondering… anyone know?
It depends what you mean by ‘died on submarines’. What kind of submarines? Do you mean accidents only, or do you want to include wartime casualties? An accurate figure would be difficult to arrive at because there a number of Soviet submarine disasters were covered up during the Cold War, and because accurate figures for wartime casualties would be difficult to determine, especially for German and Japanese submarines. There’s a webpage about peacetime accidents here, but it doesn’t have casualty figures.
If you mean how many people have died in Crimson Tide-like scenarios, I would guess zero. I recently saw a documentary about the US military’s relationship with Hollywood, and they refused to provide any support for Crimson Tide because it involved a scenario that, interesting as it was, was unthinkable to the extent that it was impossible. Things like that simply don’t happen. (For example, I’m sure there’s a procedure for what to do if nuclear launch orders aren’t received properly.)
Submarine movies are highly formulaic. Every submarine movie includes at least one scene where someone challenges the captain’s authority. Every submarine movie involves a leak, usually from a pipe, that causes some flooding; usually one character has to sacrifice himself to stop the leak, or at least swim a long distance to get to it. Every submarine movie involves a near-miss by a depth charge or torpedo. (Depth charges don’t have to hit a submarine to destroy it; many movies have them explode close enough to destroy the sub.) And so on. I can only imagine what real submariners must think about these movies (especially the parts where someone challenges the captain and the crew breaks into two factions)…
A very few figures to go with the link above, all taken from Death of the U.S.S. Thresher by Norman Polmar:
1949 Cochino Deaths: 1 civilian who was aboard plus 7 crewmen from a rescue ship
1958 Stickleback Deaths: 0
1963 Thresher Deaths: 129
1968 Scorpion Deaths: 99
1968 K-129 Deaths: 97
1970 K-8 Deaths: 52
1983 K-429 Deaths: 16
1986 K-219 Deaths: 4
1989 Komsomolets Deaths: 42
2000 Kursk Deaths: 118
This is an estimate, but as I said before accurate figures would be impossible to find due to Soviet coverups and the fog of war.
According to this page, 1154 U-boats were lost in World War 2. According to here the Germans lost 785 subs, the Japanese lost 119, the UK lost 90 and the US lost 52. The first German figure is larger than the second because it includes submarines surrendered or scuttled, which presumably would have no losses. That’s around 1050 submarines lost in combat in World War 2, so you can imagine it would be very difficult to find accurate figures for all the combatants. The Allies probably do have records; one website I found mentioned a Navy publication that documents all American submarine losses* and includes crew lists. Accurate records for the Axis navies probably do not exist. Each of the 1050 lost boats probably carried between 40 and 70 men, all of which were probably lost in most cases. Before World War I there were a very few deaths on submarines (such as the Hunley crews in the Civil War, and accidents). From 1945 to present there have been a number of accidents, and most of them involved crews that were larger than WW2 crews. Altogether I would estimate, very roughly, that around 60,000 to 100,000 people have died on submarines, probably around 75,000. (Virtually all were men, unless the Soviets allowed women on their subs.) The majority of the deaths occurred during World War 2, probably somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000.
*: from here: US Navy. Naval Historical Division. United States Submarine Losses, World War II. Washington: Naval History Division, 1963. OCLC 06579378
At least one too many: Body of Lieut. Chris Saunders arrives in Halifax.
