Like all United States Navy submariners, Robert Hunt and Arthur Rehme were required to learn every aspect of operating a submarine and be able to perform any duty, regardless of their individual assignments. Hunt was a World War II torpedoman who survived 12 consecutive war patrols on the U.S.S. Tambor in the Pacific Theater. His extraordinary experiences are the subject of the book, "We Were Pirates: A Torpedoman’s Pacific War," by Robert Schultz and James Shell. Rehme was the chief medical officer on the ill-fated U.S.S. Thresher during the Cold War, but his life was spared thanks to a policy that required all nuclear submarine medical officers to be rotated after six months.

Hunt and Rehme’s remarkable stories are just two of 12 candid, first-person accounts the Veterans History Project is spotlighting in a website feature titled, "Submarines: The Silent Service." These one-of-a-kind stories feature those who volunteered to serve during conflicts from World War II to the Cold War.

"Submarines: The Silent Service” is part of VHP’s ongoing “Experiencing War” series, which chronicles Americans in conflict using firsthand accounts and narratives.

Commissioned by Congress to collect and preserve the recollections of Americans who served during wartime, the VHP relies on volunteers to interview veterans and submit their recollections, along with letters, photographs, memoirs and other documents, to the Library of Congress to be archived and shared with future generations.

Search the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog for “submarine” to pull up a variety of images, cartoons and posters. The American Memory collection, Photographs from the Chicago Daily News, 1902-1933, also has several images of the underwater craft.

Additionally, the Library hosted author David Jourdan for a presentation on his book “Never Forgotten: the Search for Israel's Lost Submarine Dakar.”