The US Navy Submarine Trick No One Saw Coming

On March 2nd, 1942, Japanese destroyers found USS Perch beneath the Java Sea. Their depth charges had already compressed her hull inward by two feet. Water poured through seventeen different breaches as she kept diving.

By every engineering calculation, she should have imploded in the next sixty seconds.
But she didn't.

Instead, her captain vented compressed air and fuel to the surface, desperately hoping the oil slick and bubbles would convince the destroyers the sub was destroyed.
Below, 59 men froze in absolute silence as bulkheads groaned and toxic fumes filled the air. Their boat was dying, and they were trapped.