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last night, i watched the movie "the sinking of the lisbon maru" in the peking university centennial lecture hall. it was very touching. from time to time, i could hear the sound of people opening packages and taking out tissues. after all, whether it was the families of the victims reading letters and reminiscing about the past, or the prisoners of war's survival experience on the sinking ship, it was like a tear gas bomb. after the film, there was also a director exchange session. the director accepted questions from students on the spot, and there was constant applause during the period.

in order to make this film, the director visited archives, parties involved and their relatives in the uk, the us, japan and china, and constructed a relatively complete narrative. however, since it is not the main content of the story, except for the mechanic branch who launched the torpedo, the "perch" submarine that sank the "lisbon maru" disappeared from people's sight after completing this fateful blow. this aroused my great curiosity: where did it go afterwards?

i didn't know until i checked. i was shocked to find that there were several us submarines named "perch". this confused me because the english information clearly stated that there was only one submarine named "grouper". of course, it is not uncommon for a species to have multiple names in english. since growler and perch are both perch, grouper could also be perch.

but the online english dictionary does not appreciate it, saying that grouper is grouper. as a child who grew up by the sea, i have heard of grouper to some extent. although grouper is the most expensive, other groupers are not cheap either, and are definitely not in the same price range as sea bass.

it is worth mentioning that before sinking the lisbon maru, uss grouper also participated in the battle of midway, forming a cordon west of midway with six other submarines, waiting for the arrival of the japanese fleet, and was hit by many depth charges during the battle. searching for "midway" + "perch" yields no results, but replacing the latter keyword with "grouper" yields many results.

but what’s interesting is that when you type in the word “grouper”, the first question that comes to mind is “is grouper a type of sea bass?” the answer is, after all, it is a type of “perciformes”. but this is too rough, because “perciformes” includes so many suborders, even tuna, and no one would consider tuna and sea bass as the same species.

it can only be said that no matter how much research and exploration one does, human energy is ultimately limited, and there are always blind spots in knowledge. who can blame the fact that there are so many kinds of fish in the u.s. navy's shark-class submarines? it's dazzling, and every time i see it, i feel as if i have strayed into marine biology. but it's no coincidence that they just happen to be in contrast to the various "maru" in the japanese transport fleet. the various grievances between the "grouper" and the "maru" alone are worth opening a separate article.