Not about war but important to the story of the submarine is The Terrible Hours by Peter Maas (author of Serpico and The Valachi Papers).
On 23 May 1939, the new fleet boat USS Squalus (SS 192) sailed from Portsmouth, New Hampshire to conduct diving tests. During the first submergance, the main induction valve failed to close and both engine rooms flooded drowning 27 of her crew and the boat sank in 240 feet of water. 33 sailors survived in the forward compartments and this book is the story of their rescue.
Told with the flair of a novelist, The Terrible Hours is very readable but it lacks notes, an index and is about as non-technical as it is possible for a submarine book to be. However, the account of how an officer of vision (LCdr Charles "Swede" Momson) and his invention (the McCann Rescue Chamber) came together to perfom that rescue is worthy of fiction with the advantage of being true.
The book also tells of the recovery of the sunken submarine, itself a significant achievment with 1939 technology.
Squalus would be renamed USS Sailfish and go on to a successful career in the Pacific war.
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