Richard O'Kane , certainly one top the top heroes of the war on any side.

Just read the wiki account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tang_%28SS-306%29, it differs from my memory of reading the book in certain details but I'll assume it is correct.
It says the sub bottomed out at 180ft then some of the crew tried escaping, I recall that it was not bottomed out but still at a nose down angle, and they were trying to escape before it bottomed out thus increasing the distance to the surface ... Not that it would have made much difference, the nose must have been close to the bottom anyhow given the shallow depth and length of the vessel. It also says 13 men made the escape attempt [the only time in history this method was used successfully], and 5 survived to be picked up hours later.
I presume the bulk of them died from bends, thats quite a distance underwater to come up from without taking the proper, timed breaks which divers need to avoid the bends. The Momsen lung gave them a bare chance to do this, but in their panic and confusion it is doubtful if any of them thought of anything more than bolting to the surface ASAP, I'm sure any of us would do the same. 1 guy in the book said he didn't make any stops at all and suffered no ill effects and has no idea why, while others were torn apart from the inside.

Was sunk by her very last torpedo after mauling multiple convoys.

Doug