Matters were not much better on the Falcon, which was plunging up and down as the waves rolled under her bow. From my little stateroom on the Vestal (I usually returned in a launch to the Vestal when the last diver was up) I could see the lights of the Falcon and the tug boats dancing wildly as they rode the seas. The Vestal fared slightly better. She was a large ship and consequently steadier, her motion was much less than that of the small ships. But as the gale increased and the November wind howled through our rigging, a different danger suddenly developed. The high forecastle and superstructure of the Vestal caught the wind like a huge sail and caused the ship to tug violently on her anchor. For safety, the cable was paid out to the bitter end, giving us a long scope to swing to; with one hundred and twenty fathoms of chain out we rode as best we could. Captain Tomb and his navigator stayed on the bridge; below, the “black gang” fired up all boilers and the engineers stood by their throttles, prepared for emergencies.
In the Vestal’s wardroom, all the furniture was lashed down. The officers ate supper standing up, clinging to the table as we rolled. A squall struck the ship,—she lurched heavily to starboard and the table, breaking its fastenings, shot into the bilges, coming within an inch of decapitating Lieutenant Shinn as it knocked him against the buffet.
The sudden strain on the cable broke out the anchor. We drifted rapidly to leeward, so fast the anchor flukes could not dig in and get another bite in the bottom. Astern of us the Falcon started whistling frantically. We were bearing down on her with a rush. On the Vestal’s bridge Captain Tomb swung over his telegraphs violently, bells jangled in the engine room, “Full speed ahead!” Slowly the engine started to turn over and then raced madly under a full head of steam as our stern lifted out of water; then the propeller caught the water and we finally stopped. One might easily have jumped from our counter down to the Falcon’s forecastle where Lieutenant Hartley, about to trip his cable, stared up at us. The little strip of water between the ships foamed violently as our propeller, alternately buried and exposed, churned the sea; then we gradually forged ahead and anchored clear, steaming slowly into the gale the rest of the night to ease the strain on our cable.
Our plunging ships rode as best they could; we had a pontoon tied to a mooring buoy,—how was it faring? The Vestal switched on her searchlight. The beam cut through the darkness, wandered over a world of flying spray and tumbling waves, searching out the mooring buoys one by one. There was no pontoon riding to any of them. Somewhere to the northward, driving before a sou’wester, our pontoon was on its way out into the Atlantic. We dared not send a tug in search of it.
The storm hauled to the southeast, blew all next day. The gray dawn and the bleak day that followed were even more depressing than the darkness. Cold spray, a biting wind, the tumbling seas; the dismal note of the wreck buoy coming to us, monotonously droning a requiem for those below; an occasional glimpse of the mooring buoys as the waves heaved them above the surface; our storm-tossed ships fighting the gale.
We rode it out, the storm blew over, the seas changed to long swells rolling up from the southward. Lieutenant Rundquist and the Sagamore were dispatched to search for the lost pontoon.
A radio came to us from Newport, On Horse Neck Beach, some fishermen reported a large cylinder washed ashore. It was probably our pontoon. We directed Rundquist to investigate the spot, on the southern coast of Massachusetts near Buzzards Bay.
The Sagamore stood in. Rundquist examined the shore through glasses. Yes, there was the pontoon, thrown a hundred feet up the beach by the storm waves, now left high and dry. Rundquist skillfully landed a boat through the surf, but another blow started and he had to lie off for five days while his boat crew, unable to get back, lived with the fishermen. The weather calmed, the Sagamore sent in hawsers, kedge anchors, tackles. With these Rundquist parbuckled the heavy cylinder down the beach, rolling it like a huge barrel till once more it was afloat. The Sagamore towed it back to Newport, tied it up there to the derrick. As expected, the fishermen at Horse Neck Beach, exercising the centuries-old custom of the wrecker, had stolen every portable from the pontoon,—valves, clamps, fittings.
Rundquist returned to the squadron, and reported the success of his little salvage expedition. A good sailor, Karl Rundquist; it was the last act of his long career, for a few months later, forced to retire for age, he died ashore, far from the sea which had been his life.
Meanwhile, we congratulated ourselves on having recovered our two pontoons from the sea bottom and the sea; we brought no more pontoons out from Newport that winter.
XIV
BLOWING THE BALLAST TANKS
Wilson and Eiben had closed the forward door in the control room. They went in again, with Eadie tending outside as before, closed the ventilation flapper valve overhead and screwed down on the open valves going through the bulkhead to the battery room. They came out in less than an hour this time, their work done. Wilson reported in detail what he had closed; I checked the valves off against the plans of the boat.
Wilson had a suggestion.
“I think we can blow the ballast tanks from the control room, Mr. Ellsberg. I noticed on the gauge board that there’s still two thousand pounds pressure registering on the gauges to two of the air banks; the other two are zero. If we can open the Kingston valves on the ballast tanks, I can give them the air from the inside.”
On the S-50, we went over the problem with her captain. Wilson carefully learned what valves to open to hook the live air banks to the manifold and blow the undamaged ballast tanks in the after part of the boat; which valves must be closed to cut off the dead air banks, the broken air line to the gun access trunk, the lines to the damaged tanks forward. We taught him how to operate the master control air motor to the Kingston valves on the ballasts; and in case the master control failed to operate due to long submergence, which Kingston valves he and Eiben were to open by hand in the engine room and the control room.
The work was rehearsed for several days. We borrowed from Lenney on the S-50 the special wrench needed to open the valves on the high-pressure air manifold. But meanwhile I decided that we would try only to blow the water from the three undamaged ballast tanks on the port side, which was the low side.
This would result in giving the boat a tendency to roll to starboard as soon as she was lightened up, and might help break the suction holding her to the bottom, while at the same time putting the ship on an even keel. Besides there was not enough air left inside the S-51 to do any more against the sea pressure at the bottom.
Wilson, however, was considerably disturbed when the plan was broached to him.
“That’s all right, but what do you think will happen to us if the old sub rolls over on her starboard side while Joe and me are inside the control room playing with those valves? How are we going to get out?”
“Don’t worry, Tug. I’ve already figured it out. Even if we blow those three tanks all dry, that’s only sixty tons buoyancy pulling on the port side, and as long as the rest of her is all flooded, it isn’t enough to roll her. We’ll have to lighten her lots more yet before she can roll, buried in the clay the way she is.”
The boys accepted my word for it. Armed with the wrenches, Tug, Joe, and Mike went down. Tug and Joe entered the S-51, wiggled into the control room, moved forward to the manifold. When they finally ceased taking any more line, Mike left the deck, slid down the port side to bottom, took station alongside the submarine just above the point where one of the Kingston valves lay buried in the clay down under the bilge keel.
Eiben held the light inside, Wilson manipulated the little wrench, opening this valve, closing that. He put the air on master controller, swung the lever. Nothing happened. The air motors on the Kingston valves failed to operate. Evidently they had been submerged too long. Wilson closed the master valve.
Leaving Wilson standing in darkness, Eiben took the light and went aft. By hand he swung open the wheels to the Kingstons on the tanks abreast the control room and the engine r
oom. Soon he was back. Together with Wilson, he checked over the valve settings on the manifold. They were correct.
“On deck! Tell Mike to stand by! We’re going to turn on the air!”
Wilson turned the wrench, opening the air banks to the manifold. With two thousand pounds of pressure behind it, the air started to whistle through from the air flasks buried under the floor on the starboard side of the battery room; the needle on the gauge, submerged though it was, quivered in the dim light from their lamp, and started to fall. The divers could hear the air going through the lines, and the submarine, so long a silent, motionless hulk, seemed to quiver and stir under their feet.
In spite of his faith in my calculations, Tug was strongly tempted to abandon the control room before those port ballast tanks blew dry and caused the submarine to topple over sideways.
“On deck! Tell Mike the air is going through! Say, are you sure she can’t move?”
“All right, Tug. I’ll tell him. No, there’s not a chance in the world. Just watch that gauge!”
But I am sure that if Mike had been on deck to take in the slack of their lines, Tug and Joe would have waited for the ballast tanks to blow dry from the relatively safe position of a seat on the port rail, just outside the engine room hatch.
I called Michels.
“Hello, Mike! The air’s on. See anything?”
“On deck! There’s a stream of muddy water coming up right by my feet! No air bubbles. I’ll look at the other valves.”
Mike walked aft alongside the hull, then forward. The same thing was happening in all three tanks. The air was going in, forcing the water out the bottoms of the tanks through the open Kingstons there, where it rose in muddy streams through the clay into the clearer water on the sea floor.
Under the pressure in the banks, the air went through rapidly. In less than twenty minutes, Wilson reported the pressure practically all gone from the air banks. As directed, he shut all the valves on the manifold, turned off the banks. Michels reported that no more water was coming out,—no air bubbles came out at all. There had not been enough air left in the submarine to empty the tanks completely.
Michels climbed aboard again, tended the divers’ lines while the men inside wormed their way out. The three divers came up together. Wilson always claimed the boat quivered and stirred while he blew the tanks.
However, so far as we could ever determine, the submarine lay over to port just as much as before.
XV
OUTSIDE THE CONTROL ROOM
We were through inside the control room, but to seal it up we had to close the conning tower and gun access trunk hatches. The ship had sunk with the conning tower hatch open; we had opened the one over the gun access trunk ourselves. Still we could not have relied on these hatch covers even if they were both closed, for they opened outward, intended to be sealed tight by the pressure of the sea weighing on them; whereas we intended to build up an air pressure inside the boat greater than the water pressure outside in order to expel the water. Under such an inside pressure the regular hatches on the boat would spring off their seats and let all the air leak out.
To meet this contingency, I had some special hatch covers made at the Navy Yard before we left, to take the place of the regular covers. The substitute covers were made of steel plate, an inch and a quarter thick, with a rubber gasket secured to the underside to make a watertight joint against the edge of the hatch opening. The hatch covers were quite complicated with blowing valves, test valves, and water valves on top, and a long spillpipe hanging from the underside through which the water was to be expelled from the bottom of the room. Finally, for locking the hatch cover into place, there was a long, thick bolt through the center of the cover, with a heavy steel strongback, swiveled on its lower end, designed to slip through the hatch opening and catch inside the boat.
Due to their thickness and all the attachments, the salvage hatch covers were very heavy, from five hundred to seven hundred pounds in weight, and exceedingly awkward to handle, especially under the handicaps of diving conditions.
Since there were two hatches to seal up over the control room, the blowing connections were fitted only to the cover intended for the gun access trunk; the cover over the conning tower hatch was made a plain plate with no valves on it. As this plate was also the smallest and lightest of the lot (it weighed only three hundred pounds), I decided to have it installed first and let the divers work up to the more difficult cover plates later.
The top of the conning tower opened to the chariot bridge. There was little space inside the bridge enclosure. The forward part was taken up with the binnacle and steering gear, the after part was almost wholly taken up by the housing around the periscopes and the mast. A clear space about four feet by five feet was all there was.
We tried the job out on the S-50. Frazer, unquestionably the largest and strongest diver in our crew, was selected for the task, with Smith, who was much smaller, to assist in the confined space.
To help them handle the weight, the Vestal’s carpenter made us an oak beam which spanned the bridge rail from starboard to port, with a turnbuckle hook at each end to fasten it down to the bridge framing. In this beam we placed an eyebolt directly over the center of the conning tower hatch, and secured a half-ton chain fall to the bolt.
We brought the hatch cover assembly to the S-50 in a small boat; the sailors there dragged it up on their bridge. Then Frazer and Smith rigged the beam across the bridge, hooked their chain fall to the strong-back bolt, and hoisted the cover and strongback clear of the top of the conning tower. With the cover plate triced up clear of the strongback, they lowered the strongback through the opening, swiveled the bar, caught it inside on both sides of the hatch, then heaved up on the chain fall till the strongback bar was firmly jammed against the inside of the conning tower.
Frazer loosed the lashing on the cover plate, and let it slide down the central bolt. It rested neatly on the turned-up edge of the hatch. Smith slid the nut down, screwed it home. On the S-50 the rig worked out very well. The divers professed themselves satisfied.
The gear was unrigged and sent back to the Falcon with the divers.
George Anderson went down first, on the descending line to the gun forward, carrying a small line with him. He climbed the side of the conning tower, crawled inside the chariot bridge. Anderson tied his line to the binnacle, signaled on it that it was secure. On the new line as a guide, we lowered down the oak beam and the turnbuckles, with lead weights attached to make sure the beam sank.
The material landed inside the bridge. Anderson cut it loose, swung the beam into its intended place across the rails on the S-51, hooked in the turnbuckles, set them up. With that done, he reported ready and we next lowered down the chain fall, which he also received, hooked to the eyebolt over the hatch, tried the chains, and made sure the differential purchase was working freely. Anderson then came up, not having been down quite an hour. The stage was all set for Smith and Frazer.
Because of the weight, we hoped for a fairly smooth day to lower the hatch cover, but none came, and we could not afford to wait. Smith and Frazer went down the new line, landed inside the bridge, signaled ready for the hatch. Lieutenant Hartley had it carefully rigged, and swung over the side of the Falcon on a line from the end of the port boom. The cover was already triced up near the top of the strongback bolt. We tied a short rope to the bolt, shackled the other end of the rope to the descending line to guide it down. On deck, the boatswain’s mate took in all the slack of the descending line, then tended it to hold it taut as the Falcon rolled to the seaway. The winchman started to lower slowly, the hatch disappeared, we kept on lowering. I listened on Frazer’s phone.
“Hatch is in sight! Hold it!” I repeated the order. The weight was evidently too far to one side.
From far below we got our instructions.
“Take it to port about ten feet!” We swung the boom farther out, lowered a little farther till Frazer caught a small line some ten feet long we had
left dangling from the bottom of the strongback. The divers hauled on this, pulled the hatch over the bridge. We lowered a little more till they could touch the hatch on the down roll of the Falcon. On the up roll, it went up about six feet. On the next down roll, Frazer yelled:
“Let go!”
We slacked the winch completely. The weight landed inside the little bridge, between the two divers. They cut loose the lowering line, hooked the bolt with the chain fall, swung the assembly from the beam overhead. Just as in rehearsal, they toggled the strongback inside, lowered the hatch, screwed down hard on the retaining nut. The conning tower hatch was completely sealed up in less than an hour. The divers came up, much elated.
To close the gun access hatch was the next job. This trunk was just forward of the bridge. To handle the weight over this trunk, we made another oak beam to project over the bridge, the after end of this beam to be secured to the one we already had in place athwartships, the other end to cantilever forward from the bridge rail and carry an eyebolt for another chain fall. Anderson, with Kelley’s assistance, rigged this new beam, shipped the chain fall, secured the guide line, and in a few days we were ready for the next hatch.
This was a much worse job, for the cover to the gun access trunk was larger and in addition was weighted down by valves and spillpipe, as well as being made much more cumbersome by these fittings. It weighed about five hundred pounds. Finally the cover, instead of fitting into a flush deck, had to be installed on top of a trunk some four feet above the deck.
Frazer and Smith, after some rehearsals on the S-50, went down on the submarine. As before, we swung the cover assembly over on a line from the end of our boom, shackled to a guide line tied to the gun access trunk below. The heavy spillpipe dangled fourteen feet down from the cover; it was going to be a tough job to get the spillpipe through the hatch.
On the Bottom: The Raising of the Submarine S-51 Page 8