Eck took the cans, then Bennett handed him four fuses, about five feet long. “ ‘These are slow-burning,’ he said. ‘But if you have to set them’—he grinned—‘it won’t matter if you get out of here fast or not. You won’t be going nowhere.’ ”
Shortly after midnight, Seawolf was ready to pull out. That’s when Eck understood their mission.
“As I crossed through the control room on my way to the radio shack, I saw a man’s legs coming down the conning tower,” recalled Eck. “Life on a sub is so intimate that you instantly recognize your crewmates from any angle of vision you see them…. These legs were strangers.”
The legs belonged to Jimmy Fife, Wilkes’s chief of staff, who greeted Eck, then strode over to study the charts.
“It seemed we were taking the U.S. Submarine High Command out from Corregidor,” Eck said. “We’d have preferred action to evacuating personnel, but we realized that this was a mission comparable in importance to sinking ships. After all, ships can be replaced, but submarines officers with the training of our passengers could not.
“And we were proving once again that a surface blockade couldn’t stop the Wolf. We were proving that the submarine has an advantage over all other craft because she could disappear from sight.”
When the new year of 1942 dawned, the Seawolf was en route to Australia. Once they arrived, crew members would get their first chance since the war began to cable home to let loved ones know they were safe. Eck began thinking about his message to Marjorie days in advance.
“The first moment I had I sat down at my desk, trying to find words to explain all I wanted to say: how I felt when I couldn’t reach her, how I knew she must have worried, how much I missed her and Spike, how I had their photographs right here in front of me when I worked and above my bunk when I slept, so that I saw them the last minute before I fell asleep and the first moment I awoke every morning.
“At last I settled on: ‘Feeling fine don’t worry love to all.’ ”
The truth was, Eck knew there was no guarantee just how long he—or any submariner—would be fine.
Submarine crews went to sea as a tight combat unit. Their ability to conduct a successful war patrol—and return to port safely—depended on many factors.
Sound military strategy and inspired leadership were essential, of course. Also important were systems to organize and supply the boats, which had to carry food, fuel, and supplies for long cruises of fifty days or more across vast stretches of ocean. And, of course, a submarine without enough torpedoes couldn’t do its job. Torpedoes that malfunctioned or performed poorly were a major problem, as we shall see.
To help streamline logistics, the Asiatic and Pacific Fleet submarines were organized into divisions, usually consisting of six boats. At the start of the war in 1941, the Asiatic Fleet comprised five divisions. (Mel Eckberg’s Seawolf was part of Division 202, which also included the Seadragon and Sealion.)
Two divisions made up a squadron. Each squadron was assigned to a submarine tender, such as the Canopus, or to a base. Naval expert Theodore Roscoe explained, “The functions of the tender and the base are the same—to supply office space and quarters for the squadron and division commanders and their staffs, to billet repair personnel and relief crews, to undertake all submarine repairs, short of complete overhauls.
“Everything from the replacement of a damaged propeller to the adjustment of a cranky sextant, the supplying of all necessary food, fuel, clothing, spare parts, munitions, medical stores—the care of all the material needs of the submarines and physical needs of the submariners—these are the tasks accomplished by a submarine tender or submarine base.”
That crucial ability to supply submarines in the Asiatic Fleet was disrupted early in the war, when the Japanese attacked naval facilities in the Philippines. Rather than move those boats to Pearl Harbor, it was decided to base the submarines in Australia.
But Clay Blair, who wrote a comprehensive history of the Pacific submarine war, questioned the wisdom of this decision. Much of shipping to and from Japan passed through the Luzon Strait, north of the Philippines between Luzon and Formosa (now Taiwan). Blair argued that if the submarines had been moved to Pearl Harbor, boats could have patrolled the Luzon Strait more effectively, using the island of Midway as a refueling point. The consolidation of all submarines at Pearl Harbor would also have simplified the process of getting torpedoes and spare parts to the boats. And it would have allowed easier access to the Mare Island Navy Yard in California for major refitting and upgrades.
There were other factors that made Australia a less than perfect choice for a submarine base. The voyage from Freemantle, Australia, was difficult and closer to Japanese air bases, meaning that submarines had to stay submerged for safety and go more slowly. That meant the submarines couldn’t stay as long in patrol areas because they had to have enough fuel for the long return trip.
Consolidation would have had another advantage: bringing all the submarines under one leadership structure. Instead, noted Blair, the Pacific and Asiatic Fleets tended to operate separately. “The two submarine commands grew into independent rival organizations, competing for Japanese shipping rather than cooperating.”
ABOUT THE TIMELINES
World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. On September 3, 1939, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. The timelines included in this book begin when the United States entered the war in December 1941 and cover events in the Pacific. Timelines appear at the end of each of the four sections and include some (but by no means all) of the major war events of that year.
Most battles between US and Japanese forces in the Pacific were fought using surface ships, airplanes, and ground troops, with submarines playing a supporting role at times. Please note that not every military operation included in the timelines is described in this book, which focuses on only a few of the many submarines that were active during the war in the Pacific.
DECEMBER 7: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; Japan launches attacks in Hong Kong, Siam, Malaya, Guam, and the Philippines, where much of General Douglas MacArthur’s Far East Air Force at Clark Field is destroyed.
DECEMBER 8: United States declares war on Japan.
DECEMBER 10: In the Philippines, Japanese attacks destroy the Cavite Navy Yard.
DECEMBER 21: Main Japanese invasion of Philippines begins.
DECEMBER 24: General Douglas MacArthur decides to move his Army headquarters from Manila to the island of Corregidor, “the Rock,” and ground forces to the peninsula of Bataan.
DECEMBER 25: Japanese bombers attack Manila waterfront; submarine headquarters moves to Corregidor.
DECEMBER 26: Admiral Thomas Hart, commander in chief of the Asiatic Fleet (General MacArthur’s Navy counterpart), leaves for Dutch naval base at Surabaya, Java, to direct overall operations from there.
DECEMBER 31: John Wilkes, commander of Asiatic Fleet submarines, decides to abandon the Philippines for Java. (Following its loss to the Japanese in February, he moves Asiatic submarine headquarters to Australia.)
Surrender on Corregidor.
You say I’m punchy? You’d be too,
If you’d been with me in ’42,
So just sit still ’till my tale is told
of a submarine on war patrol.
—“The First War Patrol”
poem found on a locker on USS Cachalot (SS-170)
The torpedo scandal of the U.S. submarine force in World War II was one of the worst in the history of any kind of warfare.
—Clay Blair, Jr.
January 15, 1941. Darwin, Australia. Mel Eckberg and his crewmates on the Seawolf were eager to get back on war patrol. Enemy ships were out there, just waiting to be sunk. So when their skipper, Frederick Warder, ordered some of Seawolf’s torpedoes removed to make room for boxes, no one could believe it.
“ ‘Are we a sub or a transport? Now they’re making a cargo carrier out of us,’ ” someone griped.
Then the Seawolf’s men got an answer that stopped all their complaints. This wasn’t just any cargo, but cases and cases of ammunition—all for the relief of American soldiers still holding out against the enemy on the small fortress island of Corregidor in the Philippines.
In the past month, the situation in the Philippines had continued to deteriorate. The US had pledged to defend the islands against Japan. Yet even before war broke out, military planners had questioned whether this would be feasible with the resources available. Japan had seized control of the air and seas around the islands, making it nearly impossible to send in reinforcements to aid the remaining American and Filipino forces trying to fight off the invaders on Bataan and Corregidor. In any case, President Roosevelt and his military commanders in Washington, DC, had no additional troops to send: American soldiers were needed to fight the war in Europe.
Still, the submarines were prepared to do what little they could to help. Captain Warder’s order read: “You will remove all except eight (8) torpedoes and such other ammunition as may be necessary to enable you to carry up to forty (40) tons.”
The Seawolf was about to undertake her most perilous mission yet.
“We packed ammunition until it almost oozed out,” Eck said. “Ammunition piled higher and higher. It was in the forward torpedo room, the after-torpedo room. We stepped over it and we slept on it. The cases were above the level of my bunk, seven feet above the deck. That night I crawled over cases of shells to get to my bunk.
“Sleeping on that ammunition gave us a queer feeling.”
A sailor sleeps in his bunk above torpedoes.
Everyone knew what would happen if the Seawolf, packed to the gills with explosives, was blasted by a heavy depth charge. One of Eck’s crewmates summed it up: “ ‘If they get us, they’ll just blow us a little higher.’ ”
Carrying the perilous cargo set everyone’s nerves on edge. A few days north of Australia, while the Seawolf was running below the surface at periscope depth, Eck heard a voice boom over the intercom: “ ‘Call the captain!’ ”
Lieutenant Richard Holden had spotted something. “ ‘Captain, I see something on the starboard bow. Can’t make it out.’
“ ‘Let’s take a look at it, Dick,’ said Captain Warder. A thirty-second pause as he peered in the periscope. ‘She’s pretty far off yet … It could be a ship, all right … Down periscope.’ ”
The periscope sightings continued. The skipper looked again, then called Dick Holden over to see the “ship” he’d sighted. Eck could hear the surprise in the lieutenant’s voice. “ ‘Well, I’ll be…. A seagull floating on a log!’ ”
Laughter erupted throughout the Seawolf as news of the false alarm spread. It was a welcome relief from the tension. For days afterward, the submariners made jokes about the missed opportunity for a target (and fresh meat). “ ‘How we going to attack this here seagull? Shoot torpedoes at him or get up and fire a three-inch [deck gun]? Anybody got a slingshot?’ ”
When not on watch or at their other duties, crew members caught up on mending, played cards in the mess hall, cleaned their clothes in “Baby,” the Seawolf’s washing machine, or even held informal spelling bees as they lay in their bunks with their heels resting on cases of ammunition.
Seawolf had been ordered to speed to Corregidor as quickly as possible. Captain Warder knew that with a load of ammunition and only eight torpedoes (the ones in the tubes and no extras), mounting an attack on the way would be dangerous. So when a convoy of Japanese ships was sighted, Warder made no move. Seawolf slipped past undetected. Hours later, her luck almost ran out.
“We were gliding along the surface that night when, about 2 a.m., off the port beam and not farther away than 1,000 yards, a huge dark shape loomed up making terrific speed,” Eck recalled. It was a destroyer.
“We were already starting a crash dive,” he said. “Only seconds later the destroyer’s propellers roared overhead … It was one of our narrowest escapes.
“I’ve often thought what would have happened had that destroyer suddenly veered hard left and headed for us. It would have been touch and go. With the ammunition aboard, that might have been the attack and Seawolf’s end.”
The Seawolf made it safely to Corregidor on January 28, 1942, passing slowly through the treacherous minefields (areas where explosive bombs had been set) at the mouth of Manila Bay. The submarine waited out the day below the surface at 135 feet, out of sight and range of Japanese aircraft.
The next night, Seawolf docked and unloading began. After forty minutes, everything stopped: A raid was expected. Seawolf couldn’t take the chance—one bomb striking the ammunition would have blasted the submarine out of the water and killed anyone nearby. Captain Warder moved Seawolf off a mile until seven minutes past midnight, when the all clear came, and soldiers from Corregidor could safely unload.
Eck stood on the wooden dock, glad to be breathing fresh air. Later that day, while the Seawolf was being reloaded with torpedoes for the next patrol, he had a chance to visit with some of the soldiers holding the Rock. He wanted to find someone in communications to see about getting some spare radio parts for Seawolf.
Eck made his way past antiaircraft guns camouflaged by trees into one of the Rock’s tunnels. Inside it was bright—and crowded. “I saw men sleeping everywhere. They lay rolled up in blankets; dozed sitting on chairs and cases of ammunition … men were lining a number of hospital cots against a wall.”
US military life inside Malinta Tunnel on Corregidor.
One soldier told Eck about the Japanese bombers that came over every day. “ ‘You can set your watch by them. But we’re knocking ’em out of the sky like clay pigeons. The other day one of our three-inch anti-aircraft set a world record. Knocked down eight planes in one day. We figure more than 80 per cent of their bombs fall into the water.’ ”
Seawolf’s dangerous mission to bring the troops more firepower had been worth it. “All I knew was, they needed ammunition and we brought it to them,” said Eck.
Americans fire antiaircraft guns stationed on Corregidor.
Eck headed back to the Seawolf empty-handed. There were no spare parts or equipment to be had. He took one last look at Corregidor; his impressions would stay with him a long time.
“I could see searchlights playing up and down the shoreline of Mariveles, the naval base about a mile to the north…. Now and then, the rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire came to my ears, and I could hear the dull thud of artillery fire from Bataan. Every few minutes, brilliant white flares split the darkness off toward Mariveles. Searchlights continued to move their fingers across the sky. I went aboard the Seawolf and down where I belonged—in the sound room.”
Eck reflected, “Our men were now making the bravest kind of a stand that a man can make: they were fighting off an enemy who grew stronger every hour.”
Like the Seawolf, the Trout undertook a mission to help the beleaguered troops on Corregidor by delivering 3,500 rounds of antiaircraft ammunition. Skipper Frank W. Fenno and his crew arrived at the Rock on February 3, 1942.
When darkness fell, the men began the hard work of unloading the cargo. Then they loaded six 3,000-pound torpedoes from supplies still on Corregidor; these were carried by hand since there were no cranes on the dock. Crews labored until three in the morning, all the while hearing gunfire from the fighting nearby on the Bataan peninsula.
Before departing, Fenno had a problem to solve. “ ‘Our weight condition had been figured out on paper,’ ” he said. On the return trip, the Trout would need more weight, or ballast, so that the boat could be properly balanced; this is especially important for submarines, which move up and down in the water as they surface or dive.
“ ‘We requested twenty-five tons of ballast, preferably sand bags, so that we could move them around as necessary,’ ” Fenno said.
His request was denied: Sandbags couldn’t be spared because they were being used to help fortify the island and protect soldiers from shells. The captain was offer
ed something else instead: gold and valuables from Philippine bank vaults in Manila, which had been brought to Corregidor for safekeeping.
He agreed. The Trout took on two tons of gold bars, eighteen tons of silver pesos, important US State Department documents, and some bags of mail. The precious cargo was loaded by a brigade of men who passed the gleaming bars from hand to hand as gunfire lit the night sky. Captain Fenno signed a receipt and the Trout slipped away. Once the cargo was delivered safely, President Roosevelt was so pleased he directed that Fenno receive the Army Distinguished Service Cross.
The skipper did encounter one small snag when tallying the inventory at the end of the trip. A single bar of gold was missing. The submarine was searched top to bottom. Finally, the gold bar was discovered in the galley, where a cook had been using it as a paperweight.
The submarine tender Canopus with her “brood” of submarines.
USS CANOPUS (AS-9)
A less likely candidate than the Canopus for the roll of heroine in a tale of adventure could hardly be imagined. She was no longer young, and had never been particularly dashing, but her partisans were always ready to ascribe a certain majesty of her appearance. Undeniable, she waddled like a duck, as was pointed out in many a good-natured jibe, but that was only natural in a middle-aged motherly type, and she was truly “mama-san” to her brood of submarines, which used to forage with her from the Philippines to the China coast and back again each year.
—Captain E. L. Sackett
By early spring, several weeks after Mel Eckberg had ventured into the maze of tunnels on Corregidor, the plight of Filipino and American troops left on the Rock and on the nearby Bataan peninsula had become even more desperate.
Dive! World War II Stories of Sailors & Submarines in the Pacific Page 6