Submarine!

by Edward L. Beach

  “Up periscope. There he is—mark! Three five three. Range—mark! Four seven double oh. Looking around—bearing—mark! Three three seven—screen, down periscope! Angle on the bow seven and one-half starboard. Near screen angle on the bow zero. He will pass overhead. Sound, keep bearings coming on light high-speed screws bearing three three seven!”

  “High-speed screws, three three seven, sir. Three three seven—three three seven—three three six-a-half—three three six-a-half—three three six—three three six—three three five—three three oh—three two oh—I’ve lost him, sir. He’s all around the dial!”

  The familiar thum—thum—thum sweeps unknowingly overhead. We heave a big sigh of relief. He’s out of the way for a minute.

  “Never mind him now! Sound, pick up heavy screws bearing about three five eight.”

  “Heavy screws zero zero one sir, zero zero two-zero zero three.”

  “It’s a zig to his left! Up periscope. Bearing—mark! Zero zero five. Range mark! Down periscope. Two two double oh. Angle on the bow thirty starboard. The son of a gun has zigged the wrong way, but it’s better for us at that. Right full rudder. Port ahead full! Give me a course for a straight bow shot! Make ready bow tubes! Match gyros forward!”

  “One two five, Captain, but we can’t make it. Better shoot him on zero nine zero with a right twenty gyro.”

  “Steady on zero nine zero! All ahead one third. How much time have I got?”

  “Not any, sir. Torpedo run one one double oh yards. Range about one eight double oh, gyros fifteen right, increasing. Shoot any time.” Good old Steve is right on top of the problem.

  I shout for more speed, which we will need to control the depth while shooting. Each torpedo being some three hundred pounds heavier than the water it displaces, we stand to become 3000 pounds lighter all of a sudden.

  “Up periscope. . . . bearing—mark! Three three five! Set! Fire ONE! . . . Fire TWO! . . . Fire THREE! . . . Fire FOUR! . . . Fire FIVE! . . . Fire SIX! . . . All ahead two thirds.”

  As we in the control room fight savagely to keep from broaching surface, I can feel the repeated jolts which signify the departure of the six torpedoes in the forward tubes. The sudden loss of about eighteen hundred pounds forward makes Trigger light by the bow. The increase in speed comes too late, and inexorably she rises.

  WHANG! WHANG! WHANG! WHANG! Four beautiful solid hits. The carrier’s screws stop. He lists and drifts, helpless. We have time to notice that he is brand-new, has no planes visible, and is of a huge new type not yet seen in action. Little men dressed in white run madly about his decks. His guns shoot wildly in all directions.

  We spin the periscope around for a look at the destroyers. Oh, oh! Here they come, and pul-lenty mad! Take her down!

  We are up to fifty-six feet when finally we start back down. Back to sixty feet, and now we can plainly hear that malignant thum, thum, thum, thum again. Down she plunges, seeking the protection that only the depths can give. THUM, THUM, THUM, THUM—WHAM!—WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! and so on for forty-seven consecutive bull’s-eyes, no clicks at all! It seems inconceivable that any machine, made of man, can withstand such a vicious pounding. The air inside the Trigger is filled with fine particles of paint, cork, and dust. Ventilation lines and pipe lines vibrate themselves out of sight and fill the confined spaces with the discordant hum of a hundred ill-matched tuning forks. Everyone is knocked off his feet, clutches gropingly at tables, ladders, pipes, or anything to help regain his footing. A big section of cork is bounced off the hull and lands on the deck alongside the auxiliaryman; as he stoops to pick it up and drop it in a trash can he is knocked to his hands and knees and the trash can spills all over the cork. The lights go out, but the emergency lights give adequate illumination. The heavy steel-pressure bulkheads squeeze inward with each blow and spring out again. Deck plates and gratings throughout the ship jump from their places and clatter around, adding missile hazard to our troubles. The whole hull rings and shudders, whips and shakes itself, bounces sideways, up and down.

  Two hundred feet, and still the agony continues, the rain of depth charges, if anything, increases in fury. How can man, made of soft flesh and not steel, stand up under such merciless, excruciating pounding? But stand it we do, with dry lips and nervous eyes.

  We are scared, but fear leaves our brains clear, our bodies quick and sure. As usual, the temperature soars, 120 degrees or better. We reach 300 feet, but cannot stop sinking for we are heavy. Forward torpedo room bilges are full of water taken in when we fire the torpedoes. Stern tube packing leaks at this depth, and motor room bilges are filling up. Pump room and engine rooms are taking water more slowly through tortured sea valves and fittings. Besides that, the compression of the hull due to the great depth decreases our buoyant volume. We are heavy by about three or four tons, and we dare not pump, because it would make too much noise, especially bucking sea pressure at this depth.

  The depth charges cease, but we can hear the angry screws buzzing around overhead. Maybe they’ve temporarily lost us. If we can keep silent, creep away, we have a chance of evading. But we sink slowly, although we run with a fifteen-degree up angle. We dare not increase speed over the silent speed, and thus increase our chances of being heard. Absolute silence. The auxiliaryman and trim-manifold man have their tools laid on the deck instead of in their usual racks. Some men take off their shoes. The bucket brigade bails water silently from the motor room bilges and silently pours it into the after torpedo room bilges. All hands talk in whispers. The bow and stern planes and steering have been put into hand operation instead of hydraulic, and brawny sailors sweat profusely as they turn the huge wheels. They must be relieved every five minutes, for they gasp for breath in the foul air.

  We’ve been breathing this same air since early morning, and now it is night again. Eighty-five men use up a lot of oxygen, especially when doing hard physical work. We test the atmosphere—2½ per cent carbon dioxide. Three per cent is the danger line—can knock you out. Four per cent will kill you, if you can’t get out of it. So we spread Co2 absorbent, and release oxygen from our oxygen bottles. That helps. But the heat—nothing can be done about that. You simply sweat and eat salt tablets. Your clothes and shoes are soaked. The decks and bulkheads are slippery, and literally alive with water. The humidity is exactly 100 per cent. But you don’t notice it.

  Slowly Trigger sinks. Down, down, far below her safe tested depth. Trigger, if you are worthy of your heritage, if you can keep the faith of those who built you—who will never know—and of those who place their lives in yours—who will know, if only for an instant—keep it now! We have faith in you, else we’d not subject you to this test. Vindicate that faith, we pray you!

  Far, far below where she was designed to go, Trigger struggles on. Sinking slowly, her hull creaking and groaning at the unaccustomed strain, her decks bulging in the center, light partition doors unable to close because of the distortion caused by the terrific compression, she finally brings us to the point where it is safe to speed up a little, enough to stop her descent. And so we creep away, finally surfacing to complete our escape.

  It wasn’t until more than a year later that our carrier was spotted and photographed by a reconnaissance plane. We had set him back a long time, at a critical period. Too bad he didn’t sink, but the effect on the Japs of seeing that half-sunken wreck come dragging back on the end of a towline and settle ignominiously into the mud of Tokyo Bay after his brave departure the day before must have been considerable and significant. For we had tagged the uncompleted aircraft carrier Hitaka on his maiden trial trip, just as he poked his freshly painted nose outside the torpedo nets.

  Later we discovered that our first two torpedoes had “pre-matured”—exploded just before reaching the target—and that Hitaka had in fact received only two holes in his hull, both of them aft. It wasn’t our fault that the enemy had had time to tow him back into the shallows, for the four hits we had earned should have tak
en care of him immediately. Our report did add impetus to the campaign ComSubPac was then waging to get the torpedoes fixed up, however, and had the additional unlooked-for result of starting a rash of stories about the submarine which lay on the bottom of Tokyo Bay for a month waiting for Hitaka to be launched. But this was all small comfort.

  Trigger had been so badly damaged that it took two months to repair her. During this period Roy Benson, now promoted to Commander, who had commanded her for four patrols, and Lieutenant Steve Mann, who had placed her in commission with me, five patrols before, were detached. Commander Benson reported to the Submarine School at New London, as instructor, and Steve went as exec to the new submarine Devilfish, then under construction at the Cramp Shipbuilding Works near Philadelphia. I succeeded Steve as Executive Officer. Stinky, who by this time was trying to get us to call him “Sinky,” took over as engineer.

  For a time we wondered who our new skipper was to be, and hoped it would be somebody who had had a lot of experience already as exec of a hot ship. Our hopes were fulfilled to overflowing when, after a short time, we learned that Robert E. Dornin, commonly known as “Dusty,” veteran of many patrols in Gudgeon, had been ordered to take over Trigger. Knowing his reputation, we expected great things of our ship in the next few months, and in this we were not to be disappointed.

  In the meantime, Seawolf had been long overdue for repairs, and her crew for an extensive rest, so she was ordered to Mare Island Navy Yard for a complete modernization. While in California she received a new skipper, Lieutenant Commander Royce L. Gross, commonly known as “Googy,” and Fred Warder left the ship he had commanded for more than three years and for seven war patrols.

  When Seawolf stood out to sea again, refurbished inwardly and outwardly, she immediately proceeded to demonstrate that she was still the same Wolf as of yore. Her first war patrol under Gross lasted twenty-six days in all, from Midway to Midway. Its high point was an eleven-hour battle with a large escorted freighter, as a result of which the freighter’s bow was blown off—he sank a few hours later—and Gross learned to his dismay that there was still plenty of room for improvement in torpedoes.

  A few days later a damaged ship was encountered, in the tow of a tug, and escorted by a single destroyer. Gross decided that the escort was by far the more valuable target, and attacked him first in hopes of getting up on the surface later and sinking the towed vessel by gunfire. This plan was foiled by the approach of yet another destroyer after the submarine had expended all her torpedoes, but Seawolf carried away a series of photographs, later widely publicized, showing the last moments of H.I.J.M.S, Patrol Boat #39. And then Roy Gross brought his veteran submarine back to Midway for a fast refit and some more torpedoes.

  Googy’s second patrol produced only one hit for sixteen torpedoes fired, with the majority of blame definitely going to the recalcitrant fish. Nevertheless, that one hit sank a ship, which is illustrative of what might have been done by our submarines had they had dependable armament. The situation was improving, although at this point no one in Seawolf could have been criticized for thinking otherwise.

  On her tenth patrol, Gross’s third, came the first indications of a new deal for the old Wolf. In her assigned area for but five days, she spent the entire time working over a single convoy, sinking three ships in all; and she then attacked and sank two reconnaissance sampans with her deck guns. On her first attack, submerged between two columns of freighters, she fired her bow tubes at the largest ship in the left-hand column, and immediately afterward fired her stern tubes at the largest ship in the right-hand column. Both ships sank. Surfacing after a depth charging, she pursued the convoy, overtook it, made another submerged attack, and fired four torpedoes, none of which hit. Nothing daunted, she resumed the pursuit, made a night surface attack, and obtained one hit in the largest remaining ship, leaving him dead in the water. With four torpedoes left, Seawolf bored in on the surface to finish him off, disregarding the salvoes of gunfire with which he sought to dissuade her. She fired each of her precious remaining torpedoes independently and carefully—and got two dud hits and two erratic runs. That left her without any torpedoes; so Gross manned the deck guns, closing the enemy slowly, firing deliberately, feeling him out. With the return fire, originally erratic, to be sure, now entirely silent, Seawolf continued to close the range. After approximately one hour of target practice, the enemy vessel, hit by more than seventy rounds from the submarine’s three-inch gun, rolled over and sank within sight of her gun crews.

  The torpedoes were still not perfect, but they were improving, and skill and persistence were still paying off.

  Patrol number eleven again saw Gross bringing his ship back to port with no torpedoes remaining, leaving two enemy vessels at the bottom of the China Sea and damaging a third which in all probability also sank, though not seen to do so. Torpedo malfunction had again robbed the Wolf of at least one and possibly two more targets, but it was now obvious from other patrol reports that the problem was finally on its way to a solution. Reports of other submarines were indicating a larger proportion of successful attacks, and Skipper Gross was at a loss to explain the heartbreaking misses on his last few attacks. In his self-criticism he failed to appreciate what every other submariner had long since seen. Only once had Gross brought back torpedoes! Every submarine skipper was highly respectful of the man who could consistently average two ships per patrol, and that was exactly what Googy Gross had done so far.

  On December 22, 1943, the Wolf got under way from the submarine base at Pearl Harbor for her twelfth war patrol. Lasting only thirty-six days, it topped all the superlatives earned by that fighting submarine and her amazingly aggressive skipper. Fred Warder had a worthy successor.

  On January 7, 1944, Seawolf passed through the Nansei Shoto chain, and on January 10 she began a forty-eight-hour battle with a Japanese convoy. Torpedoes expended—seventeen; hits—nine certain and four possible; ships sunk—three. The wheel had finally come around full for Seawolf.

  Two days later, still patrolling her area north of Formosa, but with only three torpedoes remaining on board, Seawolf again sights smoke. This time it is four freighters and two destroyers.

  Again Seawolf leaps in pursuit. Again the call for the plotting parties, the tedious tracking, the meticulous positioning of targets.

  This time Roy Gross is in a dilemma. He cannot hope to do much damage with only three torpedoes, but the convoy is in his area and he cannot let it go by. The only answer is to get help, and quickly. Hastily a contact message is sent out, addressed to any and all submarines in the vicinity. Another message is sent to ComSubPac, in Pearl Harbor.

  And all the while Seawolf continues tracking. Once again Googy decides on a night attack. He figures he will try to get in submerged just at dusk—and if necessary re-attack on the surface a little later.

  No luck on the submerged attack. With the convoy well in sight, the situation progressing nicely, a sudden zig away puts Seawolf far out in left field. Gross might have tried a long-range shot, but not with only three precious torpedoes left. Gritting his teeth, he lets them go—but surfaces eight miles astern.

  Overtaking on the starboard flank, flying in at full speed in her attempt to complete the surface attack before moon-rise the Wolf is forced to cross astern of the starboard flank destroyer at excessively close range. A precarious situation for a moment, but she is not detected; the ships of the convoy line up for what appears to be a perfect shot—when suddenly they zig away. The combination of circumstances, with Seawolf at close range nearly ready to shoot, puts her virtually in the convoy directly astern of the last ship.

  Holding his breath, Gross settles down to act like a Jap, hoping that the herding destroyers are not in the habit of looking their sheep over too closely. He closes in a bit more. Lagging too far astern will only attract attention. Furthermore, if you are a little closer there will be a better chance of picking up a chance shot.

  Calmly Roy Gross waits his chance, all the whil
e narrowly watching the destroyers patrolling on either beam. They give no indication of noticing anything untoward, and finally a sharp left zig puts one of the target vessels nearly broadside to Seawolf’s bow tubes.

  A quick setup. Range and bearing by radar, bearing checked by TBT. Angle on the bow estimated from the bridge, checked by plot, verified by TDC. In a matter of seconds comes the welcome word from the conning tower:

  “Set below, Captain!”

  “Standby forward!” Another quick bearing from the Target Bearing Transmitter . . . another quick radar setup. . . .

  “Set!”

  “Fire!” Seawolf’s last three torpedoes race out into the night, trailing their streams of bubbles. They diverge slightly as their fan-shaped spread reaches out for the left freighter in the starboard column.

  Suddenly the forward part of the target bursts into incandescence! A brilliant flame flashes into the sky with straight, streaked fury, razor-edged disaster roaring into the heavens.

  Seconds later the after part of the ship also bursts into holocaust. In the brilliant flame which lights up the stricken vessel the fascinated watchers on Seawolf’s bridge see a mast topple to one side, the single stack to the other, and then all is blotted out in a screaming, searing flame which guts the entire ship in a single white-hot second.

  The noise of the explosion reaches Seawolf, drowned in the insanely triumphant uproar of the forces she has released. At the limiting peak of the inferno a black boiling cloud of smoke billows hundreds of feet into the sky.

  On the surface of the sea it might well be day. The perpetrator of the outrage and the white faces on her bridge are brilliantly silhouetted in the funeral flames of her victim.

  The skipper recovers first. “Right full rudder! All ahead flank!” He shouts the orders down the open hatch at his feet.

  A stream of troubled white water flows aft from Seawolf’s stern, angling sharply off to starboard under the impetus of the suddenly accelerated propellers and the full rudder. The yammering of the diesels comfortingly reaches the ears of the bridge personnel, and careening to port, the white water glaring and foaming between the wooden deck slats, the Wolf dashes away.