Submarine!

by Edward L. Beach

  Ten depth charges are heard a few minutes later—a good sign—and the submarine checks her headlong rush some five miles away. The thing on Gross’s mind now is the remainder of the convoy.

  COMSUBPAC FROM SEA WOLF X URGENT X OPERATIONAL X CONTACT X CONVOY X THREE FREIGHTERS TWO DESTROYERS BASE COURSE ONE-FIVE-ZERO SPEED NINE POSIT BAKER FIVE FOUR YOKE TWO THREE X ALL TORPEDOES EXPENDED X TRAILING BT K

  Captain Joe Grenfell, lately of the submarines Gudgeon and Tunny, now serving on the staff of ComSubPac, receives the decoded message. Day after day the officers on the staff of ComSubPac stand their watches hoping for just such a break. They have been bound to their desks by official orders and cannot get out in the boats, yet their hearts are out on the sea as they watch their friends coming and going. Here is one of the few chances a “staffie” gets to toss a couple of personal licks at the enemy. Grenfell does not neglect the opportunity.

  Scanning the message, he rises from his desk where he has been working on next month’s submarine dispositions and strides swiftly to the side of the room where a heavy curtain conceals the entire wall.

  A two-handed pull on a pair of cords alongside, and the curtain slides back, revealing a huge chart of the Pacific. Studded here and there, concentrated chiefly about the home islands of Japan, are numerous tiny submarine silhouettes, each bearing a name. This is the Top Secret disposition chart.

  With a long plastic ruler and an equally long pair of dividers, Grenfell carefully picks off a spot on the chart; draws a light circle about it with an arrow pointing southeast. He studies the area carefully, noting the locations of the submarines in the vicinity. A three-ship convoy is a valuable prize, but not one to justify calling away all submarines in the general area. It is necessary to select one or two who can best reach the target from their present positions, considering the possible objective of the enemy.

  Several hundred miles to the southwest of the convoy’s plotted position is a single marker bearing the name Whale. To Grenfell’s practiced eye there is little doubt that this is the ship which must fall heir to the job.

  Again the ruler, measuring. Again the dividers, stepping off distances carefully. A few scribbled figures on a pad of paper. He checks the situation, goes over the distances and the computation a second time. More than one impossible mission has been generated right here. Satisfied, he lays aside the instruments, tears the piece of paper off the pad, draws the curtain back across the chart, and returns to his desk.

  FOR WHALE FROM COMSUBPAC X CONVOY THREE SHIPS TWO ESCORTS SPEED NINE X POSIT BAKER FIFTY FOUR YOKE TWENTY THREE AT TWENTY HUNDRED ITEM X COURSE ONE FIVE ZERO X SEAWOLF TRAILING REPORTING X DEPART PRESENT STATION INTERCEPT X ACKNOWLEDGE X BT K

  Off the coast of China, Fred Janney, Executive Officer of the USS Whale, decodes the message and immediately calls the skipper. The two pore over the charts of the area.

  After several minutes Commander A. C. (Acey) Burrows lays down his pencil.

  “Looks as if we can catch them on three engines, Fred.”

  “Yessir, Captain,” replies Janney, “except that if we take a more northerly course on four engines we might intercept them earlier and be able to make a night attack. Besides, that would give us nearly twenty-four hours longer to work on them.”

  “Guess you’re right. Let’s bend on four engines and try it.”

  Whale, until now patrolling leisurely in the traffic lanes south of Formosa, veers away from her accustomed circuit and speeds to the northeast.

  In the meantime, Seawolf has been keeping contact astern of the convoy. It is now night, and over a period of several hours she has sent two more contact reports. The trouble with this kind of business is that you never know whether you are getting anywhere. It is up to someone else to perform; all you can do is wait. After the exciting action of the past few days the monotony becomes deadly and is felt throughout the whole ship. Finally the quartermaster of the watch turns to the Captain.

  “Captain, sir, that ship, the one we blew up a while ago—maybe one of these has got a load of avgas too. Do you think maybe our gun might set it off if we tried it, sir?”

  Gross stares unblinkingly at his interlocutor.

  “You might have something there, Kuehn,” he says. “We ought to wait till it’s a little darker, though, before we try it.”

  After a few more minutes’ discussion, in which several other officers and enlisted men express their views, the general alarm rings again, and the announcing system blares forth.

  “Battle stations! All hands man your battle stations for gun action!”

  Seawolf’s three-inch gun is manned, trained out on the starboard beam, and she commences to ease in on the nearest enemy ship. Silently she creeps toward the foe, ammunition and crew at the ready, nerveless fingers twitching the firing keys, eyes straining to pierce the gloom. At a range of approximately two miles, with the water sibilant along the thin side plating of the submarine hull, Gross hoarsely calls out:

  “Commence firing!”

  Six shots answer him from Seawolf’s deck gun and six tracer streams mark the paths of the shells on their way toward the enemy. Possibly one or two hits are achieved, but there is precious little time to verify them, for all five enemy ships instantly reply with a veritable barrage of shellfire.

  Comment in the patrol report: “Considered this a good idea that didn’t work . . . continued tracking well clear to port.”

  Gross orders another contact report to be sent to Pearl Harbor. He has not yet been able to talk directly to Whale by radio, though he has received word she is on her way. This is exasperating because a considerable time lag is involved in sending the message to Pearl for decoding, re-encoding, and retransmitting to Whale.

  Some twenty-eight hours after the initial contact with the convoy, fourteen hours after sinking the vessel, Seawolf sights two planes approaching the convoy. Evidently these had been ordered out as air cover, and their arrival forces the submarine to dive. Five hours later she is back on the surface making full power in pursuit—and three hours after that, contact is regained. Lesson: If you drive a submarine under, keep him there.

  0245 on the morning of January 16, nearly forty-eight hours after the initial contact, Seawolf is still trailing, pumping out information every few hours. Finally Gross is able to talk directly to Acey Burrows. Comment in the patrol report: “This was encouraging.”

  1554, fifty-four hours after initial contact, three explosions are heard in the distance, followed a little later by a fourth.

  1807: more explosions; flashes of gunfire in the convoy. Subsequently, for a period of about two hours, Seawolf hears sporadic explosions from the direction of the convoy. Some are identified as depth charges and some may be torpedoes. Much gunfire is visible through the elevated periscope but by this time it is night again, and nothing further can be seen.

  Seawolf’s weary plotting parties now report that the convoy has stopped.

  Carefully the Wolf’s radar checks over each enemy ship. All five are still visible, but only one appears to be underway, and he is leaving the area of action at full speed. The indications are that Whale may have hit and damaged two of the freighters, and perhaps is occupied at the moment by the two destroyers. Under these circumstances, she will never get another shot at the last ship—unless, somehow, the fleeing freighter can be induced to turn back after a suitable interval.

  Despite mute signals of exhaustion which he detects in himself and his companions, the thought, in Gross, is father to the deed. Once again the terribly fatigued Wolf swings into action. The plotting parties, by now quite expert, resume their interminable chore.

  About two and a half hours later: “This ought to be long enough! If Whale is going to get out from under those tin cans she’ll have pretty well accomplished it by now. Time to turn this fellow around! Battle stations—gun action!”

  Gross sees the answering gleam of assent in the eyes of his men. Once again Seawolf’s tiny deck gun is manned, and the submarine gh
osts in toward the fleeing enemy. The gun crew is on deck, the ammunition is standing by. The radar is giving steady ranges to the sight-setters. All is desperate readiness.

  Nervelessly the low-lying sub closes her much larger antagonist. The mettle of the latter had been shown not long ago, when Seawolf had made her earlier attempt at gun action. When a surface ship has been alerted to the presence of a submarine, the greatest advantage of the undersea vessel—the factor of surprise—is taken from her. In this case, of course, there can no longer be any surprise, except perhaps at the temerity of the submarine skipper.

  Googy Gross, for all his daring tactics, is not the man to pass up any possible advantage which he might be able to garner. He jockeys carefully for position, hoping to open fire from such a direction that the enemy’s stack smoke at least partially blankets the expected return fire. The moon is about to rise, however, and Gross realizes that its additional light will enable his adversary to see him and probably reply effectively, at the necessarily short range he would have to employ should he open fire now. And so the Wolf glides along, keeping parallel course with, but just out of sight of, the Nipponese freighter.

  Then the moon rises, and Seawolf maneuvers to silhouette the target against the frosty light in the east.

  Unlike the previous gun attack, this time the object is not necessarily to sink the vessel—though that outcome, of course, would be welcomed—but to cause him to reverse course and drive him back toward Whale. It is a gigantic bluff Gross is acting, one worthy of his well-known poker prowess. At a range of about two miles the Wolf commences rapid fire, pumping out her shells as fast as they can be loaded.

  The reaction from the enemy is twofold and immediate. Apparently he has been keeping his guns manned for just this possibility, although he probably has not divined the ulterior motive behind this second gun attack. Instead of changing course, he instantly returns the fire with two heavy guns—both considerably larger than that of the submarine—plus several machine guns.

  Noting that the Jap return fire is wild and erratic, Gross holds to his initial program, and keeps his crew at it. The hotly served gun on the submarine’s deck registers several hits before the Nip gun crews manage to find the range. Then, with shells whistling overhead and plunging into the water not far away, Googy is forced to sheer sharply and break off the action.

  Feelings of bitter disappointment fill the skipper of the Wolf. He has exposed his ship and crew, in their badly fatigued state, for nothing gained. Yet there was little else he could do, under the circumstances-so run Captain Roy Gross’s thoughts as he hears a report from one of the lookouts:

  “Target has changed course!”

  And so he has; but he isn’t heading back toward Whale yet. Rather, it develops, he is steaming in large circles, apparently puzzled as to which direction to choose. Gross stations his ship to southeastward of him, vowing to have another go at him if he needs it.

  But he doesn’t. With the Wolf dogging his heels at the more respectable range of about four miles, he heads back in the direction he came from, zigzagging radically, but heading northwest for sure. Her purpose accomplished, Seawolf follows along, sending periodic contact reports to Whale. Every time the Jap edges a little too far one way or the other, accidental “sighting” of a submarine shadowing him in that quarter sends him back in line again.

  Proof that Acey Burrows is back on the surface—Whale replies to the first report instantly. Position, course, and speed of the enemy are radioed to her, in each case answered with the cryptic “R.” According to plot she and the remainder of the convoy are approximately fifty miles to the northwest. As Gross sends Burrows the necessary information as to enemy movements, Burrows will try to position himself for interception.

  Every time the Japanese skipper zigs or zags, a new message crackles through the ether:

  FROM SEAWOLF TO WHALE BT ZIG X NEW COURSE 350 SPEED SAME K

  It is almost as if a sheep were being herded to slaughter—and indeed he is. You can imagine the Jap skipper’s state of mind at this point. Everywhere he has turned he has run into a submarine. He must think there are dozens of them in the area, never dreaming that eleven of the twelve submarines are one and the same—the Seawolf—and without torpedoes.

  0524 on the morning of January 17, 1944, three torpedo explosions, followed by the reverberations of gunfire from the Jap. Possibly one fish hit in him.

  0600: plot reports the ship has stopped.

  0620: in the growing light the Jap ship has evidently sighted Seawolf still prowling in the distance on the surface, keeping well clear of possible erratic torpedoes. Since this is the only enemy he can see, he opens fire again. Seawolf does not even bother to dive.

  0623: one terrific explosion in the target. Smoke, spray, and steam rise high in the air, and the ship settles by the bow.

  0635: the target has sunk, a victim of at least two torpedoes from Whale. Seawolf is on her way back to port, with the skipper, the exec, the plotting party, and the communication department utterly exhausted after seventy-two hours on their feet under the most grueling strain.

  When Seawolf returned to Pearl Harbor with her report of four ships sunk, plus one “assist,” she was again received with wild enthusiasm—a not unusual thing for the Wolf. Characteristically, Gross gave the credit for his fifth ship to Whale, who had actually sunk it. Acey Burrows, on the other hand, stated that the credit belonged to Seawolf. There was glory enough for all.

  The career of the grand old submarine was just about over. She went back to San Francisco and for the second time was modernized. But progress is rapid in war, and she was an old ship—as fighting submarines go. She neither carried the number of torpedoes nor possessed the thick hull skin of later vessels. With full recognition of her valiant record to date, Seawolf was confined to secondary missions. She had sunk her last ship.

  The remainder of the saga of the Seawolf is quickly told. Under the command of Lieutenant Commander A. L. Bontier she left Australia on what was to be her fifteenth patrol.

  On October 3, 1944, a Japanese submarine attacked and sank USS Shelton (DE407) not far from Seawolf’s reported position. Maddened, Shelton’s comrades fanned forth in all directions to hunt the Nip submersible.

  On that same day, as luck would have it, Seawolf, Narwhal, and two other United States submarines were also in the vicinity, in an area in which no attacks on any submarines whatsoever were permitted.

  USS Rowell (DE403), anxious to avenge the sinking of Shelton, pressed her search hard, and finally detected a submerged submarine. Either not having been informed or having forgotten that he was in a “no attack” zone, her skipper immediately ordered attack with all weapons. He later reported that the submarine behaved in a peculiar manner, making little attempt to escape, and continually sending a series of dots and dashes over the sonar equipment. After several attacks, debris and a large air bubble came to the surface. A probable “kill” was credited, and a submarine silhouette was painted on Rowell’s bridge.

  Seawolf had been contacted by Narwhal at four minutes of eight on the morning of October 3. She did not answer an attempt to contact her next morning, nor was she ever heard from thereafter. It has since been established that the Japanese submarine which sank Shelton experienced no counter-measures, and was able to return to Japan. There is no Japanese report of attack on an American submarine which could possibly account for the known circumstances of Seawolf’s disappearance.

  Investigation disclosed what looked like certain though circumstantial proof that the submarine sunk by Rowell had been Seawolf. The fact that the trapped submarine had sent sonar signals, instead of evading, provided the final argument. Personnel of the American destroyer strenuously insisted that the signals were not in the correct recognition code, but mistakes had been made in them before.

  Sooner or later it was bound to happen. There had been instances of our own forces firing on United States submarines—one of the most inexcusable occurring near San Franci
sco in 1942 when USS Gato, escorted by one of our destroyers, was bombed nevertheless by a blimp which totally ignored the frantic signals sent by the escort. There had been many other cases of United States planes attacking friendly submarines during the war, and a few of surface forces firing on them. Indeed, the whole problem of submarine recognition had long been a perplexing one. Elaborate systems for safeguarding our submarines had been built up, and those lapses which did from time to time occur could be explained, usually, as unfortunate errors in the heat of battle. A few times, however, what appeared to be a lack of the rudiments of common sense had tragic results.

  And so, alone and friendless, unable to defend herself, frantically striving to make her identity known to her attacker, the old Wolf came to the end of the trail. Who can know what terror her crew must have tasted, when it became plain to them that the American destroyer escort above them, specially built and trained to sink German submarines, was determined to sink them also? Who can appreciate their desperation when they realized that the genius of their own countrymen had, by a monstrous miscast of the dice, been pitted against them?

  And who can visualize the hopeless, futile, unutterable bitterness of the final disaster, when, combined with the shock of the frame-smashing depth charges, came the rapier-like punch of the hedgehogs, piercing Seawolf’s stout old hull, starting the hydrant flow of black sea water, and ending forever all hopes of seeing sunlight again.

  Trigger spent eight weeks being ripped apart and then put back together again by the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. Dornin relieved Captain Roy Benson, and I was sent off on three weeks’ leave in the States. When I got back to Pearl, I carried in my heart the knowledge that I had met my bride-to-be, and had seen my father for the last time. A mountain of work instantly engulfed me.