There was one submarine, however, which, so the story ran, was always welcomed somewhat differently. It seems that months before the war started, USS Skipjack (SS 184) had submitted a requisition for some expendable material essential to the health and comfort of the crew. What followed was, to the seagoing Navy, a perfect example of how to drive good men mad unnecessarily. For almost a year later Skipjack received her requisition back, stamped “Cancelled—cannot identify material.” Whereupon Jim Coe, skipper of the Skipjack, let loose with a blast which delighted everybody except those attached to the supply department of the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California.
This is what he wrote:
USS SKIPJACK
SSI84/L8/SS36-1
June 11, 1942
From:
The Commanding Officer.
To:
Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, California.
Via:
Commmander Submarines, Southwest Pacific.
Subject:
Toilet Paper.
Reference:
(a)(4608) USS HOLLAND (5184) USS SKIPJACK
(b)SO NYMI cancelled invoice No. 272836.
Enclosure:
(A)Copy of cancelled invoice.
(B)Sample of material requested.
1. This vessel submitted a requisition for 150 rolls of toilet paper on July 30, 1941, to USS HOLLAND. The material was ordered by HOLLAND from the Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, for delivery to USS SKIPJACK.
2. The Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, on November 26, 1941, cancelled Mare Island invoice No. 272836 with the stamped notation “Cancelled—cannot identify.” This cancelled invoice was received by SKIPJACK on June 10, 1942.
3. During the 11¼ months elapsing from the time of ordering the toilet paper and the present date, the SKIPJACK personnel, despite their best efforts to await delivery of subject material, have been unable to wait on numerous occasions, and the situation is now quite acute, especially during depth charge attack by the “back-stabbers.”
4. Enclosure (B) is a sample of the desired material provided for the information of the Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island. The Commanding Officer, USS SKIPJACK cannot help but wonder what is being used in Mare Island in place of this unidentifiable material, once well known to this command.
5. SKIPJACK personnel during this period have become accustomed to the use of “ersatz”, i.e., the vast amount of incoming non-essential paper work, and in so doing feel that the wish of the Bureau of Ships for reduction of paper work is being complied with, thus effectively killing two birds with one stone.
6. It is believed by this command that the stamped notation “cannot identify” was possibly an error, and that this is simply a case of shortage of strategic war material, the SKIPJACK probably being low on the priority list.
7. In order to cooperate in our war effort at a small local sacrifice, the SKIPJACK desires no further action to be taken until the end of current war, which has created a situation aptly described as “war is hell.”
J. W. COE
It is to be noted that Jim Coe was wrong in one particular—it had been only ten and a quarter months. But his letter, carrying in it all the fervor and indignation of a man who has received a mortal hurt, achieved tremendous fame.
We also heard that it had achieved rather remarkable results back in Mare Island, although this was mostly hearsay. But one result was extremely noticeable indeed: whenever Skipjack returned from patrol, no matter where she happened to put in, she received no fruit, no vegetables, and no ice cream. Instead, she invariably received her own outstandingly distinctive tribute—cartons and cartons of toilet paper.
Jim Coe, a most successful submarine commander and humorist to boot, is no longer with us. After three patrols in command of Skipjack, he returned to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to place the new submarine Cisco in commission. On September, 19, 1943, Cisco departed from Darwin, Australia, on her first war patrol, and was never heard from again.
Our orders said, “Refit at Midway,” which didn’t please us particularly since the only things of interest on Midway were gooney birds and whisky, the former of which became very boring after an hour or two. That evening at the Gooneyville Tavern I met Don Horsman, who had been repair officer during the overhaul of the month before. Don had been trying his best to get into a submarine on patrol, and I was glad to see that he had finally broken away from the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard.
We had much to talk about—mutual friends; his cute family of three little girls; and the performance of various items of equipment in Trigger which we had worried over together. In the midst of the conversation a thought struck me.
“Don,” I said, “what’s the dope on the Dorado? She should be due in Pearl any day now, shouldn’t she? We heard from Penrod that his wife christened the ship, and that his father was also there when she was launched. That was several months ago.”
The grin faded from Don’s moonlike face, and he put his drink down. “She’s down, Ned,” he said.
It didn’t hit me at first. “Down where?” I asked naïvely. “Didn’t they send her straight to Pearl?”
“I mean—down—gone. Penrod never even got to the Panama Canal. One of our own planes claims to have sunk a German submarine at the time and place where she was supposed to have been.”
I pressed Horsman for more details, and the noise and confusion of the first day back from patrol faded from consciousness. But that was all Don had heard.
Some of the stories of World War II can never be fully told. Some will live only in the hearts of men who took part in them, who will carry their secrets silently to their graves. Some stories will not be told at all, because the only men who could tell them lie at the bottom of the sea. And some are part of our naval heritage, and will go down in history with stories of Old Ironsides, Thomas Truxton and his Constellation, John Paul Jones and Bon Homme Richard, Enterprise, and many others.
Such a story is the story of Archerfish, the ship which broke the heart of the Japanese Navy.
The keel was laid for USS Archerfish in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on January 22, 1943. Exactly one year later she sank her first ship. And on November 28, 1944—but let’s start at the beginning.
The story really begins in 1939 in Yokosuka, Japan. The Japanese Naval Ministry was holding secret sessions. The probability of becoming involved in the European war was growing greater and greater; the probability of then finding their nation pitted against the United States was almost a certainty. How, then, to assure Japan of a telling superiority? How to fight that great American sea power in the Pacific? And how to do away with the London Naval Treaty, which limited Japan to an ignominious three fifths of the war vessels allowed the United States?
There was only one answer. The treaty already had been violated—tear it up. Start building in earnest for the war they know is coming.
Secret instructions were sent to the largest shipyard in Japan. Millions of board feet of wood came from the forest reserves, and thousands of carpenters were employed to build a gigantic yard. Houses for 50,000 people were requisitioned and these, too, were fenced in around the fenced Navy Yard. Finally, one day in 1940, an order was issued from the Commandant’s office: “From this date henceforth no one leaves the Navy Yard.” And so was born the battleship Shinano.
By the summer of 1942 she was not quite half finished. This super-battleship with two sisters Yamato and Musashi, was bigger than any war vessel ever before constructed in the history of the world. Bigger than Bismarck, the German behemoth of 50,000 tons. Almost three times as big as Oklahoma, lying bottom up in the mud and ooze of Pearl Harbor. Armor plate twenty inches thick. Engines of 200,000 horsepower. Guns throwing projectiles eighteen inches in diameter.
Then at the Battle of Midway, in June, 1942, the flower of the Japanese naval air force met destruction. Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu—all first-line carriers—were sunk. The attack on Midway was turned back, a complete failure. The Naval Mi
nistry met again in secret session, and decided that completion of new aircraft carriers was paramount. So Shinano was redesigned. Some of the tremendous armor plate was removed from her side. Her huge barbettes, turrets, and eighteen-inch guns were never installed, and the weight thus saved was put into an armored flight deck made of hardened steel four inches thick. Under this flight deck were built two hangar decks, and below them another armored deck, eight inches thick. She was capable of storing 100 to 150 planes, and could land them and take them off simultaneously from an airfield nearly one thousand feet in length and 130 feet in width.
But all this took time, and as 1944 drew to a close, the need of the Japanese Navy for its new super carrier became increasingly acute. Finally, in November, 1944, Shinano was nearly completed. The commissioning ceremonies were held on November 18; a picture of the Emperor in an ornate gilded frame was ceremoniously delivered to the vessel, and she was turned over to her commanding officer.
Then the bad news arrived. Japanese strategic intelligence reports indicated that air raids on the Tokyo area would become increasingly severe, with a good possibility that the brave new ship would be seriously exposed at her fitting-out dock. There was even a possibility that United States Forces would discover the existence of the huge vessel and make a special effort to destroy her before she could get to sea. This could not be permitted. The Tokyo area was too vulnerable. The ship must be moved to the Inland Sea.
Now the Inland Sea is the body of water formed between the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. It has three entrances: two, the Bungo and Kii Suidos, into the Pacific, and one, Shimonoseki Strait, into the landlocked Sea of Japan. It is an ideal operating base for an inferior navy which must depend upon being able to hide when it cannot fight.
But Shinano is not ready to go to sea. True, she is structurally complete, her engines can operate, and she floats, but she is not quite ready. Her watertight integrity has not been proved. Air tests have been made of only a few of her hundreds of compartments. Many holes through various bulkheads have not yet been plugged. Watertight doors have not been tested, and it is not known whether they can be closed; furthermore, even if they can be closed, no one knows if they are actually watertight. Electrical wiring and piping passing through watertight bulkheads have not had their packing glands set up and tested. Cable and pipe conduits from the main deck into the bowels of the ship have not been sealed. The pumping and drainage system is not complete; piping is not all connected. The fire main cannot be used because the necessary pumps have not been delivered.
Most important of all, the crew has been on board for only one month. They number 1,900 souls, but few have been to sea together. Many have never been to sea at all, and none have had any training whatsoever on board Shinano. They do not know their ship. They are not a crew. They are 1,900 people.
But it is decided, nonetheless, that Shinano must sail to safer waters immediately. To do so she must pass out of Tokyo Bay, steer south and west around the southeastern tip of Honshu, and enter the Kii Suido, a trip of only a few hundred miles. But about half the trip will be in waters accessible to United States submarines. That risk she must take. Give her an escort of four destroyers, and send her at high speed so that the submarines cannot catch her. Make the move in absolute secrecy, so that there will be no possibility of an unfortunate leak of information.
The die was cast, and on the afternoon of November 28, 1944, Shinano set sail with her four escorting destroyers. Sailors and workmen crowded about her decks, and the gilded frame glittered in the late afternoon sunlight on the flying bridge. From within the frame, the image of the Son of Heaven beamed happily on this mightiest of warships.
Thus was set the stage for the greatest catastrophe yet to befall the hapless Japanese Navy. Work for four years building the biggest ship of its kind that has ever been constructed by man; put 1,900 men on board; install a picture of the Emperor on the bridge, and send her out through a few miles of water exposed to possible operations of American submarines.
There was nothing particularly portentous about the laying of the keel of Archerfish. She displaced 1,500 tons, or one-fiftieth the tonnage of the huge vessel fated to be her adversary. She was only one third the length of Shinano, and her crew of eighty-two men and officers was about one fortieth of the 3,200 estimated full designed complement of the Japanese ship.
Leaving New London, Archerfish zigzags southward through the center of the broad Atlantic, in waters infested by her enemy sisters. Do not think that a submarine is not afraid of other submarines. We are probably more afraid of them and more respectful of them than any other type of vessel would be. A submarine cruising on the surface is a delicious morsel. It almost always travels alone, and its only defense is its own vigilance. Zigzag all day and even at night, if the visibility is fairly good. Keep a sharp lookout and radar watch. Tell yourselves over and over again, “Boys, don’t relax. We are playing for keeps now.”
The weather becomes perceptibly warmer. Finally, land is sighted, and Archerfish slips through the Mona Passage into the Caribbean Sea. Here the waters are even more infested with German submarines than are the wide reaches of the central Atlantic. Archerfish puts on full speed and dashes across the Caribbean to Cristobal, at the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal. She arrives early in the morning and proceeds immediately through the great locks, and through Gatun Lake to the submarine base at Balboa on the Pacific end of the Canal.
No danger here from German subs. No time, either, for any rest for the tired crew, for they have lost the edge from their training and must be brought back “on the step” again. One week is all that is available. Archerfish is issued nine practice torpedoes, and fires them again and again. Target convoys are provided. Day and night exercises are conducted. Rarely does the crew turn in before midnight, and all hands are always up at 0500. Archerfish does not even stop for lunch, but instead distributes sandwiches to all members of the crew, making up for it with a good breakfast and a good dinner.
One week of this; then, her crew once again in fine fettle, Archerfish sails across the broad Pacific, on the final and longest leg of her journey to Pearl Harbor. She and her crew have had a pretty steady go of it. They have been training strenuously and incessantly for the past two months with practically no rest, but they cannot be allowed to relax.
They know that the competition in the far western Pacific is mighty tough, so they drill steadily, on every maneuver of which the ship is capable, except the actual firing of torpedoes. Archerfish cannot fire torpedoes, because she is transporting a full load of “war shots.” One of the most convenient ways of getting torpedoes to Pearl Harbor was to send them by submarine.
Finally land is sighted. A PC boat signals through the early dawn to Archerfish, “We are your escort,” and swings about to lead the submarine to Pearl Harbor. This is the last stop. Below decks all hands are feverishly cleaning up the ship and themselves. They intend to make a good entrance into Pearl; they are proud of their ship, and will not willingly allow her to suffer by comparison with any other in looks or efficiency.
Finally Archerfish gently noses into a dock at the submarine base, Pearl Harbor, where a small group of officers and enlisted men await her. Admiral Lockwood, the Commander Submarines, Pacific Fleet (also known as “Uncle Charlie”), is on hand to greet this newest addition to his forces. With him is an array of talent: the squadron commander, the division commander, the officer in charge of the repair department, the submarine supply officer, a submarine medical officer, an electronics officer, and a commissary officer.
The enlisted men are evidently a working party. As Archerfish approaches the dock, they scamper to catch the weighted heaving lines thrown by members of her crew. Pulling in swiftly on the “heevies,” they haul heavy hawsers from the deck of the submarine to the dock. Others stand by with a narrow gangway and, when the submarine finally comes to rest alongside the dock, bridge the gap between dock and ship with it.
The moment the gangwa
y has been placed, Admiral Lockwood, followed by his train of experts, walks aboard to greet the skipper, who by this time has jumped down from his station on the bridge. Asking if there are any outstanding emergency repairs or other troubles, Uncle Charlie chats for a few moments. Like a man who has just had a new automobile delivered to him, he is interested in all the new wrinkles and gadgets on board. Then, bidding the skipper good-by until lunch, to which he has been invited at Uncle Charlie’s mess, the Admiral leaves the ship.
This is the opportunity the rest of his staff have been waiting for. Each one of them searches out his opposite number on board and makes arrangements for necessary repairs. In addition, there are several last-minute alterations which must be accomplished before the ship can depart. The workmen—all Navy men—who are to perform these operations are to a large extent already en route to the dock with their tools and equipment. By this method of making alterations virtually on the fighting front, so to speak, our submarines always went into battle with the very latest and finest equipment.
Meanwhile, the enlisted men who had come on the dock with the Admiral, and who had handled lines for the ship, have not been idle. Three or four bulging mail sacks, a crate of oranges, a box of nice red apples, and a five-gallon can of ice cream were brought down with them on a handcart. These they now passed over the gangway to the eagerly awaiting crew of Archerfish.
On December 23, 1943, while Shinano was still building, Archerfish departed Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol. Too bad she could not have stayed for Christmas, but orders must be obeyed, and operations seldom take notice of such things. Besides, her crew had been brought up to the fever pitch of enthusiasm. Christmas or no, she was eager to be on her way.
Submarine! Page 13