Submarine!

by Edward L. Beach

  The Captain’s voice now comes a little stronger. “Bearing—mark! Down ’scope! No range yet!”

  “Two nine five,” Bobo sings out the bearing. Bunting checks his TDC. Down below in the control room, Plot gets the bearing, plots it. There has been a temporary hiatus, while the ship pulls itself together for the final effort, but it is over now.

  “Up periscope! Bearing—mark!”

  “Two nine six!”

  “Range—mark! Down periscope!”

  “Six five double oh!”

  “Angle on the bow. Starboard five degrees!”

  Things are really clicking now. At 20 knots the target will travel the distance between himself and Archerfish in nine minutes and a few seconds. It is time to maneuver to gain a favorable firing position as he goes by.

  “What’s the distance to the track?” The Captain can’t be bothered with doing this calculation himself.

  Bobo does it for him by trigonometry, multiplying the sine of the angle on the bow by the range. He has what amounts to a slide rule to make the computation, and the answer is almost instantaneous. “Five five oh yards!”

  Much too close! The submarine is also headed toward the target’s projected track. At minimum submerged speed of 2 knots, in nine minutes she will have traveled 600 yards, and will be almost directly beneath the target as he goes by. These thoughts and computations flash across Joe Enright’s mind in a split second, even as he gives the order to mitigate the situation. “Left full rudder! Left to course zero nine zero!” By turning her bow more toward the target, Archerfish will be enabled to fire torpedoes a little sooner, thus catching Shinano at a reasonable range; also, she will not close the track so quickly.

  All this time Shinano is pounding on to his doom. As soon as Archerfish steadies on the new course, her periscope rises above the waves once more, remains a moment, then disappears. Range, bearing, and angle on the bow are fed into the TDC and plot. Her skipper’s mind is functioning like lightning. There are three things which Shinano may do: Continue on his present course, which will put Archerfish in the least favorable firing position, necessitating a sharp track shot ahead of time. Or, zig to his right, causing the submarine to shoot him with stern tubes. Most favorable would be a zig of about 30 degrees to his left, which would leave him wide open for a square broadside shot from the bow tubes.

  “How much time?” rasps the skipper, motioning with his thumbs for the periscope to go up.

  “He’ll be here in two minutes!”

  The periscope rises out of the well. “Zig away, to his own left! Angle on the bow starboard thirty!” The TDC dials whirl as the new information is fed into it.

  “Bearing—mark!”

  “Three four eight!”

  “Range—mark!”

  “Two oh double oh!”

  Swiftly the Captain spins the periscope, making a quick scan of the situation all around. Suddenly he stops, returns to a bearing broad on the port beam.

  “Down ’scope! Escort passing overhead!”

  The periscope streaks down. For the first time they are conscious of a new noise, a drumming noise—propeller beats—coming closer. With a roar like that of an express train, the high-speed destroyer screws sweep overhead.

  “This is a shooting observation! Are the torpedoes ready?” Unconsciously, the Captain’s voice has become clipped and sharp. This is the moment they have worked for all night. He must not fail!

  “Shooting observation. All tubes are ready, sir, depth set fifteen feet. Range one five double oh, angle on bow starboard eight five. We are all ready to shoot, sir!”

  The cool, self-possessed voice of Sigmund Bobczynski surprises both himself and the Captain. There is no wavering, no lack of confidence here. A quick look of affectionate understanding passes between these two who have traveled so far and worked so long together.

  “Up periscope! Looks perfect! Bearing—mark!”

  “Zero zero one!”

  “Set!”—from the TDC officer.

  And then that final word, the word they have been leading up to, the word they have all studiously avoided pronouncing until now. “Fire!”

  At eight-second intervals, six torpedoes race toward their huge target. Mesmerized, the skipper of Archerfish stands at his periscope watching for the success or failure of his approach. Forty-seven endless seconds after firing, the culmination of Archerfish’s efforts is achieved.

  “Whang!” then eight seconds later, “Whang!” Two hits right before his eyes! But there isn’t time to play the spectator. That destroyer who just passed overhead will be coming back, and the trailing escort will surely join the party in short order.

  A quick look astern of the carrier. Sure enough, here he comes, and less than five hundred yards away. “Take her down!”

  Negative tank is flooded and the planes put at full dive. Over the rush of water into and air out of negative tank, four more solid, beautiful hits are heard.

  The next thing on the docket after a torpedo attack is usually a depth charge attack, and this case proves no exception. But after their glorious experience, it will take a lot of depth charges to dampen the spirits of these submariners. The patrol report actually indicates surprise that the depth charging was not more severe, and merely states, “Started receiving a total of fourteen depth charges,” and a little later, “Last depth charge. The hissing, sputtering, and sinking noises continued.”

  And what of Shinano all this time? Archerfish made but one mistake in her report. Her target did not sink immediately, as she believed, and, as a matter of strict truth, it would not have sunk at all had its crew possessed even a fraction of the training and indoctrination of its adversary, After all, Shinano was theoretically designed to survive twenty or more torpedoes. If she had been properly handled by her crew, and if she had been properly built, she could have made port in spite of Archerfish’s six torpedoes.

  But water poured from damaged compartments into undamaged ones via watertight doors which had no gaskets; through cable and pipe conduits not properly sealed off and stuffing tubes not packed. The Japanese engineers attempted to start the pumps—and found they had not yet been installed, the piping not even completed. They searched for the hand pumps, but the ship had not yet received her full allowance of gear, and only a few were on board. In desperation, a bucket brigade was started, but the attempt was hopeless. The six huge holes in Shinano’s side and the innumerable internal leaks defied all efforts to cope with them.

  And then her organization and discipline failed. The men drifted away from the bucket brigade by ones and twos. The engineers gave up trying to get part of the drainage system running. The officers rushed about giving furious orders—but no one obeyed them. Instead, fatalistically, most of the crew gathered on the flight deck in hopes of being rescued by one of the four destroyers milling around their stricken charge. Faint, pathetic hope.

  Four hours after she had received her mortal wound. Shinano had lost all power, and was nothing but a beaten, hopeless, disorganized hulk, listing to starboard more heavily every moment, a plaything of the wind and the sea. There was only one thing left to do.

  The Emperor, in his gilded frame, was removed from the bridge and, after being thoroughly wrapped, transferred by line to a destroyer alongside. Then the work of abandoning ship began.

  Shortly before 1100 on the morning of November 29 Shinano capsized to starboard, rolling her broad flight deck under and exposing her enormous glistening fat belly, with its four bronze propellers at the stern. For several minutes she hung there, lurching unevenly in the moderately rough sea.

  Here and there the figures of several men who had not leaped into the sea with the others stood upon the steel plates, silhouetted against sea and sky. Evidently they had climbed around the side and the turn of the bilge as the ship rolled over. Whatever their reasons for not abandoning the ship, they were now doomed, for none of the four destroyers still holding the wake dared approach closely enough to take them off. And the suctio
n of the sinking vessel was certain to take them down with it.

  Slowly the massive rudders and propellers started to dip under the seas splashing up toward them. A trembling and a groaning communicated itself to the whole giant fabric, and it began to sway noticeably, swinging the afterparts and the foreparts under alternately. Each time an end dipped, the sea gained a little, and the trembling and groaning increased.

  Finally, during one swoop, the stern failed to reappear. Startlingly and suddenly, the bow rose partly out of water, displaying a single eye formed by one gigantic hawsepipe, as if Shinano desired a final look at the world she was about to leave. Swiftly then she slid under, stern first, and the last thing seen was the broad bulbous bow, like the forehead of some huge prehistoric Moby Dick, accompanied by the blowing, bubbling, and whistling of air escaping under water.

  For several minutes there was considerable turbulence and bubbling to mark her grave, but Shinano was gone from the ken of men.

  She had known the open sea for less than twenty hours.

  Trigger was a roaring, brawling, rollicking ship, and she loved the sound of her torpedoes going off. There was the night she and two sister subs took on a seventeen-ship convoy, with the result that there were but nine ships next morning. This was quite a story, for none of the other submarines knew of the presence of Trigger, and Trigger actually and unwittingly stole two fat targets right out from under the nose of one of her sisters.

  It was a night in November. We had penetrated the Nanpo Shoto the night before, and had been hurrying along on the surface all day long, diving twice for inquisitive Jap planes, hoping to get across to the Nansei Shoto and through that chain of islands in short order, en route to our area. We were about one hundred and thirty miles south of the Bungo Suido of unpleasant memories as dusk fell, and with it a pleasant surprise.

  Radar contact! The clarion call from Yeoman First Class Ralph Korn on the radar brings us all to the alert. “Big convoy, sir! Five or ten ships, maybe more. Radar interference, too, sir.”

  That last complicates matters. We’ve been expecting to run into Jap radar-equipped escorts for quite a while, and apparently we’ve got one this time. This is going to take some doing, all right, and we ought to have an interesting time of it. In the first place, we figure our radar is probably better than his. In the second place, our small silhouette is harder for a radar to detect than that of a freighter or destroyer. So our tactics are to keep just barely within our radar’s range of detection, and we hope that by so doing we’ll be outside of his radar range.

  Once again we begin tracking and plotting. Our scheme works pretty well, and soon we have his course and speed down cold. We would like to start in from the port flank of the convoy now, but cannot, because that triple-damned radar escort is in our way. Laboriously we work our way across the bow of the zigzagging convoy—we have counted by this time seventeen ships on our radar screen, though we cannot see them at all in the dark—and prepare to start in from their starboard flank. No soap! The five times sincerely damned radar escort has crossed to the starboard side too!

  Cussing heartily, we work around to the port side again, hoping the escort’s movements were more coincidental than premeditated, and that he is as yet not aware of Trigger’s presence. Once on that side the mystery seems explained, because we now find two radar-equipped vessels, one on each side of the convoy. However, this chap on the port side evidently doesn’t know his job, and has allowed himself to get way out of position, well out on the port bow of the convoy.

  O.K., chum. You slipped up that time. Here we go! Trigger’s four murmuring diesels lift their voices in a devouring roar. She swings sharply right and races for the leading ship of the convoy. “Make ready all tubes! Angle on the bow forty-five port. Range, three eight double oh.” The port escort is still unsuspiciously maintaining his station well outside of us.

  “All tubes ready, sir! Range, three oh double oh. Angle on the bow sixty port.” We can see them clearly from the bridge now. Formless, cloudy masses, a little darker than the dark sky. As we watch them narrowly, they suddenly seem to lengthen a trifle; a zig away! We must shoot right now! “All ahead one third!” The roar of the diesels drops to a mutter. “Standby forward! Range, two four double oh. Angle on the bow ninety port. Fire ONE! ...... Fire TWO! . . . THREE! . . . FOUR! . . .”

  Four white streaks bubble out toward the convoy, and a large dark shape moves unknowingly and inexorably to meet them. Though we’ve seen it time and again, this moment is always the most thrillingly portentous one of all. It is the climax of training, of study, of material preparation, and of tremendous, sustained, perilous effort. The lure of the jumping trout, the thrill of the hunt, stalking the wild deer, or even hunting down the mighty king of beasts—none could hold new and unknown thrills for those of us who have watched our torpedoes as they and their huge target approach each other and finally merge together.

  The seconds are hours, the minutes days. Target and torpedo wakes are together now. The first torpedo must have missed. Count ten for the second . . . . WHAM! . . . WHAM! Two flashes of yellow light stun the secret darkness. Two clouds of smoke and spume rise from alongside our target. Swiftly he rolls over, men appearing magically all about, climbing down his sides, crawling over his bottom, instinctively postponing their inevitable doom.

  In the meantime, all is confusion in the rest of the convoy. Our other two torpedoes, missing the ship they were aimed at, have struck home in some unfortunate vessels beyond him. We hear the explosions and see the flashes—rather to be expected, too, because of the tightly packed crowd of ships—but other than a high cloud of smoke we have no positive proof of damage in more than one other.

  Just at this moment, with Trigger wheeling madly about under right full rudder and all ahead flank, three shapes detach themselves from the milling mass of freighters and tankers and head for us, bows on. We knew it was too good to last. Destroyers!

  A quick decision, regretfully made, for it leaves the rest of the convey free to scatter unhindered. Take her down!

  Down we go, and just in time, for we pass 100 feet when the first depth charges go off. There are propellers churning all about us, depth charges close aboard shaking Triggers solid ribs and pounding her tough hide, while we grit our teeth at 300 feet and take our licking. Damn them! Damn them! Damn them!

  Suddenly the depth charges cease, and we hear three sets of screws leave us rapidly. Well! A break! Maybe we’ll get some more of those bastards! Fifty-five feet! Let’s go, Control—let’s get up there!

  Up we come to fifty-five feet, take a good look around through the periscope. All clear. Surface! Ready on four engines! All ahead flank! Course one six oh.

  High-pressure air whistles into Trigger’s tanks. Maneuvering room answers the flank speed bell by giving the motors all the battery has to offer. The screws bite into the water. Engine rooms get standby on all engines. Trigger is making 10 knots when she hits the surface. As soon as the conning tower hatch pops out of water we are on the bridge.

  Open the main induction! We are answered by the clank of the induction valve and instantly the starting song of the engines. Four clouds of blue-white smoke pour from Trigger’s exhaust pipes and are whipped away by the wind. We are up to 13 knots by this time, and mingled with the whistle of the wind, the splashing rush of the waves, and the deep bass of the diesels, we hear the screaming of the low-pressure blower down in the pump room, completing the job of emptying the main ballast tanks.

  A jumble of discordant noises—but to us they are Trigger’s eager battlecry.

  Without slackening our speed, the diesels are connected to the motors and the battery taken off. Trigger continues to accelerate, and two minutes after surfacing she is making 18 knots. As her tanks go dry she increases speed to 20 knots, angrily burying her snout in the waves as she hurries heedlessly through them or over them.

  We pick course 160 because this was the base course of the convoy. Before we dived our impression was that
the Japs had scattered, but common sense indicates that they’ll probably try to continue in the same general direction.

  Sure enough, one hour later we find a lone merchantman. In a hurry now, we bore in and fire immediately. One hit, but he’s a tough customer, and that’s not enough for him. He opens up with two deck guns, tries futilely to stay on Trigger’s low, dark form.

  Furious now, Trigger rushes past him, turns on her heel, and comes charging back. She really bores in this time. To hell with his guns—he’s all over the ocean with them! In we go, till his side looms as big and broad as a barn. WHAM! . . . WHAM! That finishes him, and he goes down like a rock.

  Course 160 once more, and we run for another hour, pick up another ship, a tanker this time. Once again we hardly alter course. He steams across our bow at 1000 yards, and is greeted with three crashing torpedo hits, sinking so fast that as we, without changing a thing, pass across where his stem used to be, all we see is his tall stack sticking out of the water, slightly canted forward, smoke still pouring out of the top of it for all the world as though nothing had happened.

  We looked around for more ships, but dawn broke, and none were in sight. The sequel to the story was not told till later, when patrol reports were submitted. The second radar-equipped escort, which we had so neatly avoided in our initial attack, was our good friend the USS Seahorse, herself the nemesis of many Japs, who was even then in the process of drawing a bead on the same chap we’d sunk.

  That Seahorse was somewhat disturbed at our intrusion on a convoy she had tracked for nearly twenty-four hours is putting it mildly. But she kindly verified the sinking of two ships plus the probable sinking of a third from our attack, then went on to sink three more herself. In the meantime another United States sub, having trailed the convoy for two days, finally caught up and knocked off one for herself. Total: eight sunk, nine left, probably all escorts.