Meanwhile, our first three fish had evidently not hit their target, perhaps due to a zig executed when the flares went off. But as we watched—and ran—a heavy flash of light suddenly showed up alongside one of the other escorts, a cloud of smoke appeared over him, and he disappeared. Not what we had been after, but at least we were not completely empty-handed.
Suddenly I realized that Dusty was standing beside me on the bridge. I pointed out the locations of the enemy convoy, the sunken destroyer, and our friend sowing ash cans astern.
He took it all in in an instant, then leaned against the speaker button. “Plot, give me a course to intercept the main body!”
“One six five, Bridge!” Plot was right on its toes.
“Left full rudder! New course one six five!” Dusty bawled the order down the hatch to the helmsman. Trigger heeled to starboard, and off we dashed after our fast-escaping quarry.
It soon developed that the Japs had upped their speed about 2 knots, and that we would be lucky to get close enough for another shot before dawn. Dornin set his jaw in characteristic fury, hurled imprecations into the murky grayness, and drove on insanely after the three plainly visible transports. We had been nearly an hour in chase when the radar, which we had kept periodically checking on the Nip destroyer left behind, reported that he was now under way at high speed in our direction. In a few minutes, however, Plot announced that he was apparently not chasing us, but merely rejoining the main body.
Sure enough, this particular Jap evidently still could not see. He swept past us at moderately long range with never a sign of recognition and took station with his convoy once more.
Trigger continued to pound along, hardly hoping to attain another firing position before daybreak, but Dusty was unwilling to give up while some chance remained. It looked pretty hopeless, because the light in the east was becoming too obvious to be ignored. But suddenly the three large silhouettes, which had been quite foreshortened as we viewed them from astern, broadened sharply. Zig left, in the direction of Truk. Just what we had been hoping for. It was now or never.
“Bridge! Bearing on the nearest one!” That was Dusty down below again, and from the preparatory commands floating up the hatch, he was getting ready to shoot. The biggest and nearest target happened to be the right-hand ship, the last one in the column. I trained the TBT exactly on his fat stack—and put the finger on Yasukuni Maru.
We fired at long range, but we hit him fair, and he sank in half an hour. One destroyer remained with him, picking up survivors, else we’d have tried to save a few ourselves. The other two ships turned their sterns toward us and disappeared over the fast-lightening horizon.
We returned to Pearl Harbor rather crestfallen. This was the first time in about two years that Trigger had brought back torpedoes from patrol. We had been a little spoiled by success, and this time we experienced some of the frustrations of many of our sisters. Nearing the entrance to Pearl, we decided to slip in with the minimum of bombast, and we flew no cockscomb.
Our idea of not attracting attention while entering did not fare too well. Several ships in the harbor blew their whistles as our weather-beaten ship glided past, and several exchanged calls with us by searchlight. Then as we neared the Navy Yard, and commenced the turn around “Ten Ten” dock to approach the submarine base, we found a great crowd of people gathered around the berth which had been assigned to us. In some consternation we spotted Admiral Lockwood and his entire staff, many of CincPac Staff including the Chief of Staff, and other high-ranking officers in the crowd. Amazed, Dusty and I decided there had been some mistake; but there was none. And after the first few minutes of vigorous hand-pumping we found out why.
There were two good reasons why we had rated such a welcoming committee. Our intelligence service had just discovered that Admiral Lockwood’s opposite number in the Japanese Submarine Force, ComJapSubPac, had been on board the ship we had sunk and had gone down with it. This type of blow touched everyone’s sense of dramatic values.
The second reason was that Admiral King had asked ComSubPac to send his most outstanding submarine commander to be his personal aide in Washington. The demise of ComJapSubPac had made the answer to that question an easy one. Dusty’s orders were handed him as our gangway was extended to us from the dock.
But Dusty, a great submariner, was not removed from action merely as a reward for services rendered. ComSubPac long ago had decided to relieve his skippers while they still were going great guns, before the terrific physical and emotional strain began to tell. Undoubtedly this policy often resulted in relieving a skipper who had several fine patrols left in him, but this was infinitely better than the reverse—keeping him too long on the firing line. If such a policy had been enforced at the time, the loss of Mush Morton and Wahoo might have been averted.
One of the most successful instances of collaboration between our submarine forces and the surface fleets took place at the First Battle of the Philippine Sea. Several subs were involved, but the two principal actors were Albacore and Cavalla.
Jim Blanchard and Herman Kossler would probably both tell you today that collaboration was furthest from their minds on the 19th of June, 1944. Although each knew of the other’s presence in the general vicinity, the fact that together they would deprive the Imperial Japanese Navy of two of its largest first-line aircraft carriers would have seemed the height of the unexpected to both of them. Curiously, Taiho and Shokaku were virtually sister ships, although the former was the newer by about two years and carried the latest improvements in design; and they were sunk on the same day—almost within sight of each other—by sister submarines. Cavalla was about two years newer than Albacore, but our standardization of design was such that the two were almost identical.
To Albacore and Jim Blanchard, veterans of many submarine war patrols, fell the brand-new, unseasoned Taiho. A few hours later Herman Kossler and his Cavalla, both fresh out of the building yard, got the veteran carrier Shokaku.
So it was that the First Battle of the Philippine Sea found only three large Japanese carriers opposed to our seven, which perhaps was part of the reason why our airmen knew that battle as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot.”
This story really starts on June 14. Albacore was on her ninth war patrol, operating in the area between Yap and Guam. For the past two days she had experienced heavy wind and seas, and consequently was behind schedule. Another submarine had reported damaging a ship in a convoy apparently en route for her area, and Jim Blanchard had bent on everything but the galley range in his effort to get into position to intercept. His chances looked pretty poor because of the bad weather, but he hung on grimly, running at full speed on the surface, hoping that the convoy also might have been delayed.
On the afternoon of the 14th, however, a message from ComSubPac directed Jim to discontinue the chase and to proceed to a point in almost the exact opposite direction. Since the submariner always works on the theory that the bird in the hand is worth several still in the bush, and since there still seemed to be hope of catching the elusive convoy, it was with some disappointment that Jim reversed course.
Not quite seven hours later another message was decoded in Albacore’s wardroom: she was to proceed to yet another spot for patrol. Again Blanchard ordered the course changed, and off they went to the new station. By this time there was little doubt in the skipper’s mind that something was happening—or about to happen.
All day long, on the 15th, Albacore patrolled assiduously back and forth, never straying more than a few miles from her station, and remaining constantly on the surface in order to increase her search radius. All day long also Blanchard drilled his crew at battle stations for what he hardly dared hope might come his way. A careful check of all messages received in the radio room was kept, and many, addressed to other submarines, were decoded. Pieced together—and then scrupulously destroyed, for you aren’t required to decode any messages except those addressed to you—they spelled out that something big was in the wind, and
that Albacore was one of several submarines to be placed in what looked like strategic positions.
At 0800 on June 18th a message arrived for Albacore, ordering her to shift position about one hundred miles to the southward. This itself was encouraging, for it showed that whatever was expected had not yet happened somewhere else, and that ComSubPac was keeping his fine hand right in the deal. Jim Blanchard sent his submarine south at full speed.
When June 19th arrived, things had so built up in the minds of the crew that most of them knew this was to be the day.
The feeling was not at all discouraged by the detection of two aircraft on the radar at 0430. Albacore promptly dived.
At 0700, the critical period of dawn with its tricky visibility past, she was again on the surface. And at 0716 a Jap patrol plane was sighted by an alert lookout, and once again the submarine dived.
Now sighting three aircraft within such a short interval usually indicates that something interesting is about to come along, for the Japs don’t have enough airplanes to waste in indiscriminant area search.
And so it proves. At 0750 ships are sighted. It is still pretty hazy to the west in the direction of the contact, and for a moment the skipper cannot make out what they are—but only for a moment.
“Battle stations submerged!” Before his eyes Jim Blanchard has the submariner’s dream come true—an enemy task force. Through the periscope he can see a huge aircraft carrier of the largest class; at least one cruiser, maybe more; and several other ships, some of them no doubt destroyers. It is given to very few submariners to see this sight and to be on the spot with a well-drilled crew, your torpedoes ready in the tubes, your battery warm with a full charge just completed.
“Left full rudder! All ahead flank!” The helmsman leans into the wheel and at the same time reaches up to the two annunciators and rings them over to the position marked FLANK. Men are still tumbling up from below, racing to their battle stations under the stimulus of the alarm, and Lieutenant Commander Ben Adams, Albacore’s exec, takes over the job of periscope jockey.
Blanchard’s initial observation has shown the carrier’s angle on the bow to be seventy degrees port, range about seven miles. It’s going to be an all-out race to get to a firing position, and if the enemy is making any speed at all, reaching him will be an impossibility, barring a radical zig toward.
“Up periscope!” Time for another look. Also, better take a careful look around. The situation is developing very fast, and you’ve got to keep the whole picture in your mind as fast as it develops, for you are the eyes and the brains.
The target should bear on the starboard bow, but the skipper suddenly switches his attention to something on the starboard beam. He quickly completes a 360-degree sweep, motions for the periscope to be lowered, and orders, “Right full rudder!”
His exec looks at him questioningly. As all executive officers and assistant approach officers should do, he has mentally visualized the relative positions of his ship and the enemy. Turning to the right is obviously the wrong maneuver for the situation as he knows it. But he does not have to wonder long.
“Another flattop! This one’s coming right down the groove. All we have to do is wait for him!”
Both men know the same thought: what a pity that there is only one submarine here. One carrier is sure to get away. The flattops are too far apart for an attack on both, even assuming that the submarine would be able to reach the first one. There is not even any argument about it: the thing to do is take the one which gives you the better shot, and worry about the other one later. As a matter of fact, the decision has already been made, and Albacore is even now turning for an approach on the carrier more recently sighted.
“Give me a course for a seventy track!” Blanchard spent many years in the old “S-boats” which had no TDC, and this is S-boat procedure, usually glossed over by skippers brought up in the fleet boats where you only have to glance at the TDC to have the whole picture right before your eyes.
Ben Adams has a small plastic gadget called an Is-Was hung around his neck. Consisting of a series of concentric compass roses of different diameters, plus a bearing indicator, it enables the assistant approach officer to keep track of the problem without a TDC to help him. It got its name from the fact that you can set it up for where the target is, and see from it where he was—and thus determine where he probably will be. At the skipper’s orders, Adams picks up the Is-Was and starts turning the two upper dials. In a moment he announces, “Zero three zero, Captain.”
“Steady on zero three zero!” Albacore is still swinging to the hard-over right rudder, and the helmsman eases the rudder slightly. A few seconds after the ship is steady on the course.
Another periscope observation. The range is now 9000 yards. Distance to track, 2,300 yards—the enemy will pass 2,300 yards from Albacore’s present position, if he doesn’t change course. Angle on the bow, fifteen starboard.
A minute later the periscope whirs upward again, then slithers downward. “Left full rudder!” Blanchard barks the order, then briefly explains it.
“There’s a destroyer between us and the carrier. He has a ten-degree starboard angle on the bow, which means he’ll pass fairly close to us. We’ll change to north for a while to let him go by, and then come around for the big fellow. No zig yet.”
One of the customs of the submarine service is that of continually cutting in your control party on what is going on. Doubtless this grew out of everyone’s desire for the dope—and the fact that the person at the periscope is the only one in position to have any.
So Jim Blanchard needs no prodding, and gives with more dope as soon as he makes another observation. “The can has zigged slightly away and now has a forty starboard angle on the bow. He’ll pass well clear. We’re coming around to get set up for the flattop. Give me a course for a ninety track!” The last is a command addressed to Ben Adams.
“Zero five zero, Captain!” Ben has been expecting that, and he has the answer ready. A ninety track means that the submarine course and target course are at exactly right angles to each other—the perfect position.
“Steady on zero five zero, sir!” from the helmsman. Blanchard glances at the TDC. The range has certainly closed fast. There isn’t much longer to go.
Suddenly a squawk box—a regular commercial interoffice speaker mounted above and alongside the TDC—announces with a tinny voice: “Conn, this is Plot. Target course one four zero, speed two seven—repeat, speed two seven!”
This is the confirmation the skipper has been waiting for. “Set in speed two seven!” he snaps at Lieutenant Ted Walker, operating the TDC.
The latter swiftly whirls a small crank with his left hand, stops it carefully, and sings out, “Set!”
“Up ’scope!” Then, “Looks good! All clear around! Nobody close aboard! Make ready all tubes!” There isn’t time to spare now, and Jim makes no effort to describe what he has just seen. Albacore is well inside the formation. The destroyer recently avoided is about one thousand yards dead ahead, evidently oblivious of the submarine’s presence. He has been heard to echo range listlessly once or twice; you can’t blame his lack of interest, for at 27 knots he’d be lucky to hear anything anyhow. A heavy cruiser is crossing Albacore’s stern, and the cruiser and carrier first sighted are about three miles away on her starboard quarter. Two destroyers on the target’s own starboard quarter look as though they will be in the best position to give a little trouble, but Jim plans to shoot before they can get up to him. Quite a few planes are in the air, and that adds to the problem, for if the submarine is detected now things will go to hell in a hurry. The carrier needs but to turn hard left to stay nicely out of torpedo range, while those two tin cans with him could keep right on coming. Not to mention another destroyer who, if he puts his rudder hard right, will pass direcover Albacore.
Albacore plans to shoot bow tubes, and has so handled the approach; stern tubes are made ready also simply to be prepared for anything. The carrier might zig across
her stern, for example, although not a zig has he made so far—he probably is trusting to his high speed to protect him from attack.
“All tubes ready, Captain. Depth set, speed high. Ready to shoot!” As the report is made, the familiar quietness settles in the conning tower. Here comes the biggest chance Albacore has ever had. The value of this particular target is incalculable. The very sequence of messages during the past week has proved that. ComSubPac doesn’t know yet that one of his submarines has made contact, but he certainly bent every effort to dispose enough submarines along the anticipated track to insure that someone would. Now that he has brought this particular submarine into action, however, it is up to Jim Blanchard and his Albacore to take their turn at shaping destiny.
Jim Blanchard squats on his heels before the lowered periscope. He doesn’t need to look at the TDC—those years in S-boats have given him the ability to visualize the setup without any mechanical help.
“Six five feet,” he orders. The previous order had been sixty-four feet; now he goes down as deep as he can, leaving only a few inches of periscope exposure.
“Up periscope!” The strident whirring of the electric hoist motor fills the conning tower.
“I figure we’ll be on the firing point in one minute, Captain!” This from the Executive Officer. “Recommend we let them go any time!”
Jim Blanchard motions impatiently. He, too, has figured that out. He squats before the periscope, facing the shiny oily barrel, then raises his head and looks at the members of his fire-control party. Not a word is spoken; all eyes are on the skipper.
Something in their bearing tells Jim what he wants to know. No question about their readiness. As the periscope handles rise into his hands, he speaks softly: “Final bearing and shoot!”
“Stand by number one!” He fire control talker speaks into his telephone mouthpiece. Then he speaks louder, so that the whole party in the crowded conning tower can hear him—“Standing by ONE!”—signifying that the people in the forward torpedo room have the word and are ready.
Submarine! Page 20