Submarine!

by Edward L. Beach

  Cavalla’s contact tracks at 19 knots, and as the range closes many ships begin to be picked up on the radar, in addition to the several large ones first seen. Obviously this is some kind of task force, and from its course and speed it is heading from the Philippines to Guam. This information is vital to our forces engaged there, but Herman resolves to continue the approach until he is certain of his contact. Perhaps it isn’t a carrier task force at all, in which case he’ll be free to attack. It must be admitted that by this time Kossler is hoping that the ships prove to be almost anything except carriers.

  But at 2030 Herman can make out one large carrier, several cruisers, and many destroyers through his periscope as he closes the range. And remaining submerged, his crew at battle stations, he passes right through the whole formation without firing a shot, counting the number and types of vessels in it! It is not until he is almost clear of the task force that two of the escorts begin to be suspicious of his presence, and for an hour they search the area, forcing Cavalla to take evasive action until they tire. And finally, with the skipper in a cold fury, the submarine manages to surface and get the all-important contact report off by radio.

  Herm Kossler has good reason for being angry with the two little fellows who kept Cavalla down that extra hour. By so doing they have almost surely prevented her from catching up with the task force again. For the second time in twenty-four hours the sub chases at full speed, hoping to regain contact, knowing well that there is precious little chance of it.

  All day long, that June 18, as Cavalla dashed in pursuit, her skipper was a prey to doubts as to whether he had done the right thing. After all, the submariner’s creed is to attack whenever you have the chance. Maybe he should have taken the flattop when the Jap went across in front of his torpedo tubes—how would he ever he able to explain his action to his fellows?

  But what Herman didn’t know, couldn’t have known, was the effect of this message and the change it made in the plans of the high command at that important juncture. Since we had a pretty good idea of the composition of the Jap forces, and since Herman had been so careful to detail the exact composition of the particular group he saw, our planners were enabled to make some rather shrewd estimates of the disposition of the enemy’s forces and the remainder of his plans. Within a few hours of the receipt of Cavalla’s contact message, orders went out to every submarine in the vicinity to shift patrol stations according to a carefully laid out plot. One of these boats was Albacore and another was Cavalla herself.

  Shortly after midnight on the morning of June 19 Herman broke off the chase and headed for his newly-assigned patrol station—assigned, although he did not know it—as a result of his own contact report of some twenty-eight hours previous. By this time he was racked with disappointment, and completely exhausted from having been on his feet for nearly forty-eight hours. Some sleep was possible now, although it was broken three times in the next nine hours by plane contacts which forced Cavalla to submerge.

  At 1039, as the submarine is preparing to surface after the last dunking, Herman sights four small planes circling in the distance. A few minutes later the sound operator reports some peculiar water noises in the same direction. All thoughts of immediate surfacing are now forgotten, as a careful watch is kept on the planes. They are too small to be patrol planes, so maybe something of interest will come of the contact.

  Sure enough! Masts are sighted directly under the planes, and screws of other ships are heard on the sound gear. Once again the musical chimes resound through Cavalla’s steel hull, calling her crew to battle stations for the third time in two days. Once again men race through the ship, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, hurriedly throwing on some clothes as they go, wordlessly taking their stations as they wonder what fate has in store for them this time, and hope that Cavalla will be able to sink her fangs into something.

  “Up ’scope!” Herman spins it around once. “Down ’scope!”

  “One carrier, two cruisers, one destroyer! Angle on the bow, starboard two five.” The bearing and range have already been set in. There are four ships in sight. The two cruisers are on the carrier’s port bow and the destroyer is on his starboard beam about one thousand yards distant. This is bad, because Cavalla is on the carrier’s starboard bow, and the situation indicates that she’ll have to fire from the starboard beam—in other words—from right beneath the destroyer. So Kossler will either have to let his fish go a little sooner than he would like to—which won’t prevent the escort from immediately letting go with a most effective counterattack—or try to outmaneuver the destroyer and shoot after he has gone by. The latter is perhaps the safer tactic, but it is also fraught with the unthinkable possibility of losing the target entirely.

  Without further ado Kossler makes the decision to press home his attack on the carrier without regard for the destroyer. Perhaps he’ll fire a little early, in order to make sure of getting his fish off, but that’s the only concession he’ll make.

  Target speed is tracked at 25 knots. He is making a large bow wave as he plows steadily through the water, pitching slightly to the seas. The planes originally sighted are in the landing circle, and Herman has a close view of Japanese carrier landing tactics during his quick periscope observations. He notices that the forward end of the flight deck is crowded with aircraft, and that there are only one or two planes left in the air, one of which appears to be coming around for his landing approach.

  It won’t be long now! Kossler motions to Tom Denegre, his Executive Officer. “You make the next look!” Herman had previously decided to let two other officers also look at important targets, partly for their own indoctrination, but principally for identification purposes.

  “Up periscope!” Number two squats before it, goes up with it, makes a quick look, shoots it down again. “Shokaku class, Captain! I’m sure of it!”

  “I think so, too, Tommy. Just remember what you saw, so we can pick him out when we go through the silhouette identification book!” The skipper answers shortly, then speaks to the torpedo officer, who up to now has been running the TDC. “Take a look, Jug!”

  Up goes the periscope once more, just long enough for Jug Casler to photograph the unforgettable scene in his mind. The carrier is one of the largest class with a flight deck extending almost, but not quite, from the bow to the stern. The island is rather smaller than is customary on contemporary American ships and located farther forward. The smokestack is subordinated to the rest of the island structure, and dominating the whole thing is a large “bedspring” type radar rotating slowly on top of the single mast.

  “Up ’scope for a setup! Bearing—mark! . . . Range—mark! Down ’scope!”

  “Angle on the bow, starboard forty! Make ready all tubes!”

  “Set!” from Casler on the TDC. “Perfect setup, Captain.”

  “All tubes ready forward,” from the telephone talker. “All tubes ready aft!”

  “Normal order, speed high, set depth fifteen feet!” Herman is echoed by the telephone talker.

  “This will be a bow shot!” orders the skipper. “One more observation—up ’scope! Down ’scope!”

  Herman has taken the opportunity to snatch a quick look at the destroyer on the carrier’s starboard beam, and what he sees heightens the urgency in his voice. “Angle on the bow, starboard five five! The destroyer is heading right for us, about one oh double oh yards away. We’ve got to shoot right now!”

  “Standby forward!” This is the culmination of the approach.

  “Check bearing method!” to the TDC. This simply means that the skipper plans to get one or more check bearings during the firing.

  “Up ’scope! . . . Final bearing and shoot! . . . Bearing—mark!”

  “Three four two,” snaps Denegre, as the periscope starts down.

  “Set! . . . FIRE!” from Casler, and all hands feel the torpedo leave the tube.

  Then numbers two, three, four, and five. The moment number-five torpedo has been fired, Kossler shouts dow
n the hatch, “Take her down!” Then, to Casler, “Let the sixth one go on time!”

  All the while Cavalla has been firing, Herman has been ticking away in his mind the yards yet separating her from the onrushing Jap destroyer. There has been no time to look at him, but he will surely spot the telltale torpedo wakes in the water and begin an immediate harassing attack.

  As Cavalla lowers her periscope and starts for deep submergence, the racing beat of the enemy propellers can be heard, rapidly becoming louder, in the sound operator’s earphones. With maddening slowness the submarine tilts downward.

  “All ahead flank!” Herman is anxious to put as many feet of protective water between him and the surface as possible, and with Cavalla’s nose once pointed down, he gives her the gun.

  “Rig for depth charge!” This is where the veteran submariners among the crew show their worth, and where the initiative assiduously cultivated among them begins to pay off.

  Slowly, all too slowly, the depth gauges creep around. The propeller beat of the enemy destroyer becomes more and more audible.

  “WHANG! . . . WHANG! . . . WHANG!” Three rather tinny metal-crashing explosions are heard throughout Cavalla’s straining hull. Three hits! Nothing in the world sounds the same as the noise of your torpedoes going off. Nothing in the world equals the thrill of hearing them. A subdued cheer echoes in the submarine’s confined hull and a grim smile of satisfaction appears for a moment on the skipper’s face.

  One hundred fifty feet, by Cavalla’s depth gauges. Hang on to your hats, boys!

  “Left full rudder!” Herman is hoping to alter course a bit and thus throw the Jap destroyer off, but there is hardly time for the change to take effect before the first four depth charges arrive.

  For the next three hours 106 depth charges are dropped on Cavalla, and things grow progressively worse for the submarine. This Jap is no novice. Since Cavalla is a new boat, and consequently not yet depth charge proved, seams leak water here and there. The propeller shaft packing is apparently not properly set up and, under the double effect of the deep depth and the series of trip-hammer shocks received from the depth charge explosions—luckily none quite within lethal range—sea water pours into the motor room bilges at an alarming rate. Shortly after the depth charging begins there is a loud hissing heard in the galley overhead. No water comes into the ship, but she immediately becomes heavy aft and starts to sink deeper. It is believed that the main induction piping outside the pressure hull must have been flooded, probably through rupture of the line somewhere. An immediate test is made by opening some of the main induction drains, and sure enough, a steady stream of water spurts out under full sea pressure. The combination of this, plus the water taken into the motor room, forces the submarine to increase speed and run with an up angle in order to maintain her depth.

  But as was so frequently the case during the war, the Japs finally either got tired, lost contact and could not regain it, ran out of depth charges, or simply gave up—maybe because they had something else to think about.

  For with three torpedoes evenly spaced throughout her length, the Japanese carrier Shokaku, member of the Pearl Harbor attacking force on December 7, 1941, and veteran of many engagements in the Central and South Pacific, sank with all her planes on board just three hours after having been hit.

  Cavalla showed up at Saipan a few days later while the attack on that hapless island was still going on full blast. The Japanese Navy had just been decisively defeated in the First Battle of the Philippine Sea—the Marianas Turkey Shoot—which to a large extent showed the pattern for the remainder of the battles of the war.

  But on the day of the battle, despite the fact that our carrier-based planes shot practically every Jap plane out of the sky, only one Japanese carrier was sunk—the ill-fated Hitaka on her maiden voyage. Incidentally, this was the same carrier which had stopped two torpedoes from USS Trigger a year earlier at the mouth of Tokyo Bay. Try as they might, however, the American airmen could find but three Jap carriers the day of the battle, although it was known that five had left the Philippines. At first the supposition was that somehow the enemy had outguessed our people, for the number of planes they put into the air was obviously more than the complement of three carriers.

  The explanation was simple, when the pieces were finally put together. Five carriers had started out originally with intentions of making a surprise attack on our fleet, which at the moment was engaged in giving Saipan and Guam the works. Our high strategic command had placed a cordon of submarines across the route which it seemed most logical the enemy would use.

  A submarine reconnaissance had reported the passage of the task force through San Bernadino Strait on the 15th, but Herman Kossler’s contact on a convoy of fast tankers on the early morning of June 17 was the first proof of the direction of the Jap move. The location of the convoy gave a good indication of the prospective course of the enemy task force, since these could only be fleet tankers (because of their speed and position) en route to a refueling rendezvous. A redisposition in submarine patrol positions was thereupon ordered. While this repositioning was still under way, however, Kossler reported his second contact, on a carrier force this time, and our whole Pacific Fleet command went into immediate action. Although Herman had some idea of the import of his contact, he could have had no conception of the tremendous difference made by the fact that he chose to report the contact instead of attacking it. Had he done so, he might have sunk the carrier; but there would not have been the timely warning to alert our own people, and there was always the chance, of course, that Cavalla might have been sunk during or after the attack, and thus not able to make a contact report at all. Albacore’s position would then not have been changed, and Taiho might well have escaped detection.

  Shokaku’s planes went down with her, since they had just been taken back on board when Cavalla’s torpedoes struck home. Taiho’s, however, were in the air when she sank, and having nowhere else to go, they landed on the already-loaded decks of the remaining carriers, seriously overloading them. Loss of the battle, and of many of the engaged units including three of the few remaining carrier-trained air groups, was a foregone conclusion.

  Brought home once more to our own people, and presumably to the Jap admirals also, was this tenet: you cannot operate on the sea during war unless you have command of the sea, the air above it, and the depths beneath it.

  Trigger had shattered five convoys with Dusty Dornin at the conn, before he was relieved by order of Admiral King. Dick Garvey, now Lieutenant, USNR—next to me and Wilson, the senior man in point of service aboard—was detached at the same time. Fritz Harlfinger became her fourth master. We decided that because of my good fortune in having excellent night vision, I should function for him exactly as I had for Dusty—that is, on the bridge during night surface attacks, on the periscope when submerged. This was Wahoo’s system, which Trigger had adopted.

  On Fritz’s first patrol, off the Haha Jima Retto in the Marianas, the worst beating of Trigger’s career—and one of the most severe experienced by any sub in our Navy—took place. About four hours before dawn we picked up a convoy, tracked it a bit, and prepared to “pull the Trigger” on it.

  Radar indicated many ships. While we were still 20,000 yards ahead of the main body, we detected two radar-equipped escorts patrolling 10,000 to 15,000 yards ahead of the convoy. “What a stupid place to patrol,” we thought. “This will be a cinch.” So we dived under the escorts and passed safely (we thought) through the outer screen of the convoy. We later realized we had been detected by radar and the whole convoy alerted.

  Returning to periscope depth, we are preparing to surface when more escorts are detected. Down we go again, passing under a second feverishly pinging screen. Five destroyers or more in that one, and they’re not merely carrying on a routine search. They’re hunting, and finally one of them gets a “probable contact.” He and one of his friends turn around and follow us, still a little doubtful, but—oh—so—right!

/>   It is only a moderately bright night, so we leave the periscope up for lengthy intervals, confident it cannot be seen. For long periods we stare at those two chaps astern, zigzagging back and forth in their cautious search plan, slowly but surely tracking us down. We feel like the hare in a game of hare and hounds and it’s not funny. Inexorably the finger has been put upon us. We’re going to catch it no matter what happens—and so far we haven’t even seen the enemy convoy.

  Gone are ideas of making a night surface attack. We’ll be lucky even to get in a submerged shot before the beating lying in wait for us catches up to us. Resignedly we stand by to take it—when, finally, the main body heaves into sight.

  My God! We see through the periscope four columns of ships, five or more ships in each column. Tankers, freighters, transports, and auxiliaries, all steaming toward Saipan. And closely spaced around the mass of merchant vessels is yet a third ring of at least ten, probably more, escorts.

  No time to surface and send a message—even if we could, with those hounds on our tail. No time even to prepare a message. No time to do anything except shoot.

  On its present course the convoy will pass about two thousand yards ahead of us. The port flank group of escort vessels will pass almost exactly over us, one after another. We may get a shot, if conditions don’t change.

  We’ll get some fish in the water, anyhow. Make ready all tubes! A big tanker moves up into position, will soon line himself up broadside for a shot from our bow tubes. Behind him is a solid phalanx of ships. If the torpedoes run straight, or run at all, we can’t miss. We plan to fire all six bow tubes, swing and fire all four stern tubes, and then take her down fast. Too bad, but we won’t be able to sit around to verify sinkings. We’ll be fortunate if we distinguish our torpedo hits from the unholy barrage of depth charges sure to follow.