And then one afternoon, halfway down the East Coast, a couple of miles off the North Carolina shore, I spotted something. I was up in the lookout post, trying not to think about how close we were to Mama and Danny, scanning all around with the binoculars, when a glint of light reflected off something silver and shiny out in the calm ocean. The convoy was plowing along at twelve knots—a little under fifteen miles an hour—fast for us, but the conditions were good. I didn’t sound the alarm, because I didn’t want to be the boy who cried wolf. I scanned back to where I’d just seen the reflection, but now I couldn’t find it. I rubbed my eyes and then returned to the binoculars, sweeping back and forth over that quadrant of ocean. Still nothing.
And then, just when I was convinced my mind—or my eyes—had played a trick on me, I saw it again. A periscope!
I sounded the alarm and pointed so the officer of the deck on the bridge down below could see it, too, and the Klaxon blared the call to general quarters. Guys scrambled up from belowdecks to their battle stations, and the pilot swung us away from the convoy to give chase to the U-boat. Meanwhile, whoever was in the sonar room must have located it, too, because we had a more precise location and soon were at twenty knots and then more, racing toward the submarine!
I stayed at my post to try to find and maintain visual contact, while below me the guys were busy turning the guns, loading shells, and preparing to launch depth charges. My heart was pounding so hard I could practically hear it, and I wished I had a weapon, even though there wasn’t anything I could do with it from where I was. My weapon was the binoculars and helping locate the enemy.
And then we lost the contact. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t see anything—no periscope, no nothing. Word came up from the sonar room that there were no pings, either, not even faint ones to indicate something large underwater moving away from us, like a U-boat retreating.
We searched the area for half an hour to be sure but still didn’t turn up anything. Our signalman and our radio operator had alerted the merchant ships and the other escort vessels—two PCs, one flanking the convoy on the starboard side and the other trailing—but they couldn’t find anything, either. I felt bad—and afraid Chief Kerr and Lieutenant Talley would think I was the boy who cried wolf, but that didn’t happen. When my watch ended and I climbed down from the crow’s nest, Chief told me I’d done a good job. “You saw it before sonar picked it up.”
“But we didn’t find anything, Chief,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there,” he responded. “For all you know, we saved a ship today, chased off a U-boat before it could get close enough or have time to aim and fire off a torpedo. Some things you just can’t know. But that doesn’t mean you can ever relax, because even if there wasn’t something there today—and I’m not convinced there wasn’t—there will be something tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. And it wants to do one thing and one thing only, and that’s sink this convoy.”
The next afternoon I was in the crow’s nest on lookout again, only it was rougher seas, waves tall enough to hide a periscope half the time, though at least that meant a U-boat wouldn’t be able to set its sights on any of our ships very well, either. But I still managed to spot another one before sonar picked it up—a periscope, no doubt about it, which meant a sub possibly preparing to launch torpedoes. I sounded the alarm and the call to general quarters went out, our PC lurching away from the convoy to give chase before the U-boat could fire. We made slower progress through the heavy waves, so we couldn’t get there in time to fire our depth charges at the sub once it submerged.
We all held our breath and scanned the ocean for any sign of a torpedo just under the surface, blasting toward a hull riding low in the water under a full load of cargo. But there was nothing, so after a few minutes we could all exhale.
I kept up my search through the binoculars—not just in the direction of the U-boat that had disappeared on us, but farther afield as well. We all knew the U-boats traveled in what they called wolf packs, stalking convoys like ours, one U-boat running reconnaissance and the others somewhere ahead, setting a trap for whoever, or whatever, was coming. And sure enough, an hour later, there, ahead of the convoy, I spotted another periscope. Once again I gave the signal and out went the call to general quarters, only this time the captain gave the order for the battery team to aim the big 3"/50-caliber and fire. I was surprised by how quickly they did, and seconds later there was a terrific explosion and an enormous plume of water shot up into the sky.
“We got one!” I yelled, though there wasn’t anybody near to hear me, especially with the engines racing below and the ship hammering through the waves. “We got one!”
Only it quickly became apparent that we hadn’t got one. We hadn’t gotten anything. So the order went out to fire again, and again, and as we drew closer, the captain also gave the order to launch depth charges. I guessed the sonar guys must have found our target by then and were able to home in on it quick.
When the depth charges detonated, it felt as if our PC was blown ten feet straight out of the ocean. I pitched wildly on the lookout platform and thought I was going to fall off—or be flung out—far over the deck and into the ocean. The next depth charge rocked us again. It was like riding a wild bronco the way the ship bounced and slammed hard back down. Alarms went off signaling men to go below for emergency repairs, which we’d drilled for a hundred times, the same as we’d done drills for general quarters and the rest.
I searched the ocean for signs that we’d actually hit the U-boat—an oil slick, pots and pans, mattresses, bodies—but nothing came up. The convoy steamed ahead, but we held back, circling the area where we’d dropped the depth charges and shelled with the forward gun.
Once again the U-boat had gotten lucky. But so had we.
* * *
Our luck didn’t hold for too long, though. Over the next couple of hours those rough waves grew even rougher and more ominous as afternoon turned into evening. We caught back up to the convoy, at least for a while, but as the waves kept growing higher, pretty soon our attention turned fully to just trying to stay afloat. The storm would protect the convoy from any U-boat wolf pack, but for now, as we pressed on south through the black sea and sky, it was every ship for itself.
That wasn’t a problem for the merchant ships, as big and heavy as they were, lumbering along, but it made things a lot more difficult for us PCs. We soon found ourselves climbing up the steep front of giant waves, then cresting at the top with the bow and what seemed like the whole front half of the ship out of the water, and then racing down the other side of the swell, our propellers churning and whining until they were back under.
I was long since off the lookout platform, and there wasn’t any point to me doing my watch in the sonar room since no U-boat would ever be able to attack in a storm like this. The wolf pack would be running silent and deep, waiting out the storm far below us while we battled the killer waves.
Whatever sea legs guys had grown into over the last couple of weeks were gone now with waves so big. The only good thing was that the ship rode a lot higher in salt water than in freshwater, so when we plunged into the ocean at the bottom of each wave, the bow didn’t go as deep as when we went through storms back on Lake Huron, and not quite as much water covered us as we bounced back up.
Chief Kerr called me from the sonar room to the pilot house, where the officers on duty and the navigator ran the ship when weather was too bad for them to be on the bridge, and on the way I realized that once again I was one of the few men on the ship who wasn’t doubled over and sick. It was slow going with the howling wind and the waves and the spray. I clipped on a safety line and made my way up to the pilot house with the chief and the executive officer, who didn’t look so good, either.
The door slammed so hard behind me that I thought it would take off my leg. I half expected Chief to tell me to take the wheel, but, of course, that wasn’t going to happen to a seaman second class with no training
—and it didn’t. Instead, he wanted me to go back down to the mess and bring back coffee and sandwiches.
I might not have been seasick like most of the rest of the crew, but the idea of eating just then did make my stomach turn. But Chief just yelled the order again and off I went, making my way from the pilot house and down the hatch to the galley, stepping carefully around sailors slumped everywhere—and stepping around where they’d puked, too, which wasn’t entirely possible.
In the mess I filled thermoses with black coffee and braced myself as best I could to pull out bread and baloney and anything else I could grab to throw on there, then it was back topside, holding on to the grub with one hand and the rail with the other. Every step seemed to take five minutes as I got thrown side to side, two paces forward, one and a half aft.
I was exhausted by the time I got back to the pilot house but happy I’d finally made it—and been able to do something to help the men who were steering us through this awful storm.
Chief Kerr just cursed and said the coffee had gotten cold. But he ate one whole sandwich in two bites, and then did the same with another one. The executive officer just waved me off. They let me stay in the pilot house, though, and I had a front row seat to the wild climb and fall of the ship up and down those mountainous waves. No turning to run with the wind and the waves as we struggled to keep up with where we at least thought the convoy was. As best I could tell, we were navigating totally with instruments, except when enormous bolts of lightning split the sky in front of us and lit up the way—but only for a second—and then we were plunged back into an even darker night than before until our eyes adjusted.
Chief called me back over to him after another hour. I kind of had an idea about what was coming and I wasn’t wrong.
“More coffee, sailor!” he shouted, shoving the thermos into my hands. “And this time get your sorry butt back up here while it’s still hot!”
* * *
The storm was starting to pass, judging from the size of the waves, which were still high enough to break over the bow, but at least we weren’t having to make those steep climbs and gut-punch drops anymore. Just before I climbed back down under the canvas hatch cover to the galley, I saw someone climbing up out of the engine room hatch farther aft on the deck. Lightning crackled overhead, lighting up his face. It was Woody, who I hadn’t seen in a couple of days, and not much at all since we’d left New York Harbor a week earlier. That’s how it was with the engine room crew—they were like trolls down there in their dark dungeon.
The ship slammed through a wave and water roiled down the length of the ship, knocking Woody off his feet. He wasn’t in any danger, but it must have hurt when he landed because he didn’t have a life vest on for protection—or to cushion the fall.
“Hey, Woody!” I yelled over the howling wind. I carefully made my way back to check on him, but before I could get there he staggered to his feet and stumbled over to the rail—without a safety line and still without a life vest.
“Stop!” I yelled. “You idiot! It’s not safe!”
Woody turned to face me. He must not have known I was there before because his blank face crinkled up into a grin and he lifted his hand to wave, as if we were just on a street somewhere and happened to run into each other, instead of in the middle of a still-raging ocean storm.
I didn’t have time to say anything else, because just at that moment, another wave hit the ship and swept Woody over the side!
“Man overboard!” I shouted, as loud as I could. “Man overboard!” And I kept shouting it as I unclipped myself from the safety line, grabbed a life ring, and made my way to the rail. I searched for Woody until I saw him, waving his arms frantically as waves crested over him.
I looked around and saw nobody. I kept yelling for help and started to go find somebody. But I knew if I didn’t do something right then and there that Woody wouldn’t survive.
I was so scared that I actually wet my pants.
And then, whispering a quick prayer, I jumped over the side of the ship to try to save him.
The shock of landing took my breath away, and I plunged in a lot deeper than I thought I would, so I had to claw my way back up to the surface, still praying the whole time that somebody had heard me shouting. If not, then it didn’t matter what happened because Woody and I would both be dead soon in this churning ocean.
More lightning lit up the sky and I saw him between waves, still thrashing wildly, twenty yards away. It was hard to swim with my life vest on and hold on to the ring, but I knew I had to get to Woody fast, as panicked as he was.
Except another wave crashed over us, and then another. I spotted him again, but then he went under all of a sudden. My heart just about stopped until he came back up, trying to yell but spitting up salt water coughing and gasping. I finally made it to him and grabbed his arm to hook it over the life ring, but Woody seemed oblivious to what was happening, caught up in his panic. He pulled his arm away and flailed around, nearly hitting me, and then, somehow, he got behind me and wrapped his arm around my neck, pulling us both under.
I fought as hard as I could, kicking, twisting, anything to get away. But Woody was a lot bigger than me, and even when I was able to pry myself free of his arm, and even with my life vest on and hanging on to the life ring, the weight of him on top of me pressed me deeper underwater. I kept fighting until I managed to wriggle free and kick for the surface, somehow still holding on to the buoy. We probably hadn’t been under for more than half a minute, but I was desperate for air when I finally came up. I wasn’t in the clear yet, though, because another wave crashed over me as soon as I got there and I swallowed a lot of water.
Sputtering, I gasped for air and was so scared that I just wanted to get away from Woody. Before I could get any distance from him, Woody came back up, too—still panicking and trying to take hold of me again. I was afraid he’d drown us both this time if he did, especially if he got me around the neck from behind, but I was getting weaker, worn out from being underwater, from the cold, from swallowing so much salt water, and from fighting him off while at the same time trying to hold him up out of the water.
And then out of nowhere, on the other side of a wave, I heard somebody call our names. “Danny! Woody! Where the heck are you guys?”
“Over here!” I yelled. It was Straub. I’d have recognized that big voice anywhere.
The wave crested and suddenly there he was, swimming wildly toward us, splashing so much it was like another wave crashing. Woody was still delirious, though, and grabbed me around the neck yet again, but this time before he could pull me under, Straub was right there with us.
“Oh no you don’t!” Straub said, taking hold of Woody’s arm. And then, not even hesitating, he punched Woody in the face.
And just like that, the fight went right out of Woody.
I didn’t know if the blow knocked him out or if it just stunned him, but he stopped flailing and trying to attack me. He just sort of went limp. Straub and I were able to get him secured to the life ring, and then we both floated on our backs for a minute in the trough of another big wave, buoyed up by our life preservers.
“Didn’t think I’d be able to find you guys,” Straub said once he caught his breath. “I saw you go over the side and it took me a couple of minutes to find a life preserver.”
“Did you see anybody else? Do they know we’re out here?” I asked. I started shivering and realized I should have never stopped moving. The water temperature was probably in the fifties, and I was losing body heat fast.
“Pretty sure somebody saw,” Straub said, his teeth chattering now, too. “But they have to turn around, and I don’t know where these waves have pushed us.”
As if on cue, another wave washed over us and we came up sputtering. But it wasn’t as big as the one before it, and the next one seemed a little smaller, too.
“We just have to wait,” I said. “Thanks for coming. I couldn’t have held out much longer. Woody went kind of crazy.”
“I guess so,” I said, remembering Woody’s arm around my neck, and him dragging me underwater and holding me there.
I wasn’t through being mad at him, even if he had been out of his mind or whatever.
The good news was the storm kept letting up and the waves kept subsiding to the point where they were no longer crashing over us. The bad news was all the ships were running dark—nobody was even allowed to light a cigarette on deck—so it would be hard to see our patrol craft.
I doubted they would turn on the searchlight because of the wolf pack that was lurking around out there somewhere, maybe waiting for a target.
Ten minutes passed and our teeth were chattering so loud I could hear them. Fifteen minutes passed and Woody slid low into the water, barely holding on to the buoy. It took all my strength to help Straub haul him back up.
Half an hour passed and my heart grew heavy. I couldn’t feel my toes and fingers, and I wondered what it would feel like when all three of us slid under, when we didn’t have any strength left to hold ourselves up, even with the life vests on. Or would we freeze to death first?
But I couldn’t let myself think those thoughts. Straub wasn’t going to give up. He was actually humming a song, out of tune. It might have even been “Keep Your Sunny Side Up!” Plus Woody needed me. Mama and Danny needed me.
And then I saw it: a searchlight sweeping over the ocean maybe a quarter mile away. They were still looking for us! I yelled as loud as I could but knew that it was unlikely anybody would hear me over the noise of the engine—if that was our ship. The thought occurred to me that it could just as easily be a U-boat, and I stopped yelling. But Straub picked up where I left off with his booming voice.
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