The USS Flier

by Michael Sturma

  By shortly after 1:00 A.M. the evacuees were on board, and the Redfin’s crew began off-loading arms and stores for the guerrillas. They emptied out most of the submarine's armory, including two .30-caliber Browning automatic rifles capable of firing 500 rounds a minute, two .30-caliber machine guns, two .45-caliber Thompson submachine guns, four .30-caliber Springfield rifles, three .30-caliber M-1 rifles, and ten .45-caliber Colt automatic pistols. This hardware was accompanied by nearly 26,000 rounds of ammunition.

  In addition to the promised lube oil, the Redfin left considerable stores for the coast watchers and the guerrillas: medical supplies, food, writing materials, radio tubes, playing cards, soap, toilet paper, and 200 cartons of cigarettes. At 1:51 A.M. the coast watchers set off in the two small boats, which were now full of booty. Meanwhile, the civilians and the military evacuees who had never been on a submarine were about to enter the unnerving world of underwater travel.

  17

  On Board

  With the stores for the guerrillas off-loaded and the passengers safely aboard, Austin decided to attack the Japanese ship that had made such a nuisance of itself. At 2:41 A.M. the Redfin pulled within 2,500 yards of the ship and opened fire with its four-inch and 20 mm deck guns. The four-inch gun was capable of firing thirty-three-pound high-explosive shells up to 16,000 yards; the 20 mm gun had a more modest maximum range of 4,800 yards.1

  Sitting against the darkened landscape, the Japanese craft presented a difficult target. When the firing commenced, the ship quickly hoisted anchor and headed into shallow water. The Redfin gave chase but had to abandon the pursuit fifteen minutes later, after firing twenty-seven rounds from the four-inch gun and another sixty rounds of 20 mm ammunition. Although the darkness made it difficult to judge, Austin believed that they had scored no more than two or three hits on the ship. In fact, it was discovered later that shells from the submarine's four-inch gun had exploded in the surrounding hills, fortunately doing no harm to civilians.

  Despite their failure to sink the ship, the new passengers seemed to enjoy the excitement. Austin noted in his report on the mission that six-year-old Alistair Sutherland had yelled “Kill the Japs!” during the entire attack.2

  For those new to submarine transport, the experience could be exhilarating or frightening, depending on their point of view. The younger the passengers, the more quickly they seemed to acclimatize. Coast watcher Bob Stahl recalled the unnerving noises of crackling and knocking that accompanied running submerged. One of his fellow passengers suffered a black eye and abrasions after failing to get down a ladder quickly enough during a crash dive.3 The most daunting task, however, was adapting to the stench belowdecks. A combination of fuel oil, cooking aromas, cigarette smoke, and body odor pervaded the boat. The olfactory senses eventually became numbed, but the process began anew after each exposure to fresh air. Years after leaving the service, a mere whiff of diesel fuel could transport some submariners back to their days on patrol.4

  Most passengers were confined to the forward or after torpedo rooms, where torpedoes occupied much of the limited space. For the general safety of the craft, they were rarely allowed to move about, apart from the necessity of visiting the head, where they had to compete with the crew for the two toilet stalls. The complicated mechanisms of the head presented their own dangers, since turning the wrong valves or levers could result in blowback. Sleeping quarters usually consisted of nothing more than a hard deck, with little comfort other than a blanket. For the crew, taking on passengers could lift their morale and afforded a welcome break in the routine. Children were especially popular, and they often left the submarine wearing miniature sailor's uniforms.5

  After the initial excitement of being rescued, the Flier survivors likely experienced a period of anxiety on the Redfin. A common reaction among wartime shipwreck survivors was an apprehension that their rescue vessels would be sunk on the return passage.6 During the cruise back to Australia, the Redfin’s pharmacist's mate treated the Flier men for various cuts and injuries; he also put them on a course of quinine and atabrine to prevent malaria. Although Tremaine suffered from attacks of malaria, the health of the remaining survivors quickly improved.7

  The Redfin made its way south through the Sibutu Strait, Bangka Strait, and Molucca Passage, arriving off Darwin in the early hours of 5 September. After exchanging recognition signals with the USS Nautilus, the Redfin moored at the main jetty at 7:40 A.M. There, the evacuees from Palawan Island parted company with the Redfin, and personnel from the tender USS Coucal began carrying out minor repairs on the submarine.

  In total, almost 500 people were evacuated by submarine from the Philippines. The first large group that included civilians was transported by the oversized cruiser submarine Narwhal in November 1943. These operations were kept top secret, since it was feared that if the Japanese learned of the evacuation program, there would be wholesale reprisals.8

  People evacuated from the Philippines were considered important potential sources of intelligence. From Darwin they were flown by army transport planes to Queensland. To maintain secrecy, the American Red Cross took over the small Strathalan Hotel at Caloundra, seventy miles north of Brisbane, which provided a relatively isolated locale for debriefings by G-2 and counterintelligence officers. Evacuees were usually given about a month to recover, both physically and mentally, before embarking for the United States, and Alice Thompson of the Red Cross headed the recuperation center.9 Operations at the hotel were wound up in August 1944, so it is unclear whether the passengers from the Redfin ever reached this destination.

  The town of Darwin's devastated appearance, the result of successive Japanese bombings, often shocked newcomers. Early in the war, the U.S. Navy had considered using Darwin as a major submarine base, but the lack of amenities and the characteristics of the harbor ruled this out. The expansive harbor was vulnerable to enemy mines, and huge tides made mooring next to a submarine tender extremely difficult. Submarine crews sometimes had to climb a tall ladder to disembark at the dock; then, on their return, they had to climb up to board the submarine. Despite these limitations, by early 1944 Darwin was an important staging base for submarines.10 The port offered little in the way of recreational facilities, however, so crews usually made a quick turnaround, heading back to sea after taking on fuel and torpedoes.

  The Redfin crew received a mail delivery from Perth the evening they arrived at Darwin, and they spent most of the next day relaxing. The Coucal supplied the crew with beer, and softball games were organized. In the early evening the wardrooms from the Redfin and the Nautilus attended a barbecue at the new submarine officers’ club.

  After being refueled and reloaded with torpedoes, the Redfin departed Darwin at 9:00 P.M. on 6 September. Austin and his crew headed for the Java Sea and continued their patrol off the south and east coasts of Celebes. The Redfin claimed the sinking of one tanker and damage to another in torpedo attacks. It also sank a trawler and a sampan using the deck guns. Next the crew performed “lifeguard” duties, searching for downed aviators off Balikpapan, Borneo.11

  Australian commando Bill Jinkins remained on board, but T. J. Barnes had been replaced by another commando, Alec Chew. Only a few months earlier, Jinkins and the USS Harder had helped evacuate Chew and others from Borneo as the Japanese closed in on them. On the Redfin, Jinkins and Chew were ready for action in the event that reconnaissance of an island became necessary or a limpet mine attack was called for.12

  The Redfin returned to Fremantle on 4 October 1944. Due to the “variety of passengers” it had taken on, including a couple of prisoners picked up during the second half of the patrol, Austin requested that the boat be fumigated and the mattresses renovated.13 The fourth patrol proved to be the Redfin’s longest to date, with fifty-seven days at sea. It was also one of the least successful in terms of Japanese shipping sunk. Despite the claim that it had destroyed one ship at 5,100 tons, this was never confirmed by JANAC.14

  The rescued Flier crew spent the night in
Darwin and received some fresh clothing from the army. The following day they were flown to Perth on Admiral Christie's private plane. After a twelve-hour flight, they arrived at the airport in Perth near midnight, where they were greeted by Christie's chief of staff and a pair of captains.

  Once in Perth, the Flier survivors were split up. John Crowley stayed at Admiral Christie's residence. James Liddell and Alvin Jacobson were given a suite of rooms in the bachelor officers’ quarters. The remaining enlisted men were lodged in another part of the city.15 According to Jacobson, they were given two days to draw some pay and obtain new clothing. All except Crowley were then flown to the inland mining town of Kalgoorlie. Jacobson observed, “The admiral did not think that it was a good idea for us to be around sailors who were going back to sea.”16 After ten days in Kalgoorlie they returned for a brief stay in Perth. Within a couple of days, Jacobson was on a plane headed for the United States.

  At least some of the Flier men, including Crowley, reported aboard the USS Euryale, officially designated the Flier’s tender. Some nicknamed the ship the “O’Reilly,” but it was also commonly known as the “Urinal.”17 Ironically, the Flier’s crew had never laid eyes on the ship before; the converted freighter had served at forward bases before heading to Fremantle in August 1944.

  Recalling the whole episode much later, Jacobson would conclude, “Thus ended a major experience of my life.”18 For Crowley, however, the ordeal was far from over.

  18

  Fallout

  While the Flier was heading toward disaster in August 1944, the crew of the Crevalle was heading back to Fremantle for two weeks of rest and recreation. On the last night of their leave, a ship's party was held at the Cabarita Restaurant, where, for the most part, the crew remained well behaved and sober. The Crevalle’s skipper, Frank Walker, led a sing-along accompanied by the Cabarita band.

  That evening's conclusion contrasted sharply with the wild scene at an officers’ party a week earlier. The wardrooms from four submarines, including the Crevalle, had gathered at Molinari's Restaurant on the outskirts of Perth. After much drinking, the submariners’ Australian dates were encouraged to play an old game from the Naval Academy: the women had to change sides under the table as quickly as possible, dragging their chairs along with them. Tables were overturned, and a food fight erupted. The restaurant's owner ordered the submariners out, but many departed only after hoisting their dates above their shoulders to leave lipstick imprints on the restaurant's white ceiling.

  The crew of the Crevalle returned to duty on 23 August and received the sobering news of the Flier’s loss. The Crevalle had transited Balabac Strait on its last three war patrols. In fact, on 6 May the submarine had sunk Japan's largest tanker, the 17,000-ton Nisshin Maru, in the strait. At least one Crevalle officer, William Ruhe, wondered whether their own lack of incident in navigating Balabac Strait had made other submarines less vigilant in avoiding the mines known to lie on either side of the channel.1

  On the USS Flasher, which was scheduled to conduct its next patrol through Balabac Strait, the tension was palpable. The Flier and the Flasher had been constructed side by side and then officially commissioned within three weeks of each other. There were many friendships between the two crews. The Flasher’s executive officer, Raymond Francis DuBois, had served with James Liddell earlier in the war on the USS Snapper. It is possible that Liddell contacted DuBois on his return to Fremantle. In any case, DuBois urged the Flasher’s commander, Reuben Whitaker, to get the submarine's orders altered so that it did not have to transit Balabac Strait on its next patrol. Whitaker succeeded in doing so , although Admiral Christie probably needed little persuading.2

  The loss of the Robalo and the Flier placed Ralph Christie in a delicate position. Operational losses were, of course, inevitable. But for two submarines to be destroyed under similar circumstances in such a short time span raised the possibility of systemic problems in his organization. And the news was about to get even worse. The sinking of the USS Harder after a Japanese depth charge attack on 24 August brought the count to three Fremantle-based submarines lost in less than thirty days.

  Back in early 1943, when four Brisbane-based submarines (Argonaut, Amberjack, Grampus, and Triton) were lost with all hands, Christie had been the first to call for a formal investigation. James “Jimmy” Fife had assumed command of the Brisbane submarine base in December 1942 while Christie was temporarily assigned to the Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island. Born in Nevada on 22 January 1897, Fife had graduated from Annapolis with the class of 1918. Apart from periods of obligatory service with the battleship Idaho and the Bureau of Navigation, he spent most of his naval career involved with submarines. In July 1940 he was sent to Britain as a submarine observer, and he was stationed in Manila when the Japanese attacked in 1941. With the evacuation of the Philippines, he traveled on the Seawolf to Darwin, then to Surabaya and Fremantle.3

  Soon after Fife assumed command at Brisbane, a string of submarine losses occurred in the Solomon Islands. The Argonaut, the U.S. Navy's largest submarine, was dispatched from Pearl Harbor to Brisbane to undertake special missions. Fife directed the aging boat to attack shipping near New Britain, where it was sunk by Japanese destroyers on 10 January 1943. A U.S. bomber returning from a mission witnessed the attack, which left the Argonaut’s full complement of 105 men at the bottom of the sea. Having been commissioned less than a year earlier, the Amberjack also became a victim of Japanese antisubmarine forces on 14 February. The loss of the Grampus in early March remains a mystery, and the Triton disappeared later that same month.4

  Christie, who returned to Australia as commander of submarines in the Southwest Pacific in early 1943, expressed reservations about Fife's methods. Fife had adopted the habit of using radio messages to direct the movements of submarines at sea. At least some skippers under Fife's command resented the practice. Part of the traditional ethos of the “silent service” was the autonomy exercised by submarine skippers once they were on station. Norvell Gardiner “Bub” Ward, executive officer of the Gato, cynically referred to Fife's directions from shore as a “go-here, go-there” approach.5

  More alarmingly, Christie believed that Fife's radio traffic had allowed Japanese antisubmarine forces to home in on the U.S. boats. On 25 March 1943 Christie wrote to Fife complaining that there had been 106 radio dispatches to the Grampus and the Amberjack and that 46 of them had included reports of the submarines’ positions. When Fife replied ten days later, he noted that the submarine movements he had ordered were usually short, and the locations mentioned referred to routes rather than specific positions. Nevertheless, Fife stated that he had tightened radio security and decreased the number of directions from shore.6

  When Christie informed Admiral Arthur “Chips” Carpender that he was planning to visit Brisbane to investigate Fife's operations personally, he received a stern rebuff. Although Fife had offered to be relieved of his command, Carpender refused. Exhibiting what Fife later described as “loyalty downward,” Carpender told Fife, in effect, “if you go under, I'll go with you.”7 Later, however, Carpender did ask Christie to recommend a squadron commander who could investigate the loss of the Brisbane-based submarines. That inquiry was duly carried out by Captain Allan R. McCann.8

  More than a decade earlier, McCann, working with Swede Momsen, had been instrumental in developing a diving bell used to rescue submariners trapped beneath the sea. McCann's investigation of Fife's command was handled with the utmost confidentiality, and only Carpender was privy to his report. Years later, McCann would finally confirm that his report had exonerated Fife. According to McCann, there was no way of knowing for sure how the submarines had been lost, and he noted ominously that some might have been victims of friendly aircraft.9

  In all these machinations, personal politics tended to frame relations among the submarine command. Christie described Fife as one of “Lockwood's gang.”10 Fife had served as Lockwood's chief of staff at Fremantle earlier in the war, and in his
own words, they “got along extremely well.”11 Fife had been directly involved in Lockwood's campaign against defective torpedoes. While based at Albany in Western Australia, he had personally supervised the tests proving that the torpedoes consistently ran deeper than set. Fife had directed the USS Skipjack and USS Saury to fire a total of eight torpedoes at a fishing net set up in Princess Royal Harbor. The resulting holes in the net provided empirical evidence that the Mark 14 torpedoes consistently hit below their set depth.12

  Fife, like Christie, had his detractors. He lacked a reputation as a “people person,” and in some ways he was the antithesis of the gregarious Charles Lockwood. A onetime heavy drinker who became a teetotaler, Fife tended to keep his own company. Pale and bespectacled, he struck many people as more the schoolteacher type than a military leader. Indeed, in 1938 Fife was appointed to head the Submarine School. As a boss he gained a reputation for giving long-winded dissertations and for being a “stickler.”13 Although most of his subordinates considered him capable, he was never popular. In a letter to Lockwood, Fife initially wrote off the submarine losses under his command as “tough luck,” noting that “they can't get Japs without taking chances.”14

  For Christie, the shoe was now on the other foot. Having lost two of his own submarines under similar circumstances, Christie went into damage-control mode. On 29 August 1944, even before the Flier survivors were picked up by the Redfin, Christie wrote to Admiral Kinkaid and explained that the Flier had been the thirteenth U.S. submarine to transit Balabac Strait since 10 February 1944, and as recently as 10 July the Lapon had navigated the passage without a problem.15