by David Capps
As the Massachusetts passed to the south of the sinking frigate the only sounds were the creaking and crunching of the ship’s metal hull as it sank deeper into the Pacific Ocean. Jacobs turned to Silverton. “The second Chinese Frigate?”
“Headed straight for us at flank speed,” Silverton said.
Jacobs shook his head. “Helm, come to course 340.”
“Heading 340 degrees, aye-aye, Sir.”
“Fire Control, give me a firing solution for the second Chinese frigate, designate as Target Two for tubes three and four, silent approach to 200 yards then active pinging and high speed screws, torpedoes to run a parallel path, 500 yards apart. Notify me when you have a solution.”
Thirty seconds later Fire Control answered, “Firing solution complete, Sir.”
“Fire tubes three and four,” he ordered.
“Tubes three and four fired, Sir, torpedoes on their way.”
“Helm, bring us to 500 feet.”
“Making depth 500 feet, Sir,” the helmsman answered.
* * *
Tiffany’s crew was scrambling, loading the MOSS decoy torpedoes. Though the decoys were smaller and lighter in weight than the Mark 48’s she still had to be careful. One mistake and the Massachusetts would lose its combat capability. Now intimately engaged in the loading process, she handed members tools, took tools from them to keep their hands from any wasted motions, helping her team become a seamless efficient mechanism.
She watched the clock as critical seconds swept away. The first MOSS was loaded. A seaman flooded the tube as the rest of her crew shifted to the second torpedo. Clamps were removed, and the lifting mechanism was assembled in place. Her team drove the torpedo forward and into position for the loading tray. Eight minutes and twelve seconds load time on the first MOSS.
* * *
As the Massachusetts rose above the 1,000 feet thermocline, Jacobs asked Stephanos, “Contacts?”
“Only contact is the Chinese frigate, designated as Target Two, range 20,000 yards and closing fast, Sir.”
Jacobs turned to Silverton. “Run time on torpedoes three and four?”
“Fifteen minutes, Sir,” Silverton answered.
“Okay,” Jacobs replied, “We’ll wait at 500 feet, once Target Two goes down; we’ll go to periscope depth and report in to COMSUBPAC.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” Silverton answered.
“Torpedo room, con, status?”
“Loading third MOSS decoy torpedo into tube 7, Sir,” Lieutenant Grimes replied. “Almost in, Sir.”
“Stop at third MOSS in tube 7. Start loading Mark 48, Mod 7’s in tubes one through four.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” she replied.
* * *
Tiffany’s crew shifted to work on a Mark 48 as the seaman flooded the tube with the third MOSS inside. She watched closely as the second hand swept around the clock. The last torpedo had gone in in under eight minutes. Adrenalin pounded in her veins as she was sure it pounded in her crew’s veins. She glanced again at the clock as the lifting mechanism rolled forward and the Mark 48 was transferred to the loading tray.
* * *
Jacobs watched the electronic tactical display as the two torpedoes closed in on the second Chinese Frigate. The run time that ticked away in the upper right corner of the display counted down with less than thirty seconds to go.
“It’s been a hell of a day, Sir,” Silverton said.
“It has,” Jacobs replied.
“Con, sonar, torpedoes three and four going to active pinging, high speed screws.” Jacobs waited. “Direct hit,” Stephanos paused. “Second direct hit, Sir. Secondary explosions; she’s breaking up, Sir.”
“Okay,” Jacobs said. “Helm, take us up to periscope depth.”
“Periscope depth, aye-aye, Sir.”
As the Massachusetts rose toward the surface a panicked voice came from the sonar room, “Con, sonar, multiple splashes on the surface. Probable rocket launched torpedoes in the water, high speed screws and active pinging. Screw pattern confirms TU-7 rocket launched torpedoes.”
“Dammit,” Jacobs swore. “They must have launched as soon as our torpedoes went to active pinging. How many torpedoes?”
“Two, three… four active torpedoes, two, no three actively pinging sono-buoys in the water, we’re lit up like a Christmas tree!” Sono-buoys floated on the surface and sent sonar pings down into the ocean, helping the torpedoes locate the sub.
Jacobs, Silverton and Adams quickly assessed the electronic tactical display. “Four active torpedoes, are in the water, roughly in the shape of a square. We’re on the western edge,” Silverton said. “Active torpedo on each corner.”
“Helm, hard right rudder, come to course 090, flank speed. Fire Control, fire the MOSS decoys in tubes 5 through 7 on my command, standard spread.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” Fire Control replied.
Jacobs watched as the Chinese torpedoes all turned in the direction of the Massachusetts. As the submarine’s heading crossed the 90 degree mark Jacobs said, “Fire tubes 5 through 7, now.”
“Tubes 5 through 7 fired, Sir.”
“Lieutenant Grimes, where are we on the Mark 48’s?”
“Still loading the first one, Sir, almost there.”
“Rig the Mark 48 for guide-by-wire, Lieutenant, tell me as soon as it’s ready to fire.”
“Aye-aye, Sir.”
“Con, sonar, decoys went active.”
“How many following the decoys?” Jacobs asked.
“Three. Torpedo to the north is still locked on us Sir, fifteen hundred yards and closing fast.”
“Helm, hard left rudder, come to course 000, flank speed.”
“Aye-aye, Sir.”
“Torpedo room, con, where are we?”
“Torpedo loaded, Sir, inner door closed, flooding tube, rigged for guide-by-wire. As soon as the pressure is equalized we can open the outer door and fire, Sir,” Lieutenant Grimes answered.
“Incoming torpedo at 800 yards and closing fast.”
“Come on, Lieutenant, we’re out of time,” Jacobs said.
“Opening outer door, Sir,” she answered.
“Fire as soon as that door is clear!”
“Five hundred yards, four hundred, three hundred, two, one hundred…”
“Torpedo fired,” Fire Control answered.
“You’ve got to hit that thing dead…”
The force of the blast jolted the entire sub. Loose objects flew through the air scattering across the deck. People were knocked out of their chairs, slammed into their consoles and slid across the deck. Jacobs, Silverton and Adams were hurled forward onto the deck, smashing into the forward bulkhead. Displays went dark and the lights went out.
CHAPTER 50
U.S.S. Massachusetts, Pacific Ocean, Off the Coast of Oregon
The battery-powered emergency lights flickered to life in the torpedo room, bathing everything in a red glow. Tiffany groaned as she put her hand over the sharp pain on the left side of her rib cage. Broken, she realized. She was crumpled against torpedo tube two, her legs folded under her, with her back toward the room. Her eyes darted around the room as she turned, searching for her crew.
Caleb Johnson was ten feet away on the starboard side of the room, lying on his side, back toward Tiffany. He wasn’t moving. Hector, Patrick and Gusman were struggling to stand up. The rest were at least moving. She winced in pain as she slowly stood and stumbled over to Johnson. She gently rolled Johnson over onto his back, expecting the worst. His eyes blinked.
“Oh God,” he mumbled. He looked up at her. “What the hell happened?”
“Two torpedoes, head to head,” she said.
“Oh yeah,” he replied as he lifted his left hand to his head. “Where’s all the water coming from?”
Tiffany had been so intent on her crew that her mind had blocked out the hissing sound from the spraying sea water coming from torpedo tube one. She saw Hector grab the damage control kit and rush over to the source of the water. S
he looked back at Johnson. “You okay?”
“I think so.”
They both got up and headed toward the blasting streams of water emanating from torpedo tube one. Johnson grabbed the two-handed wrench that was used for manual override for many of the automated functions on the torpedo tube. He placed the socket over the square end of the drive rod that connected to the outer door gear train. It wouldn’t budge. “Hector, give me a hand.” Hector grabbed one side of the wrench while Johnson put both hands on his side. “Ready?” They strained to turn the drive rod, but it wouldn’t move.
“Try opening the outer door,” Tiffany suggested. “Maybe we can unjam it.” They got a turn and a half out of the drive rod before it stopped moving. “Now try closing the door,” she said.
The drive rod jammed at the same place. “Not going to work, ma’am,” Johnson reported.
* * *
Captain Jacobs opened his eyes and tried to focus his mind on the condition of his boat. He rolled to his hands and knees and staggered as he attempted to stand. Leaning against the bulkhead he began to assess the damage. The electronic tactical display was dark and had a deep crack that ran from the upper left corner diagonally down to the bottom of the screen near the lower right. He worked his way over to the command platform and pressed the intercom button. “Damage control, con, report.” He released the button waiting for a response. The only thing he heard was the ringing in his ears. “Damage Control, con, report,” he repeated. Still nothing.
The Massachusetts started to tip slowly toward the front. Jacobs saw Silverton struggle to his feet and look around, his eyes coming to rest on Adams, who was lying crumpled against the forward bulkhead. Silverton bent over Adams and shook him. “COB, COB.” He checked for a pulse and looked at Jacobs. “He’s alive, but unconscious.” More of the men in the control center started to move and gradually return to their stations. Silverton stood, held on to the side bulkhead and made his way over to the command platform. “Captain, you’re bleeding.”
Jacobs reached up with his left hand and touched his left cheek. When he looked at his fingers they were dripping with bright red blood. Silverton staggered over and opened the First Aid kit. He pulled out several gauze pads and put them on the gash on Jacobs’ scalp.
“It’s not too bad,” Silverton said. “But head wounds bleed like a bitch. Just keep some pressure on it.”
“The intercom isn’t working,” Jacobs said. He looked around. “Nothing is – main power is out.” He pointed to a young man who was one of the first to stand up. “Seaman, Karpinski.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Break out the Sound Powered Phone. See who else is doing the same thing.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” he replied. Karpinski opened a cabinet under the display console, removed the headphone and mouthpiece from the box, put them on his head and plugged the connector into the receptacle. The Sound Powered Phone system didn’t depend on any outside power system. The operator’s voice vibrated the microphone, which generated an electrical signal that powered the speakers in the headphones in the system. “This is the control center,” he said. “Anyone there?” He listened. “Sir, reactor room and engineering reporting in, minor damage, no water, trying to reset systems.”
“What about the torpedo room,” Jacobs asked.
“Torpedo room, report in,” Seaman Karpinski spoke into the mouthpiece. He waited. “Torpedo room, report in.” He looked at Jacobs, “No response, Sir.”
The Massachusetts was starting to tip more toward the front. “We’re taking on water,” Jacobs said. He pointed to three men now standing in the control center. “You three, damage control, head below, do not open any watertight doors without checking through the glass first. Close doors behind you. Find out what’s going on in the torpedo room.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” they answered. They looked through the small glass window in the forward watertight door, rotated the wheel and cracked the door open. Stephanos was on the other side of the door.
He stepped into the control center as the three men went through. “Without power we can’t tell what’s working and what’s not.”
Jacobs turned to Seaman Karpinski. “Find Lieutenant Kent. Get him to the torpedo room, and find out how long before we get power from the reactor room and from engineering.” Seaman Karpinski talked into the Sound Powered Phone and listened.
“Reactor room is functioning, turbine spinning, generator is currently off line. They’re checking fuses. Engineering reporting multiple blown fuses, main distribution panel is damaged; main bus bars are shorted and fused together, rerouting wires to the auxiliary panel, estimate ten minutes before they can try to restore power, Sir.”
* * *
Tiffany watched as Hector held the medium round wood plug in his left hand and the drive mallet in his right. The two sight glasses in the torpedo tube door had blown out, leaving two oval holes in the door. As he tried to position the plug in front of the stream of water the force of the flow blew the plug out of his hand and sent it careening across the room. He looked up at her.
“The force is a lot stronger than in the training room,” she said. “We need to improvise.”
Caleb Johnson grabbed a pry bar and stuck it into the top sight glass hole and lifted up on the bar. The water blasted upward into his face.
“Plug the bottom half!” he shouted.
Hector took another wood plug and lined it up with the lower half of the sight glass hole, smacking it into place with the mallet. Johnson repeated the maneuver with the bottom hole. Hector slammed the plug into the hole – that cut the flow to about half of what it was but the water was still getting deeper in the torpedo room much too rapidly. The water was now knee deep.
“What about the wide crack wedges?” Tiffany asked.
Hector pulled a wide wedge out of the kit and lined it up with the hole.
“Too wide!” he shouted over the sound of the spray.
Johnson withdrew a pocket knife from his pocket and carved the edges of the wedge down. “Try it now.”
Hector drove the wedge in on top of the round plug. It held.
“More wedges,” Tiffany shouted.
Within a few minutes the flow of water had slowed, but the gaps between the round plugs and the wedges still allowed a continuous flow of water into the torpedo room.
Tiffany heard a loud banging from the watertight door. She rushed over and looked through the small glass window. She saw Lieutenant Kent on the other side of the door, worry etched in his face. He held up a Sound Powered Phone set. She nodded and snatched the device from the lower drawer of the tool storage drawers, put the head set on and plugged it into the connector.
“Open the door!” he shouted into the phone.
She shook her head. “Too much pressure.”
She heard, “Torpedo room, this is the control center, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Get the Captain on the phone.”
“Lieutenant, what’s going on?” It was Captain Jacobs’ voice.
“When our torpedo hit the incoming torpedo, Sir, the outer door was still open for the guide-by-wire. The explosion jammed the outer door. We can’t move it. The inner door on tube one is broken and we’re taking on water. We already have three feet of water in the lower level. Pumps are not working. We’re driving wood wedges into the holes in the door. It’s slowing the rate of water coming in, but we can’t stop it.”
“Can you evacuate?” Jacobs asked.
“No, Sir, too much air pressure on the door. The torpedo room has the largest volume on the boat. If it fills with water the boat becomes too heavy, not enough volume left to maintain buoyancy. We would lose the boat, Sir.”
“Okay, Lieutenant, we may have auxiliary power in ten minutes, that should give you power for the pumps. Maybe that will help.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Grimes said, “what is our depth right now? None of our displays are working.” She could feel the pressure increasing. Water pressure increas
es at approximately one half pound per square inch for each foot of depth.
“Passing 700 feet, lieutenant, we’re sliding down by the bow.”
“We’re too deep for anybody to get out of the sub, Sir, we have to stay in here and fight this leak. No choice, Sir.”
“Once we get power, we’re going to try to blow main ballast; see if that gets us up where we can get out. Hold tight Lieutenant.”
“Aye-aye, Sir.” She looked around the torpedo room. With the forward tip of the Massachusetts the damaged door was now three feet under water.
* * *
As the main power came back on, the lights in the control center flickered to life. “XO, blow the negative tank and the forward auxiliary tanks, leave the rear auxiliary tanks where they currently are.” The negative tank was centrally located and was used to control the internal volume of the submarine, which, in turn, controlled the buoyancy of the boat. A greater air volume inside the negative buoyancy tank displaced more water, which increased the buoyancy, making the sub float higher in the water. The auxiliary tanks were used to balance the sub front to back and side to side. Blowing compressed air into the tanks forced the water out into the ocean. The constant tilting of the sub toward the front slowed, as did the slide into the depth of the Pacific Ocean.
“Give me a three-second high pressure blow on all main ballast tanks. Let’s see how the boat responds.” Jacobs said. The sound of high pressure air rushing through the steel pipes echoed through the boat and then, at the three-second mark, abruptly stopped. It felt like being on an elevator as the Massachusetts started to rise. Then the sub began tilting strongly toward the front, and the rise quickly turned into a sinking motion.
“Front main ballast isn’t holding air, Sir,” Silverton reported. “Probable damage from the explosion.”
Jacobs pressed the button on the intercom, “Engine room, con, can you give me reverse thrusters?”
The reply came over the intercom, “Con, engine room – we’ll give it a try, Sir.”
“The Pulsejet Propulsar isn’t really designed to move us backwards very fast, Sir,” Silverton said.
“Well, going forward is only going to drive us deeper. Any other ideas?”