Final Patrol

by Don Keith

  The area above the batteries contains the officers’ quarters and work space for the two steward’s mates, which includes a coffee urn, storage drawers, food warmers, and other equipment necessary to serve food to the skipper and other officers. The captain of a submarine was the only officer who had a private cabin. His bedroom is called a stateroom, but it can hardly be compared to a stateroom on a cruise ship. Visitors today can see how small it really is.

  The other officers shared rooms in pairs, and they all had use of a single toilet, sink, and shower. Also in this area is the wardroom, where the commissioned officers ate and held meetings around a small table. The yeoman’s office is in a tiny room on the starboard (right-hand) side at the after end (toward the rear of the boat) of the compartment. The yeoman was the enlisted man whose duty it was to keep up with the ship’s and crew’s records.

  Moving forward from the officers’ quarters, the submarine’s “business end” is found in the next compartment, at the front of the boat—the forward torpedo room. This is where a total of sixteen ready-to-load-and-launch torpedoes were stored—six inside the tubes, set to go, and ten in heavy storage racks along the sides and under the deck plates—until ready to be fired from the six tubes at the forward end of the room. Equipment for handling the torpedoes is located here as well. That was some chore, since each torpedo weighed more than a ton and a half.

  There is also bunk space here for the torpedomen to sleep when they were off duty. Some of the crew’s bunks are hung above and below the stacked torpedoes, others are suspended from the overhead, and the rest are on the starboard side, in the torpedo-loading pit. Regardless of where the men slept in this compartment, huge, heavy, deadly torpedoes surrounded them the whole time.

  The possibility of having to evacuate the sub in an undersea emergency was always on the minds of the crew members. Here, in the forward torpedo room, is an escape hatch that the men could open, crawl into, and flood with seawater, allowing them a last-resort way out. There would typically be a supply of Momsen lungs stored there, too. Those were a rudimentary device that could be strapped on in the event the boat had to be evacuated while submerged. They could be used for breathing while rising slowly to the surface. They were not a perfect solution, and the depth at which they could be used was limited, but they were about the only hope sub sailors had if their boat should be damaged or disabled while submerged, whether by enemy fire or equipment malfunction. Sub sailors were lost to both.

  Moving toward the rear of the boat from the control room, the next compartment back is called the after battery, also named for a second collection of big storage cells beneath the deck plates of this compartment. The forward end of the compartment, above the deck plates, holds one of the boat’s most important areas, the galley. Cooks prepared food for both the officers and enlisted men there, serving the bulk of what they cooked in the crew’s mess hall next door and taking the officers’ meals forward to serve them in the wardroom. The crew’s mess has four fixed tables with stationary benches along each side. In the typical configuration, they could hold two dozen men, a third of the crew, at a time.

  Another thing that came out of Theodore Roosevelt’s ride in the Plunger was the decree that submarines always provide their crews the best food available. Mr. Roosevelt felt that if the men were deprived of daylight, clean air, and open space, they should at least enjoy good meals. Submarine food is legendary in the navy, and many sailors claim to have volunteered for duty for just that reason.

  Next in line in the after battery area are the crew quarters, a total of thirty-six stainless-steel-framed bunks stacked in four rows. The crew’s duty assignments while at sea were typically four hours on watch and eight hours off watch. That meant that someone was always sleeping unless the crew was ordered to battle stations. Since there were not enough bunks for every member of the crew, some of the beds, known as “hot bunks,” were assigned to more than one person to use each day.

  A metal door at the after end of the bunk area is the entry into the crew’s head, or toilet area. It contains two stalls with toilets, two stall showers, and two washbasins, as well as an automatic laundry machine. More than seventy men were required to share two toilets, two showers, and two sinks. That, in and of itself, may explain the closeness of the submariner brotherhood!

  The next area back after the crew quarters holds the forward and after engine rooms. Each engine room contains two diesel main engines that are directly coupled to a high-powered electrical generator. Output from the engine-driven generators provided power to operate the electrical propulsion motors in the motor room when the boat was on the surface. They also charged the batteries. In the aft engine room, below deck level, there is a small auxiliary diesel engine that could be used as a low-power substitute for the main engine if need be. The forward engine room is almost identical to the aft engine room, except it has a small machine shop in place of the auxiliary engine.

  Companies that built railroad locomotives typically manufactured these diesel engines. They had to be powerful and reliable, for obvious reasons. A powerless submarine was a sitting duck for enemy ships and airplanes.

  Next in line is the maneuvering room and, below it, the motor room. The two large electric motors in the motor room were what actually sent the submarine forward or backward, whether she was on the surface or submerged. Each of those motors drove a screw (or propeller) that is located at the boat’s stern. While the submarine was on the surface, the electric motors got their juice from the diesel-engine-driven electrical generators. While submerged, their power came from the electric batteries in the forward and after battery compartments.

  Huge electrical switches were required to change over from generator to battery power or to begin charging the batteries. Those switches are located in the control cubicle, a stainless-steel box that measures eight to ten feet on a side. The cubicle is shock-mounted to isolate the switches from the shaking and rattling of depth charges or rough seas. Two men, called controllermen, handled the switching from the maneuvering panel that is located behind the cubicle. They adjusted the rheostats and levers in response to orders from the conning tower or control room.

  Theirs was an interesting dance to watch. They followed orders from the con or bridge by maneuvering the levers, switches, and knobs in a complicated ballet, creating the correct combination to make the submarine do what the OOD or skipper wanted her to do. Because of the electricity that coursed through the cubicle, this area was also susceptible to fire, something feared by submariners even more than flood.

  The final compartment at the far rear end of the boat is the aft torpedo room. It is very similar to the forward room, only considerably smaller. There are only four torpedo tubes here. Whenever the boat was on patrol at sea, each of the tubes had a torpedo stored in it. Four other torpedoes were stored in the room. This gave the boat a complement of twenty-four torpedoes in the two rooms. Of course, if one torpedo room ran out of “fish,” that end of the boat was out of business. There was no way to get the heavy torpedoes from one end of the submarine to the other to reload. Skippers had to always be cognizant of how many fish were left and where they were located.

  The after torpedo room also has its own emergency escape hatch with a supply of Momsen lungs.

  Life on a submarine could be tedious. Imagine living in such close quarters with other men, not to mention the inevitable tensions of wartime, the pressures of stalking targets for long, nervous hours while attempting to destroy them.

  When leaving on patrol, their fuel tanks were filled with heavy diesel fuel, and it was necessary to constantly recalculate the effect of the weight of that fuel as it was burned away. Otherwise diving and surfacing could be especially dangerous. Also, when the boats left port on a patrol, every nook and cranny was filled with provisions for the run. Even the decks were covered with cans of food, and the crew literally had to walk around on their groceries until they were used up.

  Even though they were built to run o
n and under the sea, water was a precious commodity aboard submarines. Seawater could not be used in the storage batteries. Only distilled water was pure enough for that purpose, so the subs carried distilling systems that could convert seawater to something the batteries could tolerate. The old joke among submariners was that if the distilled water was pure enough, it was used in the batteries. If it was not, it was used for drinking and cooking.

  There was certainly not enough clean water for regular bathing. A shower aboard a submarine was a rare luxury. It was far more common for the crew to grab a quick bath while running through a rainstorm than to be able to take much more than a spit-bath. When leaving port, the enlisted men’s double shower stalls were usually crammed full of potatoes and other supplies. They would not be using them for their intended purpose anytime soon after heading out on patrol.

  Another old joke was that nobody noticed body odor aboard the boats. The diesel fumes pretty well took care of that.

  Still, the new fleet boats had many advantages over their predecessors. They had better air-conditioning, which was a big factor in the warm climes where much of the war was being fought in the Pacific. Despite how they might seem to visitors today, they were roomier than the boats that came before them. And they were perfectly designed for what they were primarily charged to do: stalk and attack enemy vessels, either on the surface or while submerged. Of course, they also had much greater range and could move faster.

  These new classes of submersibles were actually very efficient ships while running on the surface, even faster and more maneuverable than many vessels designed to ride only on the surface. Yet they were capable of virtually disappearing, both visually and aurally, when they submerged. Sometimes aircraft could spot them in the relatively clear Pacific Ocean waters but, for the most part, when they dove to several hundred feet, they were as stealthy as any warship in history. And with the quiet battery power, as long as there were no squeaking bearings or other malfunctions, they ran about as silently as was possible.

  As World War II progressed, newer, more sophisticated radar was being developed and installed on the subs, sometimes while the advanced technology was still being perfected. That gave the submarines a strong tool to use in tracking the enemy, and a considerable advantage over the Japanese, whose technology was lagging by this time.

  Torpedoes, too, had been problematic in the early days of the war. Skippers maintained that the fish would zoom right up to a target, smash its nose hard into the other vessel’s side, and still fail to explode. Other types of torpedoes ran erratically, deeper or more shallow than set to do, and never even had a chance to hit an enemy vessel. But those troubles were eventually fixed and the success of the submarine navy improved markedly as the conflict wore on. The official numbers show it.

  Still, even with this advanced warship beneath them, young men risked their lives defending their country every time one of them pulled out of harbor and left on the next war patrol. Thankfully, many more than could ever serve volunteered for submarine duty, and, as we have seen, they did their jobs well.

  We can also be thankful for the efforts of those who were determined to preserve these vessels for us to visit, tour, and learn more about. Not only can we walk through them and see for ourselves the conditions under which these men lived and fought, but these museum boats also serve as touchstones for all those men who have served in the submarine navy through the years. These boats are something tangible, something real that they can come back to and relive that chapter in their lives.

  There are precious few of them left—boats and World War II sub sailors.

  Many of the submarines were lost in the war. Others were scrapped, used for target practice, or ended up in foreign navies. Only a few of the more than three hundred World War II diesel boats remain today, and the job of keeping them in shape for us to see is a difficult and expensive one.

  I have read the estimate, too, that we are losing a thousand World War II veterans a day. The World War II Submarine Veterans organization no longer holds a separate convention each year, but has thrown in with the larger United States Submarine Veterans group, which includes members of all ages. There simply aren’t enough of the old guys to justify their own get-together any longer.

  Their World War II crew reunions, often held at or near one of the museum boats, now attract fewer and fewer attendees. Most of those who are still able to attend such gatherings are men who served in later commissions of the submarines, in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

  But as you learn more about them, as you read the amazing true stories of the boats, of the young men who rode them, and of the people who saved the vessels and who keep them preserved, then you will certainly come to appreciate them.

  And I assure you, that appreciation will only grow should you take the opportunity to visit one or more of these gallant old ladies.

  USS COD (SS-224)

  Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

  USS COD (SS-224)

  Class: Gato

  Launched: March 21, 1943

  Named for: the cod, the world’s most important food fish

  Where: Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut

  Sponsor: Mrs. Grace Mahoney, the wife of a shipyard employee

  Commissioned: June 21, 1943

  Where is she today?

  USS Cod Submarine Memorial

  1089 East 9th Street

  Cleveland, Ohio 44114

  (216) 566-8770

  www.usscod.org

  Claim to fame: She was part of the only international submarine-to-submarine rescue in history, and survived a potentially disastrous fire in the torpedo room. She is one of the best-preserved of all the museum boats.

  Commander James Dempsey was proud of his new boat. From his perch on her bridge, she was a beautiful sight to behold, even in the darkness of the South China Sea. He could see the sparkling green phosphorescence playing in the wash at her stern, but that was not totally a good thing. The skipper hoped no Japanese lookout somewhere out there in the black night would take notice of the starry wake of the USS Cod.

  “Keep a sharp eye,” he called to the men who stood above him, strapped in the shears, gazing out into the night. Young men, not one among them yet twenty years old. They were specially selected for lookout duty because, it was assumed, youth meant better eyesight. Even with the sophisticated new radar they carried, it was often the human eye that did the best job when the chips were down. Or it was typically one of the kid sub sailors who confirmed what the newfangled radar gear was telling them.

  “We don’t want to lose sight of that convoy before we get a chance to shoot our popgun at her, boys,” Dempsey told them.

  “We will, sir.”

  “We won’t lose them!”

  The Cod was totally shipshape, ready for war, and her crew was as ready as she was. Still, Commander Dempsey knew it was not all about hardware out here in the Pacific theater. It took smarts, hard work, and not a little bit of luck to be successful. And a war-hardened skipper like Jim Dempsey knew this firsthand.

  He was a relative old-timer out here, in his thirties, a 1931 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. His first command in the war was an old veteran, too, an S-boat, the S-37 (SS-142), put into service way back in 1923. Though ninety feet shorter than the new Gato boats like the Cod, limited to only two hundred feet of depth when they dived to hide, and only capable of steaming at about fourteen knots on the surface, Dempsey and his crew had taken her out when the war started and proved the old girl was still capable of striking a blow. His chance came on the last of his three patrols at the helm of the S-boat, only a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Dempsey and his crew on the S-37 claimed the first Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) destroyer to be sunk during the war, the Natushie, dispatched to the bottom of the Flores Sea in February 1942. He was later on the bridge of the USS Spearfish (SS-190), too, on four patrols out of Australian ports in 1942. Though that boat was a Sargo-class vessel and closer
to the Cod in size and design, she simply did not have the capabilities of the new Balao-class boats, like the one he now proudly helmed.

  Still, his first two patrols as skipper of this new boat had not been as successful as he and the rest of his crew had hoped. On their first patrol, in November of 1943, they were only able to mount a single attack on any kind of enemy target. They sank one ship of unknown type, with an estimated displacement of seventy-one hundred tons. Dempsey had no way of knowing then that even that bagged quarry would not be counted as a kill after the war, as was the case with so many. After World II, the official tally of vessels destroyed was most often based on the spotty records of the IJN and determined by a commission dubbed “JANAC,” the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee. That group tended to be very conservative in giving credit.

  Tonight’s our night, the captain said to himself as he peered into the darkness. The big, slow-moving convoy, tankers and transports lined up for miles, was theirs for the taking if they could only maneuver to the proper position without being detected, and then line up to shoot. Through the soles of his shoes, the captain felt the rumble of the big engines vibrating throughout the vessel, steadily driving his boat after their quarry. It was a comforting feeling, sensing the power that was at his disposal, the systems he could now employ in the relentless pursuit of the enemy.

  Tonight we justify our groceries, Dempsey thought, his slight smile hidden by the darkness.

  Their second run started promisingly enough. They sank a sampan with their deck guns. Not exactly a battleship, but such vessels often acted as spotters, watching and reporting Allied warship positions and the approach of U.S. airplanes on the way to the Japanese Home Islands for another bombing run.