Hellcats

by Peter Sasgen

  0339 Fired tube #3. Fired tube #4.

  0340-27 First torpedo hit.

  -29 Second torpedo hit.

  0342 Target started to turn over to port. There’s a mad scramble to clear a life boat. Men are swinging out cargo boom on forward mast. Has about a 40 degree list.

  0334 Target slowly righted itself but with considerably less freeboard than Lloyd’s [of London] would insure. Bow section up to foremast looks like it might break off.

  0344 These guys are game. They have opened up with about 5 machine guns from bow, bridge, and stern. All pointed in our direction. However, a periscope is a pretty tough target to hit.

  0345 Bow is sinking slowly. When last seen, tracers were still coming from its machine guns. Stern is coming out of water. Target finally dove with 90 degree down angle. Reckon he will play hell pulling out of that. Considered sunk.

  By now the Japanese knew that something extraordinary was happening in the Sea of Japan. At Pearl Harbor JICPOA had been waiting for an expected increase in enemy radio activity on or about Mike Day. It would signal that the intruding subs had been discovered and that the Japanese had gone after them. When that didn’t happen, everyone breathed easier. Then, on the night of June 9, Pearl Harbor informed ComSubPac that it had intercepted an emergency transmission from a maru attacked by a submarine in the Sea of Japan. Lockwood lit a cigar. It had started. He had to hope the Hellcats would smash up everything in sight before the Japanese got themselves organized, and before all the marus fled open water for the safety of port. Lockwood wasn’t overly concerned about Japanese antisubmarine measures. Fuel and manpower shortages, to say nothing of the lack of ships, would blunt efforts to go after the Hellcats. He was more concerned that targets would simply dry up, leaving the Hellcats wandering around, looking for something to shoot at. Impatient though he was, all he could do was wait for word from Hydeman that the Hellcats had started collecting for Mush Morton and the Wahoo.

  Off the coast of Korea, the Tinosa’s periscope watch picked up the mast and top hamper of a ship heading for a port somewhere near Yangyang. Latham went after it, though it took more than five hours to work into position to attack.

  The ship was a medium-size cargo ship with a red meatball flag flying from her flagstaff. “Fire . . . !”

  Latham watched three white bubble tracks streak for the ship. “Down scope!” The setup was a perfect ninety-degree track, broadside to. Latham wagered that he had this one in the bag. “Up scope!” He looked for telltale flashes of light and geysers of water but didn’t see a thing. All he heard was the sickening thud of a dud torpedo colliding with the ship’s hull and, with that, the unmistakable sound of a torpedo’s air flask exploding, not its warhead of deadly Torpex. Goddamn the torpedoes!

  But there was something else out there, too. Something sinister. Something deadly: the rising pitch of high-speed propellers churning the sea. The sonarman, headphones clamped to his ears, jumped from his seat at the sonar console, terror written on his face. “A torpedo! One of our own! It’s on a circular run! Back to us!”

  The torpedo’s horrid, whining scream resounded through the Tinosa’s hull. It was a submariner’s nightmare come true. Something had gone wrong with the torpedo, maybe a jammed rudder or a broken gyro. Whatever the cause, the Tinosa had to get out of its way fast or risk being blown to bits. A circular-running torpedo was as dangerous as a child waving a loaded and cocked pistol in a crowded room, and just as unpredictable.

  “All ahead flank! Take her down fast!” Latham ordered. The Tinosa clawed for the safety of deep water. As the sub plunged past two hundred feet, the men could hear but not see the runaway monster making ever larger concentric orbits until, at last, its chilling up-and-down Doppler scream slowly faded away. They exchanged nervous glances. Another close call, this time with a torpedo—one of their own, last time with a mine cable. The Tinosa’s hydraulic system moaned, as if protesting the unpredictable nature of submarine warfare. In the distance the boom, boom, boom of depth charges dropped by the freighter that Latham had targeted but not sunk seemed insignificant compared to the terrors of the circular run. Latham mopped his face on a towel, took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s see if we can find that guy who got away. Surface the boat!”

  Despite a thorough search that took the Tinosa deep into the Bowfin’s area, Latham conceded defeat: The ship that had survived dud torpedoes and a circular run had vanished. As it turned out she stumbled across the Bowfin patrolling some seventy-five miles north of the Tinosa, off the Korean port city of Wonsan at Yonghung Bay. Alec Tyree in the Bowfin worked a setup on the errant ship and made the crucial run-in to the firing point.

  “Shoot anytime, Captain.”

  Tyree did, four times. Then he turned his sub away and, looking aft past the Bowfin’s curling, boiling wake, saw a hit blossom on the target. Minutes later the stricken maru’s bow was pointing skyward. Armed depth charges left over from the string she had dropped near the Tinosa rolled off her slanting deck and exploded in the waters closing over her.

  Snooping at night into Hokkaido’s Ishikari Bay on June 8, the Spadefish paused outside the harbor at Otaru. Bill Germershausen considered the risks and rewards that might accompany a penetration of the harbor’s mouth to get at the ships he saw in the roadstead seaward of the harbor’s stone breakwater. There were more ships inside the harbor itself, but its confines made entry virtually impossible, to say nothing of the likelihood of grounding in shallow water.

  Germershausen relied on radar and what he could see from the bridge through binoculars to locate any patrol boats hanging around the harbor entrance. The only vessel he saw was the station ship moored at the end of the breakwater. He didn’t see any planes, even though the airfield at Sapporo had lights on for night operations. The lights cast an eerie greenish glow over the entire area, as did light from the city of Otaru itself. The stubborn refusal by the Japanese to follow simple blackout regulations demonstrated their lack of concern over air raids. Germershausen decided that the situation was stacked in his favor, that the rewards outweighed the risks of launching an attack at night in restricted waters.

  Germershausen followed orders and waited until after sunset of June 9 to attack. As the sub headed in there was no need to call away battle stations other than the mere formality of it; everyone knew what the skipper had in mind and had been at their battle stations or hovering near them for hours.

  The Spadefish’s raked bow cut toward the harbor and its moored targets. Radar swept ahead and seaward for ships and patrol boats, even as it outlined the harbor and, inland, the rugged hills south of Sapporo. As the Spadefish advanced she ran so close to shore that Germershausen smelled vegetation. He was grateful for a light rain that started falling, as it would mask the Spadefish slinking toward the harbor entrance by the breakwater. Meanwhile, planes flying into and out of Sapporo roared overhead. Their brilliant landing lights illuminated everything in their glide path, including the Spadefish. Germershausen and his men instinctively ducked for cover, though it was unlikely that the aircrews would realize that the sub they were overflying was American, not Japanese.

  Halfway into the harbor Germershausen’s plan fell apart. The ships in the roadstead turned out to be small ones. The only big one he saw was a freighter standing out to sea. She steamed right past the dark, low-lying Spadefish, on an opposite course, oblivious to her presence.

  Germershausen had taken a huge risk and had come up empty-handed. The only target in sight on which to take out his frustration was the hapless station ship moored at the end of the breakwater. He fired two torpedoes, only to have them underrun the ship. Disgusted by their performance and by his overestimation of the station ship’s draft, Germershausen issued a tangle of engine and rudder orders to spin the Spadefish on her heel and, at flank speed, haul after the ship standing out of Otaru.

  Diesels roaring, Germershausen found the ship and charged in. Three crashing torpedoes ruptured her hull, blew her mast, stack, and cargo sky-high.
She sank in less than a minute.

  A half hour later radar picked up another ship, this one inbound for Otaru.

  The Spadefish sped on, Germershausen tracking and plotting the target’s blip on the radar screen. Three torpedoes holed this ship, too, which upended and, like the Spadefish’s earlier victim, went down in less than a minute.

  And yet again, “Radar contact!” By now dawn was streaking the sky; it came early in these latitudes and Germershausen didn’t want to be caught on the surface by planes dispatched to find the emperor’s missing ships. He tracked this one by radar, then pulled the plug to finish it off submerged. Since there were no escorts to avoid, Germershausen kept the scope raised during the entire attack. It was almost too easy. All at once he saw a bright flash of light at the ship’s waterline, then another, followed by a pair of trip-hammer-like explosions that rocked the Spadefish at periscope depth.

  “Got her!” Germershausen turned the scope over for a quick look by the gang in the conning tower, who rarely had a chance to see a ship, broken in two, head for Davy Jones’s locker.

  George Pierce’s Polecats—the Tunny, Skate, and Bonefish—arrived off Honshu’s west coast on June eight. The Tunny began working an area around Wakasa Wan, due north of Kyoto, while the Skate and Bonefish started off around the Noto Peninsula, midway up the coast.

  The mountainous Noto Peninsula formed a long hook that embraced Toyama Wan, a large bay bounded by small bays and bights suitable for use as anchorages. The tip of the Noto hook, known as Suzu Misaki, lies some fifty miles northeast of the interior cup of Toyama Wan. The bay, in some places, is over four thousand feet deep.

  Ozzie Lynch in the Skate drew first blood for the Polecats on June tenth. Patrolling submerged off the Noto Peninsula, Lynch noted in his patrol report:Toyama Wan has two important seaports [Nanao and Fushiki] which are now heavily mined by our B-29s which will preclude our shooting anyone sitting in these places. Just north of [the Noto] peninsula is an island [Sado, in the Sea Dog’s op area] with an excellent anchorage. The important port of Niigata is just east of this island so that the Niigata traffic to Korea would be routed to pass just north of the Noto Peninsula.... [B-29 mining] has the effect of making traffic sporadic . . . and chases them into anchorages.

  Unable to shoot at targets in those B-29-mined seaports, Lynch patrolled on the surface all night on the ninth looking for targets. In the morning he patrolled submerged along the fifty-fathom curve off the west coast of the Noto Peninsula. Around eight thirty in the morning Lynch spotted a small ship, which he avoided when it turned out to be a minesweeper. Then he saw something interesting.

  Sighted a square black object on the horizon.

  The damned thing has a gun. Battle stations submerged. It’s a submarine. The sea is glassy calm.

  1130 Fifteen or twenty degrees left zig. Right full rudder.

  1144 Fired a salvo of four torpedoes. Looks like the I-121 [from ONI 208-J]4

  Lynch’s quick firing setup worked to perfection. Hit squarely amidships by two torpedoes, the big lumbering I-boat went down before smoke from the explosions had time to clear. A huge hissing bubble of air rising to the surface, followed by a glassy oil slick and breaking-up noises as she sank, signaled her end.

  Lynch continued patrolling, avoiding areas that he knew had been mined by B-29s. On the eleventh he chased a large freighter, fired four torpedoes but missed. The racing freighter sought refuge in an anchorage filled with ships near Wajima. This anchorage presented a multitude of targets for ships near Wajima. This anchorage presented a multitude of targets for Lynch, who went in after them.

  “Stand by tubes forward!”

  Six torpedo ready lights snapped on below the firing plungers.

  “Up periscope!”

  The exec, doing a two-step opposite Lynch at the scope, eyed the bearing marker around the scope’s upper collar.

  “Bearing, mark!” from Lynch.

  “Zero-four-nine.”

  “Range, mark!”

  The exec checked the data Lynch had dialed into the stadimeter repeater at the base of the scope. “Two-five double oh.”

  “Down scope!”

  The tube started down. Before it reached the end of its travel, Lynch motioned “up.” He snapped the handles down, steadied the scope on the targets. “Check bearing and shoot! Mark!”

  “Zero-five-four.”

  “Fire One!”

  The familiar blast of compressed air launched a torpedo at one of the Japanese ships riding at anchor in the harbor. At ten-second intervals five more whined from their tubes. Lynch reported that:

  0912 Fired six torpedoes from the forward nest. The first five hit. . . . 1 hit in small AK [transport], 3 in medium AK, 1 in loaded medium AK.

  0917 Largest AK sank. . . . Small AK settling, 1,500 tons or less.

  0918 Gunfire. Pretty close. Fathometer shows 2 fathoms [twelve feet under the Skate’s keel] .

  Japanese gunners had the Skate’s periscope in their sights. Hot rounds raised water spouts all around it. Then:

  0930 Here comes the opposition. A small vessel with a bone in its teeth. There’s been a steady barrage of gunfire . . . and one came pretty close.5

  More shells raised more water spouts around the periscope as Lynch sprinted for deep water. Depth charges dropped from the small charging vessel rattled the Skate but none was close. Lynch made a clean escape.

  While the Skate was busy torpedoing ships, George Pierce, pack leader of the Polecats, had so far come up empty-handed. On the ninth, Mike Day, Pierce in the Tunny had hurriedly fired three torpedoes from long range at a steamer, only to be rewarded with a hopeless dud and two misses. Japanese sailors, hearing the dud strike the hull of their ship, Pierce reported, shined a light over the side to see what they’d hit.

  On the tenth Pierce chased but lost a sub inside the B-29-mined reaches of the fifty-fathom curve where the Tunny couldn’t go. Pierce could only hope that the Skate and Bonefish had gotten through the Tsushima Strait okay and that they were having better luck than he was.

  Despite fighting heavy weather off the coast of Ch’ongjin, Korea, Robert Risser in the Flying Fish was so far having a better time of it than Pierce. His Bobcats had already sunk two ships and were busy tracking others. Risser was determined to run up the score as much as he could.

  On June 10, the Flying Fish arrived at her patrol station at Seishin, an industrial port near the border between the USSR and Korea. Risser saw smokestacks, large buildings, and what looked like a refinery southwest of town. Fleets of fishing trawlers clogged the harbor entrance. As far as Risser could tell viewing the scene from more than a mile offshore, and given the jumble of godowns, sheds, trawlers, and whatnot lining the harbor, there were no large ships moored there.

  Risser decided to stand off the beach to wait for something to show up. Around noontime his patience paid off. A sea truck, an eight-hundred-tonner, according to Risser,u stood out of the harbor under a sooty cloud of smoke belching from a single stack. Risser, still hoping for something better, tracked her until she was a good six or seven miles from the harbor.

  Fired two torpedoes.... First torpedo hit amidships . . . second missed astern. Target took a port list and settled slowly on an even keel. Crew manned boat and started to abandon ship but almost immediately climbed back on board. Target swung around to head for port and got up about 1-2 knots speed. They sighted scope and commenced firing at it with what appeared to be a 3” gun and a 20 mm machine gun.

  Fired a third torpedo to polish him off. I had no more than said “fire” when target took a sharp up angle and sank very quickly. Three torpedoes for 800 tons is not so hot! Two lifeboats with about 20 men in each pulled away for the beach.

  Surfaced [and stood] NE to parallel coast and cover [traffic lanes] .6

  Around midnight Risser heard, “Radar contact!” A small transport chuffing along on a zigzag course blew up when hit by a Flying Fish torpedo. Risser never saw her through the fog that had enveloped
the coast until she lit up and exploded, her blip shattering into a thousand flickering stars.

  Diesels burbling, the Flying Fish approached the target’s grave.

  Heard shouting in water which stopped as we steamed slowly through wreckage. Secured from battle stations and slowed to steerage way. . . . 7

  It took two hours of searching through the wreckage and calling out to the survivors in Japanese before they coaxed a man aboard the sub.

  Took aboard one superior private [equivalent to a U.S. Army private first-class] of the Japanese Army.v He was the only one . . . who responded to repeated calls of “Don’t be afraid, climb aboard” in [Risser’s] best Japanese. All others played dead on our near approach.

  Also recovered life ring and numerous charts. The charts turned out to be no value—all were old ones. This ship had done some cruising around Formosa, Hong Kong and Shanghai as evidenced by fixes on charts.w . . . Upon later questioning, our POW informed us that the ship was . . . bound from Sakata [Japan] to Rashin [Korea]. She was a merchant ship, empty. Eleven troops were on board, apparently as an armed guard. Our man was a member of the 75mm gun crew of five and the other six manned two machine guns. He can say “Thank you, sir” but professes no knowledge of English or [Korean]. Makes hen tracks beautifully and uses Arabic numerals....