by Peter Sasgen
Chapter Ten: The Minehunters
1 Lawrence L. Edge to Sarah S. Edge. April (undated) 1945. Edge family.
2 Ibid. Edge family.
3 Top-secret war patrol report of the USS Bonefish.
4 Lawrence L. Edge to Sarah S. Edge. Edge family.
5 Ibid.
Chapter Eleven: Probing the Line
1 Top-secret war patrol report of the USS Seahorse (SS-304).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Lockwood, HOS, p. 88.
6 Top-secret war patrol report of the USS Seahorse.
7 Top-secret war patrol report of the USS Bonefish.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid. Endorsement letter by Edge’s division commander, Captain Louis Chappell, USN.
10 Lawrence L. Edge to Sarah S. Edge. Edge family.
11 Ibid.
Chapter Twelve: “Hydeman’s Hellcats”
1 Letter from Lawrence L. Edge to Jane Tharpe, May 10, 1945. Edge family.
2 Lawrence L. Edge to Sarah S. Edge. Edge family.
3 Ibid. Edge family.
4 Unpublished manuscript by Earl T. Hydeman concerning submarine operations and Operation Barney. Undated. Courtesy of Barbara Hydeman Barnes. (Hereafter, Hydeman Ms.)
5 Lawrence L. Edge to his parents. Edge family.
6 Lockwood, HOS, p. 110. Neither Voge nor Lockwood explained how this arrangement was to be worked out with the Russians, as they were supposed to be kept in the dark about U.S. subs in the Sea of Japan. Perhaps they simply hoped that if a U.S. sub showed up at Vladivostok, they’d be welcomed for the twenty-four-hour time limit imposed upon warships seeking refuge in neutral ports. Likely Lockwood just kept his fingers crossed that nothing would happen that would require porting there.
7 ComSubPac Operation Order No. 112-45, May 26. Declassified. NARA II. Modern Military Records, College Park, MD. RG 313. 5.3 Records of Naval Operating Forces, including those of Operation Barney. (Hereafter, Op ord 112-45.)
8 Lockwood, HOS, p. 114. The original SORG document defied attempts to locate it at NARA II and the LPLC. Lockwood makes reference to it in both HOS and in his memoir, Sink ’Em All.
Chapter Thirteen: Running the Gauntlet
1 Commander Earl T. Hydeman’s Standing Orders Log for the period May 27- July 4, 1945. Courtesy of Robert Barry and Patricia Hydeman Barry.
2 Top-secret addendum to the war patrol report of the USS Sea Dog.
3 “War and Remembrance: The Mighty Mine Dodgers; Saga of the Sea Dog, Sea of Japan, June 4-25, 1945.” From SubmarineSailor.com Internet posting, August 1, 1998. www.submarinesailor.com
4 Top-secret addendum to the war patrol report of the USS Sea Dog.
5 Ibid.
6 Top-secret addendum to the war patrol report of the USS Spadefish.
Chapter Fourteen: Threading the Needle
1 Top-secret war patrol report of the USS Skate (SS-305).
2 From a description of the Tinosa’s penetration of the Tsushima Strait told to Lockwood by skipper Latham (HOS, pp. 142-47). The incident is described in a single short paragraph in Latham’s top secret addendum to the Tinosa’s Sea of Japan patrol report. The description gives no details other than the fact that the mine cable made contact with the hull outside the after engine room. In fact, Latham reported to Lockwood that the contact originated outside the hull at about the conning tower, which is slightly forward of the middle of the ship. In his patrol report Latham merely stated the bare fact that “This [noise] is believed to have been a mine cable from the [FMS] contact [of a mine] on the port bow.”
3 Lockwood to Watkins, June 1, 1945. LPLC, Box 15.
4 Watkins to Lockwood, June 9, 1945. Ibid.
Chapter Fifteen: The Death of an Empire
1 Latham’s comment on the sinking of the Wakatama Maru, published in the April 1981 Tinosa Blatt newsletter.
2 Though Lockwood said that the torpedo problem had been solved by late 1944, it’s clear from reading the patrol reports of the Hellcats (and other subs on patrol late in the war) that it wasn’t. There were still far too many erratic runs (see the Tinosa’s experience with one of her own torpedoes that made a circular run), broachers, and duds. The same problems that had bedeviled the Mk 14 and Mk 18 torpedoes were evident in the newer Mk 23s. Due mainly to these problems the Hellcats sank fewer ships than they could have. That failure can also be traced in part to poorly executed attacks, overeagerness, and faulty judgment on the part of the Hellcat skippers. While the Hellcats took a sizable toll in ships sunk, many got away unscathed.
3 Top-secret report of the USS Crevalle (SS-291).
4 Top-secret patrol report of the USS Skate (SS-305).
5 Ibid.
6 Top-secret patrol report of the USS Flying Fish (SS-229).
7 Ibid.
8 In Silent Victory (p. 839), Clay Blair says that Lockwood radioed the Hellcats, “Did anybody shoot northwest of La Pérouse Strait?” The answer came back from Germershausen, who suspected he’d erred: “Guilty.” When the Hellcats returned after their mission Germershausen received a summons to Nimitz’s office. Questioned by the admiral, the skipper told his side of the story and was told by Nimitz, “Glad you made it back safely, son.” The episode reinforced Lockwood’s determination to keep Soviet warships, especially submarines, from operating in the Sea of Japan. By then Nimitz had dropped the idea altogether.
Chapter Sixteen: A Dark Silence
1 Hydeman Ms.
2 There is no evidence that the Crevalle’s crew killed the Japanese sailor in question. However, the fact that they tried to corresponds to the one issue that, despite Dudley W. Morton’s outstanding war record, has, in some critics’ view, left him tarnished. That issue is the gun attack Morton ordered unleashed on the survivors of a troop transport sunk by the Wahoo on January 26, 1943. In his patrol report Morton described battle surfacing among the hundreds of survivors (some said thousands), many of them in so-called “troop boats,” or lifeboats, of various kinds. When the Wahoo’s gunners started shooting at them, their fire was returned by what Morton described as “[S]mall caliber machineguns. We then opened fire with everything we had” (USS Wahoo (SS-238), third patrol report, p. 58). In Morton’s judgment this apparently made the Japanese survivors fair game, as he went on to mow them down. If submarine command had misgivings about Morton’s actions it’s not apparent in the glowing endorsements to his patrol report, one of which reads, “An outstanding patrol. This patrol speaks for itself, and the judgment and decisions [of the commanding officer] demonstrate what can be done by a submarine that retains the initiative.” It’s interesting to note that the International Military Tribunal for the Far East—the Japanese war crimes trials—brought charges that the Japanese regularly machine-gunned survivors of Allied ships that had been sunk as well as Allied POW survivors of Japanese slave ships sunk by U.S. forces. (See USS Bonefish Sinking of POW ship, footnote p. 49-50.During Operation Barney the Spadefish, Flying Fish, Tinosa, and Bowfin also attacked and sank small craft with their guns, but their patrol reports contain no mention of gun crews shooting at survivors in the water.
3 Bowfin patrol report.
4 Top secret patrol report of the USS Tunny (SS-282).
5 Neither Pierce’s nor Lynch’s patrol report makes any reference to hearing explosions coming from Toyama Wan.
Chapter Seventeen: Breakout
1 Lockwood, June 23, 1945. LPLC, Box 15.
2 Lockwood, HOS, p. 294.
3 Lockwood to James Fife, June 27, 1945. LPLC, Box 15.
4 Lockwood to Nimitz, July 18, 1945. Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Lockwood diary. LPLC, Box 1.
Chapter Eighteen: The Long Search
1 Sarah S. Edge to Lawrence L. Edge, July 26, 1945. A handwritten note on the letter says, “Never mailed as Gov’t telegram came three days later.” This is a reference to the missing-in-action telegram Sarah received on July 28, 1945. Edge family.
2 Beach, Edward L., Sub
marine! New York: Henry Holt, 1946.
3 Atlanta Journal, August 12, 1945. “Son Born Day After Skipper Announced Lost.”
4 Ibid.
5 Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1945, p. 4. “Sub Flotilla Returns After Taking Nip Toll.”
6 Lockwood to Sarah S. Edge, August 12, 1945. Edge family.
7 Lucius H. Chappel to Sarah S. Edge, August 12, 1945. Edge family.
8 Potter, E. B., Nimitz, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1976, p. 388. In the context of the situation of August 11, King’s message prefix could almost be taken as a rejoinder to the infamous “This is a war warning” message transmitted to the hapless Admiral Kimmel before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
9 Lockwood to Sarah S. Edge, September 13, 1945. Edge family. Lockwood does not make clear in his reply to Sarah if, in referring to the “Bonefish going on this special mission at her own request,” he meant Operation Barney or entry into Toyama Wan. In the letter, Lockwood makes reference to Edge’s seeking permission from Pierce to enter the bay, which under the circumstances was the proper thing to do. It would make sense that if Lockwood understood that Sarah was seeking clarification of the latter point, he would forward her letter to Pierce, because as force commander the admiral knew that Operation Barney was not organized on a volunteer basis. Because few family members knew anything at all about the Bonefish’s operations in Toyama Wan, it seems likely that any questions they had about volunteering referred to Operation Barney itself.
10 Ibid.
Chapter Nineteen: The Hour of Sacrifice
1 George Pierce to Sarah S. Edge, September 18, 1945. Edge family.
2 The questions Sarah posed show her extraordinary grasp of the tactical situation as it pertained to Operation Barney. It’s not clear from any of the extant correspondence between her and Lockwood or the Department of the Navy how she acquired this information, as none of Lockwood’s letters nor those from McCann, Chappell, and others go into the tactical details of Operation Barney. One suspects that there may have been other newspaper or magazine articles, which she saw, that did.
3 Sarah S. Edge to Richard B. Lynch, October 3, 1945. Edge family. The letter as quoted is a rough draft with many excisions. Typically, Sarah produced rough drafts of her correspondence, and this is one of only a few that survive in the Edge family archive.
4 Richard B. Lynch to Sarah S. Edge, October 16, 1945. Edge family.
5 The so-called “families” letter is undated. It contains all the information she’d received from Lynch and others as noted. She makes no references to comments made by some family members of the crew that the men had done more than their fair share and that, having been ordered to undertake Operation Barney and not receiving more help when they needed it, the order was akin to murder. For the full text of the letter see Appendix Three. Edge family.
Chapter Twenty: A Shining Glory
1 Allen R. McCann to Sarah S. Edge, June 21, 1946. Edge family.
INDEX
A-2 submarine
Aichi E13A “Jake,”
Akuseki Island
Alamorgordo, atomic bomb test at
Allied convoys
Anjo Maru
Annapolis Naval Academy
Apra Harbor, Guam
Area Nine
Armed Forces Radio Network
Asiatic Fleet
Atlanta Journal
Atlantic, Battle of the
Atomic bombs
B-29s
Balabac Strait
Balao-class submarine
Barbel-class submarine
Barbers Point, Oahu
Basilan Strait
Bass, Raymond H.
Bathythermograph
Beach, Edward L.
Bethlehem Steel Repair Basin, Hunters Point
Black Stream
Blair, Clay
Bokuko Ko, Korea
Borneo
British Mine-Detection
Bureau of Naval Personnel (BuPers)
Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd)
Bushido, culture of
Cape Bolinao
Cape Mangkalihat
Caroline Islands
Cavite, Philippine Islands
Celebes Sea
Chappell, Lucius
Chapple, Wreford G. “Moon,”
Ch’ongjin, Korea
Christie, Ralph W.
Churchill, Winston
, Commander, Submarines, Pacific Fleet (ComSubPac)
Commander, Submarines, Southwest Pacific Fleet (ComSubSoWesPac)
Commander, Task Force
Comstock, Merrill
Coral Sea
Corregidor
Cramp Shipbuilding Company
Danjo Gunto
Daubin, Mrs. Freeland A.
Destination Tokyo (movie)
Domei (Japanese news agency)
Doolittle, Jimmy
Dutch Harbor, Alaska
Earl’s Eliminators
East China Sea
Edge, Lawrence Lott. (see also USS Bonefish)
award and commendation by Lockwood to
birth of daughter
Bronze Star awarded to
as executive officer of Bluefish
first patrol as commander of Bonefish
FMS and
in Fremantle
leave in U.S.
letter from Lockwood to
letter from wife, Sarah, to
letter to Jane Tharpe from
letters to parents from
letters to wife, Sarah, from
lifeguarding duties and
Lockwood and
loss of Bonefish and
marriage of
missing in action
at Naval Academy
Navy Crosses awarded to
in Operation Barney
at PCO school
personality of
physical appearance of
prisoners and
seventh patrol of Bonefish and
sixth patrol of Bonefish and
Edge, Lawrence Lott, Jr.
Edge, Sarah “Boo,”
Edge, Sarah Simms
birth of daughter
birth of son
death of
letter from Pierce
letter to Eichelberger from
letters from husband, Lawrence
letters to and from Bonefish families
letters to and from Lynch
loss of Bonefish and
marriage of
second pregnancy of
Eichelberger, Robert L.
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
Electric Boat Corporation, Groton, Connecticut
English, Robert H.
Enigma code
Enola Gay (B-29)
Exmouth Gulf
Fathometer
Fife, James
Fleet Radio
FMS (FM sonar)
in Bonefish
in Bowfin
in Crevalle
crews’ attitude toward
in Flying Fish
Lockwood and
Lockwood’s plan presented to Nimitz
in Sea Dog
in Skate
in Spadefish
technical problems with
testing of
in Tinosa
in Tunny
Formosa
Fox Day
Fremantle, Australia
FRUPAC (Fleet Radio Unit Pacific)
Furer, J. A.
Fushiki, Japan
Fushimi Maru
G-1 submarine
Gato-class submarine
German U-boats
Germershausen, William J.
in Operation Barney
GNAT (German Naval Acoustic Torpedo)
Goto Retto
Greer, Harry H., Jr.
Guam Naval Base
Halsey, William F.
Harnwell, Gaylord P.
Hellcats of the Sea (Lockwood)
Hell’s bells
Henderson, Charles M.
Henderson, Malcolm
Hirohito, Emperor
surrender address of
Hiroshima
Hitler, Adolf
Hogan, Thomas W.
Hokkaido, Japan
Honshu, Japan
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard
Hydeman, Earl T.
in Operation Barney
Hydeman’s Hepcats (see USS Crevalle ; USS Sea Dog; USS Spadefish)
I-400 submarine
I-class submarine
ICPOA (Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas)
Iki Island
Indochina
Inland Sea
Inside the Third Reich (Speer)
Ishikari Bay
Iwo Jima
Jacobs, Randall
JANAC (Joint Army Navy Assessment Committee)
Japan Current
Japan Sea (see Sea of Japan)
Japan Sea Patrol Group (see Operation Barney)
Java
Java Sea
Jellicoe, John
JICPOA (Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas)
Kennedy, Edward
King, Ernest J.
atomic bomb and
Lockwood’s plan and
publicity on submarine operations and
retirement and death of
Kirk, Oliver G.
Konron Maru
Konzan Maru
Korea
Kurile Islands
Kuroshio Current
Kyushu, Japan
La Pérouse Strait
Latham, Richard
in Operation Barney
Latta, Frank D.
LeMay, Curtis
Leyte, invasion of
Lifeguarding duties
Lockwood, Charles A.
background of
Bonefish loss and
as ComSubPac
death of
Edge, Lawrence and
end of war and
FMS and
Hellcats of the Sea by
inspection tour by
letter to Lawrence Edge from
letters to Sarah Edge from
missions into Sea of Japan and (1943)
modern submarines and
naval career of
Nimitz and FMS plan of
Operation Barney and
planning for FMS mission into Sea of Japan
postwar job