Factually, over half of our complement had already reported to Submarine Administration (SubAd), Commander Submarine Force Pacific’s facility at Mare Island. The men had come from other submarines, submarine school, or other schools pertinent to their rate. A few had come directly from surface ships, or from cities and farms via boot camp. Most important during these final stages of construction were the senior petty officers who had been attending schools at the manufactories of Wahoo’s major machinery.
Hand in hand with the billeting at Sub Ad went the facility’s practical schools for lower rates and non-rated men. Training devices, similar to shipboard installations, provided the actual experience men would need to stand supervised watches in their submarine underway. Wahoo’s senior petty officers were either instructing or drawing machinery spare parts for temporary stowage adjacent to the office.
Everyone was busy, so I followed suit with my own school, heading for the after torpedo room. There were four tubes, carried loaded, their inner doors secured by heavy bronze bayonet locking rings. Just forward were skids to hold four reloads, and sandwiched with these were twelve pullout bunks. Forward to starboard lay the boatswain’s storeroom opposite an enclosed head with outside scuttlebutt (drinking fountain). It was a complete fighting unit, with Torpedoman’s Mate, First Class (TM1c) Johnson, who had greeted me, already in charge.
Forward in the small maneuvering room, Chief Electrician’s Mate (CEM) Norman Ware introduced himself. This must have been planned and was appreciated. The heart of maneuvering was the encaged control cubicle with operating levers extending aft and rheostats controlling the fields. Here, electricians would direct the electrical output of all diesel generators to the four main motors, two to each propeller shaft through reduction gears, or to the two great batteries when charging. Similarly they would direct the batteries’ output to the main motors when submerged. All of this was completely flexible. It was here that all maneuvering bells would be answered, with the electricians calling for more engines as required when surfaced.
Though I would have preferred continuing through the boat, my call on the captain of the Navy Yard took precedence. While there, I learned that Comdr. Duncan C. MacMillan was expected as Wahoo’s captain. Back at the office, the reporting of Lt. (jg) Chandler C. Jackson had solved the problem of a communication and commissary officer. A University of Wisconsin and sub school graduate, commissioned in the V7 officer program, he could take these jobs, which included underwater sound, in stride. Tall, lanky, brown haired, and with a bit of a wry smile, he’d fit in well, and I left the Navy Yard with the feeling that we surely must be receiving the best officers and chief petty officers.
A target bearing transmitter (TBT) to send binocular bearings to the conning tower might have brought an attack on the destroyers at Midway. So our senior radioman, James Buckley, RM1c and I set about making one. Lean and dark haired, his southern voice disguised an eagerness of a Yankee, for he soon had a bronze azimuth circle and boat stuffing box from scrap. A Monel shaft with slotted fitting above to receive binocular hinge pins and a pointer below completed the mechanical installation. The optical shop installed a vertical reticle in two pairs of binoculars, and Wahoo was now ready for a night surface attack.
Continuing my school below, I met our senior Chief Machinist’s Mate (CMM) Andy Lenox as I entered the after engine room. He had just returned from school at Fairbanks Morse, where all of Wahoo’s engines had been built. Dark haired, and with about 10 years’ more service, he took obvious pleasure in explaining our four nine-cylinder, opposed-piston, supercharged main engine generators. Each was rated at 1,600 horsepower, but could generate volts and amperes the equivalent of 2,000. At the time, we only glanced down to the lower flats at the 500-and 300-kw diesel auxiliaries. On leaving the forward room, we looked over two Kleinschmidt stills, which would supply all of the freshwater needs regardless of the duration of a patrol.
Our TBT and my initial familiarization with the boat had been completed just in time, for Lt. Comdr. Marvin G. Kennedy reported as prospective commanding officer (PCO). He came from staff duty preceded by executive officer of Narwhal SS N1, one of our three large submarines, and enjoyed an excellent reputation in torpedo fire control and tactics. Tall, lean, and with a complexion befitting his name, he was quite gentlemanly, but more formal than my previous small-ship captains. He also had his own projects to be completed. First came the installation of tanks to save the air conditioning condensate. Next came an extra set of 8½-by-11-inch card holders in each compartment for close-up pictures of Japanese ships. Chief Rau, now called “Pappy” by his contemporaries, then procured six large cases of ruby-red light bulbs to shorten the time for the eyes of those with topside watches to adapt to the dark. Unlike other boats, all of Wahoo’s lights would be red. Since red-marked danger sectors and such on the charts would not be visible, I was allowed a white light in the ship’s office, but with a switch that turned it off when the door opened. Finally came a bucket for each stateroom and several for the crew’s living spaces, for doing our laundry and taking sponge baths with the condensate, the showers and washing machine being too wasteful. Heretofore, such restrictions were unheard-of in modern boats.
Our major machinery had now been tested at dockside, including the firing of dummy torpedoes. A docking to cut the previously marked flood openings in our ballast tanks had been completed, and the time had come when the responsibility for Wahoo’s completion should pass to the PCO. In a ceremony with crew and officers assembled, Lieutenant Commander Kennedy read his orders; Signalman Hunter broke the commission pennant from the main, the jack and national ensign were flown, and on this June 15, 1942, Wahoo became a unit of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
During the following weeks of underway testing, Mare Island inspectors rode with our crew. They attended to their particular machinery together with our responsible officers and petty officers. Those not involved organized their divisions into three watch sections of comparable abilities, and helped the chief of the boat in fitting the names into the Watch Quarter and Station Bill. Measuring about 2 by 3 feet and posted in the crew’s mess, this bill would show the watch section, battle station, and duty for each emergency drill for every hand. On getting underway and returning to port, however, experienced men from each section, who took the watch, were known as the special sea detail, a semipermanent and prestigious assignment.
To obtain a satisfactory trim on diving, the diving officer can order pumping from auxiliary (amidships) to sea, or between forward and after trim in any combination including flooding from sea. George had demonstrated during our first dive up the bay when Wahoo had fired her first torpedoes, and again on our dive to test depth of 312 feet at sea. Then, however, the Navy Yard had rigged overlapping battens to check the hull’s deflection. It was normal, requiring the expected pumping to sea to compensate for the reduced displacement. Commencing with our shakedown to San Diego, the officer of the deck (OOD) would go on down and take the dive.
The final loading was completed and at 1700 on Wednesday, July 15, I reported to the captain, “All hands are aboard and Wahoo is ready for sea and shakedown, Sir.” He thanked me, and I saw him ashore.
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Underway from Mare Island at dawn, Wahoo followed the Napa to the Sacramento River, and then turned south following the buoys through San Pablo Bay. On course in the channel, Captain Kennedy gave the conn to Chan and went below. Two dieseis with 80% load and 90% speed, called 80/90, were driving us on at 14 knots. On Chan’s report of San Francisco looming ahead, the captain came topside, changed course into the main ship channel, and on schedule, at 0800, Wahoo passed through the Golden Gate. Turning south at the sea buoy, two more engines went on propulsion, and all four worked up to full power for the required 20-hour endurance run. Aboard were Navy Yard representatives from Fairbanks Morse and General Electric to observe and advise, and they were more than welcome.
Quartermaster Hunter and I identified the landmarks and then lights as we pi
loted Wahoo down the coast and then through the Santa Barbara Channel. Below, our hefty senior cook, Rowls, had prepared fine meals, and the odor of lean SC1c (ship’s cook, first class) Phillips’s baking had roused the oncoming midwatch. George’s engineering plant completed its endurance run without fault. The antisubmarine net was opened, and at 1400, our captain brought Wahoo alongside the waiting pier at the Destroyer Base in San Diego on schedule.
Waiting were Commander Swinburne, Deputy Commander Submarine Force Pacific Fleet (ComSubPac), whom I had known from early submarine days, and the base commander, Commodore McCandless, an acquaintance since serving in destroyers. While the captain walked to the base with them, we turned back the sections of decking that covered the after and forward torpedo loading hatches. This put the attached skids in place. The slanted hatches were opened, showing the receiving skids below already aligned, and Roger with his torpedomen went about loading the four torpedoes waiting on their conveyor at dock-side.
No operation order was needed to tell that Wahoo would be underway by dawn for tactical approaches and possible firing during daylight. To avoid lost time, the target ship followed a zigzag plan to confuse the submarine, but so laid down that an aggressive boat, with correct tactics, could close to an acceptable torpedo-firing range. That would set the pattern for nearly 2 weeks, with ship’s drills taking up the slack while our destroyer or patrol craft (PC) target and Wahoo opened the range for the next run. After firings, specially outfitted PT-type retrievers picked up the torpedoes, whose yellow exercise heads brought them to the surface at the end of their run. Prepared for refiring, they would be reloaded on the second night. So we did get some sleep.
We had learned our battle stations till there would be no mistakes. The captain made excellent approaches, including some by the TBT at night. By the position of the torpedo wakes, or by seeing the fish run under their ships, the escort skippers signaled hits for all but a few of the required firings, and those were difficult with wildly zigging targets.
Only one exercise remained on the schedule—the firing of our deck gun. We did not yet have one, so Captain Kennedy asked me to go to the 11th Naval District Headquarters and schedule an indoctrinal depth charging for Monday morning, the day of our departure, instead.
Upon returning, I found the pier swarming with crewmen, each with a batch of rags, and what appeared to be an allowance of ammunition about the dock. The red magazine flood valve wheel, forward of the flood and vent manifold, had lost its warning red in our red lighting. It must have been inadvertently cracked and then not completely shut during diving. A mess cook had noted one of the hatches in the deck seeming a little squashy. Upon opening it, Paul Phillips, our fine baker, had found the magazine flooded. George had told the captain, who had few words, but seemed a bit in shock.
In the morning, the flooding of the magazine was not mentioned as Wahoo departed, rigging for dive en route. Ten miles northwest of Point Loma, Lieutenant (jg) Lassing with his PC-570 was waiting as had been agreed. Wahoo drew ahead on course north and then dived, rigging for depth charge while keeping both scopes exposed. The purpose was to let newer hands know what depth charges are like and so dispel some of the Hollywood myths created by shaking the camera. PC-570 came roaring past, lest she damage her stern, and laid down a string of four. The instantaneous CRACK then WHACK and swishing rumble through the superstructure, repeated four times, could have convinced the uninitiated that the charges were on top of us, but Hunter on the scope confirmed that they were a hundred yards away. So the final requirement before departing on patrol had been completed, when normally this would have been done off Pearl Harbor.
Our continuing return to Mare Island went well. Loading for patrol kept hands busy, but did not interfere with normal liberty. A final docking fixed an annoying squeal from our port shaft, and after testing at sea, much to the delight of the crew, Wahoo moored at Pier 45 in San Francisco. In the morning we would sail for Pearl Harbor and unrestricted submarine warfare against the enemy.
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A prolonged blast from her whistle warned that Wahoo was backing clear from Pier 45. The current caught her stern, commencing a swing that our captain completed precisely with screws and rudder. Two engines were now driving us towards the center of the Golden Gate Bridge, surely man’s most beautiful steel structure. As we drew near, the waves from our friends and loved ones, gathered in the observation area, carried their Godspeed, and ours were returned. But then the channel and antisubmarine net required our strict attention. The time was 0930 on this August 12, 1942, as prescribed in our operation order.
Beyond the marked channel, all landmarks were obscured by the seasonal fog, but the two Farallon Islands and the bridge showed clearly on the SJ (surface search) radar as tall dancing pips above the horizontal grassy line. Their bearings and ranges plotted nicely with our dead-reckoning position (DR) on the chart and gave a final departure point by radar, a new experience for me. A lookout report brought me to the bridge; it was our escort, the USS Kilty, waiting beyond the end of the swept channel, clear of possible enemy mines. I gave the captain the recommended course and time at the channel’s end, and received his, “Make it so.” George took the conn and ordered, “Set the regular sea detail,” and “Rig ship for dive.” The captain left the bridge and I followed, but only as far as the conning tower to get my sextant for a morning sun line.
Normally in submarines, the senior quartermaster or signalman becomes the assistant navigator. So I was surprised to find that SM1c Hunter was to head our quartermaster watch list. The designation was reasonable, for he could now be on watch with our less experienced officers, but I would have preferred making the designation. So I showed Krause, our polite, sandy-haired signalman, second class from New England, how to use the comparing watch, and we took five evenly spaced altitude readings of the sun. The computation gave us an apparently good position line, but the proof would have to await the sun line at high noon. While I went below to consult the captain concerning plans for the rest of the day, Krause consulted our books concerning his new responsibility.
The captain went along with my suggestion for a chlorine gas drill about midafternoon to be followed by a trim dive after our escort had been released. This modest schedule would surely be welcomed by all hands, especially the bachelors, for George, with the duty, and Pappy Rau apparently had experienced a busy night in striking returning hands below. Living only 23 miles north of the bridge, mine had been a quiet night at home, and quite intentionally, I had not inquired about the details, which had obviously been well handled. Other questions were answered by a quick turn through the boat: We were well secured for sea, with no loose gear to cause damage or injury. Some hands were restowing lockers, but most others not on watch were staying out of the way in their bunks. The watch was alert, including the galley, where our expert cook, Phillips, was showing how to turn chicken-fried steaks. Unfortunately, there was no way to snitch one, so I returned to the bridge suddenly quite hungry.
George would have the deck till noon, with Roger and then Chan to follow. Hopefully, we could add three junior officers at Pearl, so in a one-in-three rotation, the extra could serve as operations officer supervising the conning tower watch and as assistant navigator. This had proved desirable in Argonaut, so here, with radar also to be interpreted, an operations officer would seem essential. But the sight topside took my mind from such details.
Wahoo was racing through the calm summer seas on course 255 degrees true heading for Point Yoke, the first of five positions that would keep us clear of any shipping while en route to Pearl Harbor. Maintaining a station about 500 yards ahead was Kilty, who would accompany us till dark, primarily to identify our submarine as friendly. We would thus avoid diving for planes and could maintain the 16-knot speed of advance required by our operation order. At the moment, three of our four main dieseis were driving Wahoo at 17 knots so as to allow for temporary reductions during training dives and some of our emergency drills.
Each of the four lookouts was searching his sector as if we were in enemy waters, and that was as it should be. Realism came with an SD (air search) radar contact at 12 miles. It could be in any sector since the SD gives range only and is not directional, but if the plane closed we would dive, for escorted or not, the final responsibility for Wahoo’s safety lay with us alone. Probably sighting Kilty, the plane withdrew after closing a mile, so by her presence, our escort was accomplishing her mission.
My task, at the moment, was to provide an accurate noon position report. The noon latitude sun line crossed nicely with the midmorning line run ahead at our speed and confirmed our (dead-reckoning) position. Wahoo was indeed making good 17 knots. The captain received the formal position slip, a printed form about 3 by 4 inches, that I had signed. After thanking me, he advised that he would be below for the next half hour or so. This was not an order for me to remain on the bridge or in the conning tower, but I gathered that he expected such, so answered that I would be here at hand.
When the noon meal had been served and the mess cooks had squared away the mess room, we held the chlorine gas drill. This deadly gas will be generated if saltwater enters the battery cells. Normally, the rupture of the pressure hull abreast a battery compartment would have to precede such flooding, and in peacetime, this would be limited to a collision. In the coming months, however, depth charges, bombs, and even shelling increased the possibility. So, rehearsing the procedure of identifying, vacating, and isolating the affected battery compartment, with subsequent ventilation, was now more important. It could save many lives. The instructions that had been posted in each compartment, and the detailed procedures contained in the duty chief’s folder, proved adequate, and I congratulated Chiefs Rau and Ware on their performances. Chlorine gas was set aside as a drill. Now, the report of chlorine gas would mean the real thing.
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