I was not adequately familiar with our pump room, directly below, so I joined Chief McGill’s school. We were standing on safety, a tank as strong as the pressure hull, which could be blown to sea and its flood valve closed for extra buoyancy in an emergency. The deck aft was the top of two auxiliary tanks, while forward it formed the top of negative, giving Wahoo 14,000 pounds of ballast for quick diving. To port and starboard were Hardy Tines multistage compressors delivering high-pressure air to 3,500 pounds per square inch on charging the air banks—groups of 11-cubic-foot steel bottles in the ballast tanks amidships.
Aft were the dual piston drain and rotary trim pumps for adjusting the boat’s weight and trim (compensating). The compressors for refrigeration and air conditioning were forward. Though the room was pierced by periscope wells and the access ladder, with piping and electric cables running to each machine, the Navy Yard had still provided adequate passageways and even a workbench. Back in the control room, I now had a better appreciation of this normally unseen part of our auxiliary-men’s task and even more respect for their chief.
In the wardroom, in addition to the Press News, messmates were perusing an innovative entertainment quite likely unique in submarines—an “Al Capp” comic strip complete with Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae. The writers were our radiomen, their shack becoming a private studio after the midwatch, and the artist, you must have guessed, was our versatile battleship lieutenant, Richie. A square a night, with two off for editing, would apparently provide Wahoo’s weekly funnies; and if this were just a start, we were in for some wild adventures. This day, their efforts provided the diversion to get us beyond the Hoyogo Maru; to treat her as spilt milk and to get on with the patrol.
4
Wahoo’s course was 300 degrees true, heading towards the basin formed by Puluwat Island and its reefs on the port hand, Gray Feather and Mogami Banks ahead, and Namonuito Island or Atoll to starboard. That loosely enclosed area measured 100 miles across, and lay the same distance ahead. From anywhere along its arc, a ship could have departed for Truk. So, though we followed the captain’s prescribed search procedure, our concentration remained towards that area.
The time between searches was not entirely wasted, for Lindhe had gladly accepted the task of chief identifier and had picked assistants for his identification party. With the manuals spread out on the control room chart desk, the party would receive information about any ship, starting from her masts and then lower structures as they were reported; when settling on the class, Lindhe would bring the marked manual to the top of the ladder. We recorded information and used it as a problem for the party. The drill worked, just as the books had been designed to be used.
Only a reconnaissance floatplane on September 8 rewarded our searches, but it could presage a ship movement through this central area. On sound, our radiomen had a new project: With two positions, side by side, Buckley, Beatty, and Carter were fast training a stable of sound operators, at least as listeners. So, it was Appel who reported distant explosions on September 10. Fast propellers on the following day caused some excitement till they faded away, and then more explosions, seemingly from the northeast, livened up September 13. We hoped that the detonations were torpedoes from our submarine, Flying Fish, patrolling to the north, but of course they could be from depth charges too.
Chan was now spending a good portion of his daylight hours, when the captain’s conning tower bunk was out of the way, working with Buckley or Carter on our sick SJ. This radar was essentially the same as the surface ship’s SG, but with its major components squeezed into deep, rectangular boxes that could be readily lowered through round submarine hatches and would fit snugly against the curved hull of the conning tower. To dispel the heat from the banks of vacuum tubes, small blowers had been installed where they were most efficient. The units could be lifted out of their cases for replacing tubes, but a major cause of their failure was the accumulated heat following one or more of the blowers burning out. Replacing these required a major dismantling of the unit. With few prints and only an ohmmeter to assist, each failure was a monstrous trial and error job, with parts and tools spread out on the conning tower deck. This was the situation when the Bells of Saint Mary’s again sounded throughout the ship.
It was 1025, Monday, September 14. Wach, on sound, had heavy screws to the west, and Buckley was handing down a round fiber waste-basket filled with radar parts as the torpedo fire control party was trying to climb the ladder. I could imagine Chan and Buckley’s thoughts, wondering if they’d ever get the damn thing together again. Back at periscope depth, the captain made the first observation: a ship on the horizon at about 12,000 yards (6 nautical miles), and presenting an angle on the bow of about 65 port. Plotted on the chart, that showed her heading right for Piaanu Pass, where we should have been.
Lindhe and his party stood by in the control room with ONI-208J and the other publications at hand, but due to an escorting plane, the captain chose the prewar tactic, required on certain exercises when attacking a surface-and air-escorted warship. It was called a sound approach, conducted entirely by sonar information. Here, with an initial broad angle, our best submerged speed would be required to reach an attack position, but that was foiled by the intermittent report of high-speed screws and Wahoo’s slowing so that our soundmen could hear the enemy ship. Finally, after a half hour, 32 minutes to be exact, we came up to periscope depth, hoping to fire on accurate periscope bearings. But we were well abaft the enemy’s beam at a periscope stadimeter range of 4,000 yards. In this unfavorable position, one that could only grow worse, the captain secured from battle stations, and an estimated 2,500-ton freighter, with no visible surface escort, went on her way.
Ours was a quiet ship, made so by the disappointment of having two ships in eight days go scot-free. Young men, however, don’t stay down in the dumps for long, especially when the odor of frying steaks follows the three blasts for surfacing. The change in the menu was Rowls’s idea, and with ready permission from the captain, who had directed a course to the north pending our 2000 (twenty-hundred) position report. We had taken our stars on the last distinguishable horizon, and, with a bit of envy, watched the lookouts being relieved after their 2-hour dogwatches. They would be sitting down to hot steaks, while mine and Chan’s would be warmed over.
Always punctual, George assumed the watch on time, and I dropped below for the usual mad rush in working up the position. In our exclusive office, still sporting the only white light, the calculations went smoothly. The first line looked good, but a sharp jar, as if Wahoo had hit a trawler, sent the second line awry.
5
I burst out of the office into blue smoke and a whining roar like that of a monstrous fire siren getting up to speed. We had fired a torpedo with its warhead into or partway through the tube’s outer door, and it was running hot in the tube. The maneuvering telegraphs, two knobs to order speeds, were but a step away, and I killed our headway.
The high-speed trip had shut down the engine when the pitch of the turbine wheels reached about B-flat. But had the impeller that arms the warhead turned dangerously while Wahoo was slowing? Since a 400-yard torpedo run was required to fully arm the warhead, the answer was probably no, but it could quite possibly arm if Wahoo went ahead.
Roger was reporting the accident to the captain, who seemed to be taking it calmly, or perhaps he was just speechless. But this was a time for action, not explanation, and Pappy Rau already had Boatswain’s Mate Smith standing by. On lines, Roger and Smith went over the bow to find the warhead sticking out, but they could not reach the impeller recess on its bottom that arms the warhead. Since the tube was No. 1, the top tube to starboard, and at just about sea level, we could open the inner door without taking too much water, and hopefully pull the torpedo back. A 1½-ton chain fall failed to budge it, so wooden wedges from our shoring gear were driven home so the torpedo couldn’t get loose and possibly activate the exploder.
The accident would not have happened if Wahoo had had
a full-time executive officer; but spending the most important 8 hours of each day, the four-to-eights, as an after lookout or in the conning tower when submerged, I was bypassed by items that should properly have been referred to me. I could visualize Roger’s requesting permission to test torpedo firing valves from the captain, who had looked up from his Western and nodded, but had not taken in the full import of the request or the dangers involved. I would have emphatically said, “No! Firing valves are tested during upkeep, with the tubes empty, regardless of what a peacetime manual may require.” In a two-month patrol in Argonaut, we had not tested these valves, which are operated by the 200-pound air supply, and which instantly release the 400-pound impulse air to eject the torpedoes at over 40 knots. Called differential valves, they are essentially infallible, and during 5 years in submarines, I had not heard of any failures.
Krause had plotted the other star lines, running the position ahead to 2000, and then had made up a position slip. I was tempted to sign and present it, but thought better of the idea and copied it; enough had happened for one night.
From the wardroom to the crew’s mess, and probably throughout the boat, there was a new conversation piece. It was a serious one. We had brought Wahoo out here to sink the enemy, but so far we’d come closer to destroying ourselves. Even those hands who had not yet officially qualified knew that every hull opening closed with sea pressure, but now we had one that was held against the sea by its bronze bayonet locking ring—No. 1 torpedo tube’s inner door. We could still fire torpedoes from the other tubes and evade below the usual temperature gradients, but Wahoo was most certainly vulnerable to close depth charges forward.
The battery charge was resumed, and shortly Electrician’s Mate O’Brien, with Hartman learning the ropes, passed my stateroom. They dropped down into the battery well, pulling the wooden grill over the hatch opening. After recording the pilot cells’ gravity, they would record the percentage of hydrogen shown in the battery ventilation flow meters. It was a continuing part of the charging procedure, and a critical one as the charge approached the finishing rate. Then the charging rate would be reduced following temperature-voltage-gravity (TVG) curves. Exceeding these TVG curves would generate excessive hydrogen with an explosion possible. Chief Ware and these men, in fact all of our electricians carrying out their precise assignments, made sleep possible for those not on watch.
The following days produced no ships, but bit by bit we had become convinced that the exploder had not armed. Though not completely out of mind for some, I am sure, the wayward torpedo had ceased being the conversation piece. In the wardroom, this was prompted by the frown such references brought to the captain’s brow. But he was right: it was high time for Wahoo to locate the enemy again. So on Saturday, September 19, having spent 17 days in the southeastern part of our area, the captain elected to patrol to the northwest. There, south of Namonuito Island, the reefs, and other small islands that really form an atoll, Wahoo might intercept east-west shipping proceeding to and from Truk’s North Pass.
Our submerged run covered half the distance, so we were on station by the time I presented the 2000 position slip. It had been a good decision, for at 2255 the Bells of St. Mary’s called us to our battle stations. Under a bright moon and with little wind, Ira had spotted a column of smoke to the northwest. A half-hour surface run closed the range to where a successful submerged approach and attack was almost assured.
6
Two blasts took us down, and shortly the first details of the ship—mast, goal-post, mast, goal-post—flowed down to Lindhe and his party. As she closed, the report of her composite superstructure and short stack completed her classification. Lindhe passed the book to the conning tower and the captain agreed. We had a Keiyo Maru class modern freighter that displaced 6,500 tons.
The ship was stopping intermittently, perhaps indicating that she was waiting for an escort before making the dangerous passage to Truk. Dissatisfied with our soundmen, who could not locate any fast escort screws, the captain put George, who had been an instructor at the West Coast Sound School, on sound as our best operator.
And so, with the firing point about 15 minutes away, I took the dive; and incidentally, having been so intent on getting our junior officers qualified in the captain’s eyes, this was my first diving experience in Wahoo. She was nicely trimmed, and handling her was a breeze compared to Argonaut. Not knowing the extent of Wahoo’s tendency to rise by the bow on firing, I trimmed her with a 2-degree down angle. Now speed and planes would insure keeping her down.
When all goes smoothly, the assistant approach officer is hardly noticed. This probably led to the facetious title of “yes-man” for the billet. I was now to find out what can happen if the yes-man is suddenly removed. With no one quietly advising the captain of the courses for optimum firing position, a near 90 torpedo track, the distance to the enemy’s track, and the other items of readiness for firing, Wahoo got too close on nearly parallel and opposite courses. Now on the enemy’s starboard quarter, the captain turned away for a stern shot, but too late found that the torpedo run would be too short for the warhead to arm. A second and then, about 4 minutes later, a third torpedo were fired from positions sharper on the freighter’s stern, but they were easily avoided since the enemy ship was already turning away from the first torpedo’s track. She had it made and could have left us astern, but continued her turn and took Wahoo’s fourth torpedo broadside with a tremendous whack and detonation.
What we couldn’t hear through the hatch was supplied by the control room’s telephone talker, and probably with some embellishment: “She’s got a 50-degree port list—getting lower in the sea—sinking by the stern.” It was a play-by-play account interrupted by three great explosions and many lesser ones; we rigged for depth charge, and on orders, I started Wahoo down to 200 feet. The final report, “She’s sunk!” came simultaneously and was followed by the first of a half-dozen depth charges. None of them seemed dangerously close, but they were disturbing, none the less.
At 200 feet, the bathythermograph’s stylus traced a short horizontal line on its lampblacked card. Another 30 feet took us below an abrupt gradient that would reflect any enemy echo ranging, and we secured from battle stations.
Having now qualified myself as a diving officer, I turned the dive back to George, who would keep it till surfacing. In an hour we were back at periscope depth, and then surfaced into a still-clear, bright night, but with an indistinct misty horizon. Two comforting dieseis had barely pushed us up to cruising speed when an after lookout reported a fuzzy bump on the horizon. I could distinguish nothing, but the captain did, or thought he did, and we commenced an evasion on various courses intermixed with rudder angles and “steady as she goes” all at speeds up to full. Finally, after about another hour, a rainsquall came to our rescue, and we slowed in its seeming sanctuary.
“Where are we?” asked the captain, and upon seeing me plotting our position from the dead-reckoning indicator (DRI), he fairly shouted, “No, not that, I want the position run up!”
Though every order to the steersman had been recorded in the Quartermaster’s Notebook, there were few connecting courses, and you can’t plot commands. Fortunately, Krause had recorded the DRI position on surfacing, and I had mine in the rainsquall. Starting from close by, I commenced plotting backwards as best I could from the entries, while Krause plotted ahead. I hated doing this, but when our tracks came reasonably close, I drew a couple of quick lines connecting them, and we had a complete plot. It was now time to go on watch, and in a couple of hours we’d have another round of stars for a true 0800 Wahoo position.
I was less than proud of our performance, but that did not include the crew. They had all performed admirably, but especially Torpedo-man’s Mate Johnson, who was in charge of the after torpedo room. Separated by three compartments, four if the maneuvering room is included, he was truly on his own. But just the word from our telephone talker told that he was in charge, and his torpedoes did the job. He shoul
d rate high in our ship’s company, for every member would now be eligible to wear the submarine combat pin, awarded only if an enemy ship had been sunk. So Wahoo finally had a happy crew.
7
The executive officer, above all, should know what is going on in a ship, and preferably ahead of his commanding officer. Such was still not the case in Wahoo, for 2 days after the sinking, when I presented the 0800 position slip to the captain, he ordered me to write up the details for the general court-martial. I answered, “Aye, Aye, Sir,” and headed aft to find Pappy Rau. Inquiring from the chiefs up had served well, and this was no exception. Pappy filled me in: One of our lookouts had gone to sleep on watch, a general court-martial offense that in time of war could carry the punishment of death. Further, the offender had also come to Wahoo from Argonaut. Be that as it may, it just couldn’t happen; something was fishy about it. Doc Lindhe came through the control room—there was my investigator. In about 30 minutes, he returned with Deaton and McSpadden, torpedoman’s mates who had also come from my old submarine. They told that the accused was known to drop asleep quite suddenly at times, and on one occasion, while working in the superstructure, to fall asleep with an air-driven chipping hammer still banging away in his hands.
Wahoo Page 5