Crash Dive: a novel of the Pacific War

by Craig DiLouie

  On the S-55, one couldn’t tell the officers from the enlisted. Nobody wore insignia while at sea. Only the chiefs wore hats as a sign of status. On his first day on the boat, Charlie had given up wearing his peaked cap; with all the machinery jutting into the work spaces, it was a hazard. On his destroyer, the officers sometimes acted like lords of the manor; here, the crew worked as a team.

  And they stank. The boat stank. Frankie’s crew drank the water they’d brought, and they washed minimally and shaved even less. Every drop produced by the electric still went to feed the thirsty battery. Boxes of food occupied the boat’s only two shower stalls. The thick air reeked of diesel, body odor, cigarette smoke, and cooking smells—right now, chicken frying in the galley. The hull ventilation carried these mingled odors throughout the boat.

  Towels littered the floor to catch water that condensed and dripped down the cool bulkhead walls. Cockroaches, which were making a comeback, rustled happily in their folds.

  A hell of a way to fight a war, indeed.

  Sweat dripped off Charlie’s nose and onto his chest. His mind drifted as the ever-present hum of machinery lulled him into a brief doze. The sea was calm today, so there was nothing to do on periscope watch except wait until it was time to take another look at the surface.

  The Army had a reputation for being hurry-up-and-wait. Fighting a war in a submarine was turning out to be wait-and-hurry-up, and he was still waiting.

  Rusty entered the control room and handed Charlie a pair of salt tablets and a bottle of cold lemonade. “You wouldn’t happen to have any medical training or know-how, would you?”

  “No more than you,” Charlie told him.

  The 55 didn’t have any medical staff. If a man got wounded by enemy action or working with the sub’s machinery, caught appendicitis, or needed a tooth pulled, he went to Rusty.

  The lieutenant sighed. “Then I guess I’ll keep the job. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go treat two sexy sailors who caught the clap in Brisbane. Hooray for me.”

  Charlie nodded, too exhausted by the heat to respond to Rusty’s banter. He swallowed the salt pills, which he hoped would revive his flagging energy, and chugged half the cold lemonade with a contented sigh. Then he noticed the time.

  “Planes, forty-five feet,” he said.

  The boat angled up and held steady at periscope depth.

  He pushed himself up from his chair. “Up scope.” He crouched, pulled the handles down, and followed the scope as it rose. Cool seawater rained on him from the upper bearings. Mercifully, the optic wasn’t fogged; an auxiliaryman had applied a desiccant that absorbed the moisture. But the scope vibrated, making seeing anything an irritating challenge.

  The placid sea was smooth as a sheet of glass that gleamed under a tropical sun. Even with only a foot of periscope showing above the water and the boat moving at a slow speed, he was likely leaving an easily detectable feather in the water. Something a passing anti-submarine warfare plane could zero in on; he’d have to make this quick. He swung the periscope 360 degrees, scanning the sea and the sky above it. Empty.

  “All clear,” he said. “Down scope. Planes, eighty feet.”

  He felt like he was finally getting the hang of this, that he was starting to become a part of it.

  He climbed into the conning tower, where the air was slightly cooler, and looked out the glass portholes. Even at eighty feet, he could clearly see schools of colorful fish swim past. No wonder the submariners called the sea the “fish tank,” and the boat a “people tank.” The fish were beautiful; he wondered what they thought of him.

  He descended into the control room and slumped in the lawn chair. His lemonade had gone warm. Ten minutes until the next look up top. To pass the time, he asked the men what it was like at Cavite during the bombing. They eagerly took to the subject.

  “Pearl had already been hit,” the bow planesman said. “We were on alert. We knew we were in for it. We’d lost our air cover. The Japs could hit us at will.”

  “And they did,” Donatelli, the hydraulic manifoldman, chimed in. “I remember it like it was yesterday. Fifty Jap bombers breaking into two neat formations, then five. So far up, just little contrails in the sky. No evasive action. Arrogant sons of bitches. They took their time. We were all standing around pointing up at them. I couldn’t believe it was happening.”

  Then they were all talking over each other in their excitement.

  “Our ack-acks threw a lot of lead into the sky—”

  “You could see the tracers reaching for the planes, but they were out of range—”

  “Might as well have been shooting at the clouds—”

  “Then the bombs hit—”

  “And the fucking Japs slaughtered us—”

  While the air raid sirens wailed, bombs whistled onto Cavite by the ton, bringing Armageddon. The earth shook with cataclysmic detonations as the docks blew apart and turned the navy yard into a hellish inferno. The barracks flattened; the machine shop blazed. The torpedo plant exploded, flinging deadly shrapnel. A big oil tank went up in a blinding flash. The sky blackened with thick, rolling clouds of smoke.

  Men screamed and ran for cover or fought the flames. The Bittern was on fire, the Sealion smashed by multiple hits and sinking by the stern, the Seadragon and the S-55 riddled with jagged holes. The S-55 settled on the bottom, only showing its smoking metal sail, which convinced the Japs she was sunk. The Japanese bombers swept overhead again and again, in no rush, methodically checking that their targets were destroyed and dropping more bombs if they weren’t. More than a thousand dockworkers died, mostly Filipinos.

  “This boat lost a few good men too,” Donatelli said. “Three, to be exact.”

  The men remembered their dead comrades in silence. Then they started up again.

  Charlie listened with wide-eyed fascination as they told their stories of horror and heroism in a matter-of-fact manner. After a while, he remembered to check the clock.

  “Time for another look up top,” he said. “Planes, forty-five feet.” Once the boat had leveled off at periscope depth, he added, “Up scope.”

  He scanned the skies and saw the distant dot of a plane.

  “Plane, far, bearing oh-nine-five, elevation four-triple-oh, crossing the bow.” No threat.

  Then he saw the smudge on the horizon. Land.

  “Inform the captain we’ve made landfall,” Charlie told the yeoman. “You may tell him we’ve reached Guadalcanal.”

  Guadalcanal, the battleground of the Eastern Solomons.

  He smiled. They’d reach their patrol station at Savo Island by the end of the day. They’d be in the St. George Channel tonight, in the dark, when the Japanese came down the Slot. He was a part of this now. He was about to get into the fight.

  Charlie had a strong feeling that, by the end of this patrol, he’d have his own stories to tell.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PATROL STATION

  Rigged for red. Ready to surface in all respects. The surfacing alarm sounding.

  The S-55 gently broke the surface of Savo Sound, the ocean inlet the men of the beleaguered Pacific Fleet were calling Iron Bottom Sound after numerous sharp naval battles.

  Ready for the first night watch, Charlie held the ladder tightly as the hatch partly opened. A heavy blast of sour air roared past him.

  After the air pressure equalized and the tempest subsided, he climbed up and looked around. It was a routine to which he’d already become accustomed, but he felt a special urgency about it now.

  They were in the Slot, and they’d received a message to expect a Japanese naval force passing through the area later tonight. After days of seeing no enemy ships, it was exciting news.

  He took his time and scanned the area thoroughly. Aided by the budding moon, his night-adapted eyes picked out Savo Island to the east, Guadalcanal to the south.

  “All clear,” he called down. “Lookouts to the bridge.”

  Steam drifted out of the open hatch. His men emerged
and took their stations.

  Charlie took a deep breath of the clean air and inhaled the vital scent of jungle wafting from the nearby islands. After a day in the people tank, it smelled sweeter than Evie’s perfume. The temperature was considerably cooler topside at seventy-five degrees.

  The main induction opened to suck the cool night air into the boat for both the crew and the engines. The diesels fired up to charge the battery while the boat stood-to facing north by west. By the end of Charlie’s watch, the battery had fully charged, and both diesels were assigned to the propellers. The old sea wolf was ready to hunt.

  Rusty mounted to the bridge. “Permission to relieve you and your squires, noble sir. As incentive for that permission, I can tell you a sumptuous meal awaits you in the wardroom.”

  “In that case, permission granted,” Charlie said. “What’s the cook serving up for dinner?”

  “Pot roast and cock, and he’s all out of pot roast.”

  Charlie laughed. Ever since the S-55 entered the Solomons, the men had stopped their shirking and horsing around and went to work with silent efficiency. But not Rusty. Not even the tension of imminent combat could keep the able lieutenant from his wisecracks.

  Kidding aside, despite the hardships of service, submariners ate better than anybody else in the Navy, at least while the fresh provisions lasted. Right now, pot roast sounded fantastic.

  “All sectors clear,” he told Rusty. “A dozen lighted planes, far off and coming across the stern, were reported. Navy fighters landing at Henderson Field.”

  “Hopefully, they bombed those tin cans headed our way.”

  “We should be so lucky,” Charlie agreed, though he was itching for a fight.

  As the new watch manned their stations, he descended the stairs to the cigarette deck and then the main deck. He tied a metal bucket to a manila rope, tossed it over the side, and pulled up cool seawater. Then he started a quick sponge bath.

  For a war zone, the scene struck him as peaceful. The slim moon’s light glimmered on the water, which lapped gently against the boat’s hull. His romantic Evie would have loved it.

  He heard a distant droning and perked up. He hustled back to the bridge while the watch scanned the skies.

  A burst of light flared in the distance and died out. Then another. Moments later, he heard the first boom. Red tracers streamed into the night.

  “Ho-lee shit,” one of the watchmen said.

  More bright flashes brightened the horizon. The air filled with thunder and the distant wail of an air raid siren. Searchlights swept the sky.

  The Japanese were bombing the airfield on Guadalcanal.

  “Lookouts, get below,” somebody shouted up the shaft. “Clear the bridge!”

  Bodies poured down the hatch. Charlie dropped to the deck and jumped out of the way. One by one, the rest of the men came down after him, talking excitedly.

  “Hatch secured!” Rusty called from above.

  The captain said, “Dive, dive, dive!”

  The diving alarm sounded. The main induction clanged shut.

  “Pressure in the boat, green board,” Reynolds reported. The boat was sealed up tight.

  The S-55 rapidly slid into the black waters and achieved a good trim at periscope depth. The engines cut out. The electric motors engaged the propellers.

  “Planes, forty-five feet.”

  “What’s going on?” Charlie asked Rusty.

  The lieutenant shrugged. “The captain pulled the plug.”

  “Silence!” Kane roared, quieting them all.

  The men stared at the captain. The captain stared at the soundman.

  “I’ve got a turn count of 325 RPM,” Marsh said. “Now I’m hearing multiple sets of screws. Light screws. Speed estimated twenty-five knots.”

  Charlie grinned. That sounded like destroyers!

  Marsh added, “Estimated range, 8,000 yards.”

  The captain put on his sou’wester hat and oilskins. “Up scope.”

  He peered into the dark, whistling a popular tune while water splashed on his shoulders. “Give me a bearing, Marsh.”

  “Targets, bearing one-one-five.” Plus or minus a few degrees.

  The submarine’s Great War-vintage hydrophones weren’t perfectly accurate, but one thing was certain: The Japanese war party was coming straight at them. They intended to round Savo Island. Charlie guessed their mission was to give Henderson a good shelling tonight.

  The captain smiled as he looked into the scope. “I think I see them. Come to papa. Down scope. Harrison, start plotting. Marsh, keep those bearings coming.”

  Charlie dumped graph paper, pencils, and a ruler onto the plotting table. He marked the contacts’ estimated position.

  “Bearing still on one-one-five.”

  Based on the war party’s bearing and estimated speed, he marked its likely new position on the plotting paper. He checked the boat’s gyrocompass and started plotting the S-55’s relative position with a pencil and ruler.

  “Left full rudder,” the captain said. “All ahead full. Come right to two-seven-five.” After the heavy sub completed her ponderous turn and found her new course, he added, “All ahead one-third. Up scope.” After another look at the approaching ships: “Down scope.”

  Deep in thought, Captain Kane stepped away from the falling periscope.

  He had a choice. He could take a shot at the destroyers as they passed and then radio their presence to warn American forces at Guadalcanal they were coming. Or he could let them pass, sound the alarm, and try to hit them on their way back.

  Both carried risks. The former approach put them directly in a hornet’s nest. The latter was safer, but the Japanese might take another route home, and Frankie would miss her chance to take a crack at them.

  Knowing the captain, Charlie believed he’d take the latter, more cautious approach.

  Kane rubbed his stubbled jaw. The men stared at him, awaiting his command.

  “Battle stations,” he said. “Torpedo attack.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE DESTROYERS

  The battle stations alarm bonged throughout the boat.

  “Battle stations, torpedo,” the quartermaster announced over the 1MC.

  Around the S-55, all hands scrambled to man their stations for the attack.

  In the control room, Reynolds would act as assistant approach officer and Rusty as assistant diving officer. Charlie remained on station as plotting officer.

  The submarine started an attack approach, cruising toward the enemy ships at a new submerged depth of seventy feet. Going in slow and deep while raising the periscope as little as possible.

  “All compartments report battle stations manned,” the telephone talker reported.

  Charlie felt his first pangs of fear. He’d served on a destroyer. He knew how good they were at fighting submarines. In fact, the destroyer was the submarine’s natural enemy. Fast and nimble. Bristling with sonar, big guns, and depth charges.

  The S-55 taking on these powerful ships was David and Goliath all over again. Though, in this case, David carried a pretty big stone.

  The soundman called out a new bearing. Charlie forgot his fear as he marked positions on the plotting paper. He had a job to do. Lives depended on him right now, just as they depended on every other man on the boat.

  Five minutes passed. Five more. Wait and hurry up. In the dim red light of the control room, the dots and lines on the paper showed the Japanese ships and the S-55 slowly converging.

  “They’re zigging,” the soundman reported.

  To avoid a surprise submarine attack, destroyers often zigzagged, but they commonly did so based on a pattern. Charlie marked the new bearing and used his ruler to draw a straight line between the last two dots. After a few plots, the pattern would emerge. Then Frankie could get into a final position to take a shot at them.

  “Steady as she goes,” Kane said. The cat and mouse game was on in earnest now.

  The captain studied the plot Charlie bu
ilt mark by mark. The approach was an exercise in geometry. Kane had to maneuver his moving object to be at the precise place to shoot at objects that were themselves moving.

  Frankie’s luck held. The Japanese ships came on as neatly as if she’d laid a trap. After turning the boat to starboard on a new northerly course of zero-one-zero, Captain Kane nudged her toward a firing position.

  Rusty had been right; the man’s hands didn’t shake in combat. A cool customer.

  The young officer tracking a target while Kane, hands on his hips, stood over him; it was like doing a classroom problem at Submarine School. Fear of failure, not of dying.

  The captain tapped the paper with his finger. There. That’s where we’ll take a shot at the bastards. Charlie envisioned the attack. The enemy ships would present their broadsides as they passed at between 1,000 and 1,500 yards. Frankie would be on course to lead her target by twenty-nine degrees—speed plus three—for a straight bow shot. Beautiful.

  The captain brought the boat to forty-five feet. “Up scope.”

  He whistled again as he scanned the darkness. “I can see them clearly now in the moonlight. Three Fubuki-class destroyers. And what looks like a heavy cruiser. I think it’s the Furutaka. A Furutaka-class cruiser, just like the Kako, which the 44 sank around these parts back in August.”

  The men in the control room glanced at each other and grinned.

  The captain said, “Nine thousand tons. That’s the ship we’re going to sink.”

  He spoke with a light tone that betrayed nothing of the mounting pressure he must have felt. In fact, he sounded positively delighted at the prospect of taking a shot at the giant.

  Then he brought the boat down to seventy feet, staying hidden.

  “Rig for depth charge,” he said.

  Around the boat, men prepared the boat to take a beating. All unnecessary lights were extinguished and emergency lighting turned on. Watertight doors banged shut.