Clear the Bridge!
Page 12
The responsibility for our ship was mine; I hooked them up in series and ordered, “Blow safety! Blow bow buoyancy!”
De Lapp blew and blew. The 3,000-pound air roared, and with speed to help the planes, Tang slowly took an up-angle. She should be swimming up, but the hand of the depth gauge still rested against the pin at 612. Were we climbing or still losing depth? We could blow main ballast and undoubtedly get back on the gauge, but great bubbles would accompany the inevitable venting, most certainly betraying our position to the enemy. We could not risk that unless it became absolutely necessary. On the occasions when we had tested Tang’s depth capability, some relatively minor mechanical failures had accompanied our increasing depths. The same should be true now if we were still sinking. We held on, waiting and listening. The minutes dragged, but they continued without incident, and I became ever more confident that Tang was indeed rising slowly.
“We’ve got her,” called Bill as the hand on the depth gauge fluttered for a second and then moved off the pin. These had been the nine longest minutes of my life, and I daresay all hands felt the same.
The ship was under control and all pumps were on the torpedo room bilges. I went forward, ducked through the torpedo room door, and gasped. The scene was not as Hollywood would picture it, with men in water up to their armpits, struggling and sputtering. Nonetheless, Hank’s crew was going about its serious business knee-deep in water. It looked like a lake, no less, half submerging the culprit, our leaky No. 5 torpedo tube. Water was spraying out of the gaps in the inner door bayonet locking ring, drenching everything forward.
In order to accomplish any repairs, and before the pumps could get ahead, we must have less sea pressure. Back in the control room, Bill was bringing Tang up steadily, now at 500 feet, with Fraz filling my shoes while I had been forward. We passed through the gradient, whose loss was the least of our worries. Now, instead of flooding auxiliary from sea to slow our ascent, we vented bow buoyancy a bit at a time. The bubbles would be small as they rose from the vent valve and, we hoped, would not become too large as they expanded on their way up. They might well be sighted, but we would change course as soon as bow buoyancy was full of water again. We had little choice in any case, for air in bow buoyancy would expand whenever we lost depth, forcing water out the holes in its bottom and making our bow light. The opposite would be true each time we sank a little. A galloping motion would be inevitable, and broaching from periscope depth likely.
Our safety tank was a different matter. It was as strong as the pressure hull and fitted with great mushroom flood valves that closed hydraulically and seated with sea pressure. Right now it was nearly dry and completely sealed off from the sea. It was safety, located a bit forward of our center of gravity, that was giving us the buoyancy to compensate for the water in the torpedo room.
We breathed a little more easily as Bill leveled off at 100 feet, for the pumps were gaining on the flooding.
“Light screws bearing three five zero degrees true.” Caverly’s report was not unexpected, but it certainly was not one that we wanted to hear. I squatted down next to him, and he flipped one of his earphones over for me. It held little resemblance to a combat information center, but we were faster and decisions could be made just that much more quickly. The true bearing remained constant; the destroyer would pass over us just as surely as constant bearings bring collisions at sea or at highway intersections.
“Stop pumping.”
We were now completely quiet except for our slowly turning screws, and they were below any possible cavitation. Almost immediately we lost the destroyers propeller noise. She had stopped or slowed to listen but at a minimum was coasting down the last true bearing she held on us. If we just waited, the next sounds could be her fast screws as she rushed overhead in a depth-charge attack. We had to look!
“Bring her up to eighty feet. Open the outer doors forward.” Unless forced, we would not fire, for I already knew what firing on an alerted destroyer could entail, and that from a submarine with all of her capabilities. Ours would have to be a desperation shot, but just that situation could greet us at periscope depth.
Bill eased her up, using a minimum angle, for the free surface of water in the torpedo room would tend to accentuate any movement. It was like trying to balance an ice tray full of water. Under the precarious circumstances, Tang eased into 80 feet in a laudable manner. If Bill could do it at 80 without galloping, he could repeat it at 64. He had to. We started up. Jones brought the scope up exactly the same as when we had last squeaked a look at this destroyer before the attack. Fraz called out our depth. At 65 feet Jones followed my eye with the scope. The bright green surface was just above the lens; a flash of daylight and the scope was down.
“Ten starboard,” I called.
“Range seven hundred,” Jones read, and then the bearing. It checked with sound.
“Ease her down to eighty, Bill; we’re coming left with fifteen degrees rudder.” The additional information went to Bill before the order to the steersman because any appreciable rudder tends to make a submerged submarine squat by the stern, and in our situation the diving officer deserved any advance warning possible.
Tang steadied on the reciprocal of a normal course, one that would add our travel to the component of the enemy’s. We slithered away. Each of us was waiting for the other to make a move that would create a sound. It was Tang’s turn first, for the water had risen nearly a foot in the torpedo room since we had stopped pumping. Much more water would increase the likelihood of flooding out our sound training motors, located next to the torpedo room’s after bulkhead, and we needed them as we never had before. When a submarine is truly quiet, any internal noise seems amplified; our multistage rotary drain pump was not bad, but the dual-piston trim pump sounded like two small pile drivers.
“Light screws bearing zero eight zero.” It apparently sounded like two small pile drivers to the destroyer, too. We continued to pump, we had to, and sneaked up for a look. This time I informed the troops that we would fire only in defense, for word had drifted back that readying the tubes had added to their apprehensions on our first look. The destroyer was off at about 3,000 yards, which was good, but her angle on the bow was zero. The propeller count was low, probably so her soundmen could hear us above their screw noise. Our pumps did their best until the estimated range was down to 1,500; then we gave them a rest and went through another slithering evasion.
The destroyer did not seem hurried and gave us the impression that she was just waiting for the correct setup. Her tactics seemed disquietingly akin to our own when we were on the offensive. We had made some derisive remarks when she had had two ships and then one in her charge. Now that she had been relieved of them and could concentrate on us, there was nothing funny about her.
The pumping, evading, and waiting became a trying cycle, made the more so since at all times we had to be ready to shoot. Reload crews were no longer necessary and there was only one torpedo room to man, so there were extra hands to temporarily relieve many of those at battle stations. But others chose to stick it out, and I was especially proud of them. Meanwhile, our repairmen had not been idle. With rags and lead for backing, they were caulking the open segments of the bayonet locking ring, literally squeezing the extruding rubber gasket back toward its groove. At first this seemed to have little effect, just redirecting the water behind the ring, but by noontime the flow had diminished noticeably. An hour went by without pumping, and the enemy’s approaches were reduced accordingly. Compared to the forenoon, we seemed to have the situation in hand, and I decided that we should leave well enough alone. Further caulking could distort and crack the ring, and then all would be lost.
An axiom of antisubmarine warfare is to stay with the enemy, for one never knows the extent of the troubles that may exist below. The Japanese captain had read the book, and the destroyer remained on top of us throughout the afternoon, sometimes so close we were sure she would drop. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but we conclu
ded that the 12 depth charges where the freighter sank, the occasional drops during the night, and the numerous charges after the tanker’s sinking had left her with but one good salvo, which she was saving just for us. We were curious, though not distressed, at the lack of echo-ranging. Perhaps the destroyer had come out of Saipan directly from an upkeep period, with her gear in overhaul. Maybe the explosions on the tanker had put it out of commission. Or the ease with which she made contact with passive sound, just listening, made echo-ranging, which would advertise her presence, unnecessary. The enemy’s error, I believe, was to assume that we were deep, where any sane submarine ought to be. How could he guess that we were watching him so as to counter every move? It was undoubtedly baffling to hear us, start a run, and then lose contact time after time.
Sunset was coming, and the following hours, until we could get on the surface, could be our toughest. We would have difficulty in seeing the destroyer through the periscope starting a few minutes into evening twilight. The first test came. I could not call an angle, and Caverly had her bearing constant. I listened with him and agreed with his guess at a slight drift to the left. We came right with crossed fingers. The destroyer passed clear, but this could not continue!
The time was now 2000, the calculated end of evening twilight; it was pitch-black through the periscope. The destroyer would be getting nervous, too, now knowing that we might be on the surface. We delayed pumping, hoping to add to her anxiety, and thoroughly expecting a high-speed depth-charge run. At 2040 the screws came in, speeding up, their fast swish-swish-swish roaring through our hull.
The bearing remained steady and then drifted just a hair to the right, but that was enough. We came left to parallel her on an opposite course, and she raced by close aboard. Her depth charges might detonate nearby, but not close enough. We waited, looking to starboard as if we could see through our hull. And then the sound of the destroyer’s screws, now well past us, was smothered by eight tooth-shakers. To our surprise, when the detonations faded her screws could no longer be heard through the hull or on the JK sound gear. Plot showed her last course as nearly east. We could only conclude that this last run had come close by chance and that she had now slowed below cavitation to prevent our tracking until she was clear of us. There remained a segment of the ship’s company, however, who were convinced that, humiliated at having lost both her ships, the destroyer had blown herself up. In either case, it was, as far as we were concerned, a highly agreeable parting.
11
I believe the whole ship’s company breathed out in unison, though we were not hanging on the ropes below. True, the air conditioning had been off all day, and most fans as well. The heat from the night’s battery charge had nowhere to go but up into the living spaces above the batteries, and we were hot and sweaty. Some would have given a buck for a cigarette, but in spite of our CO2 absorbent they would not have lighted anyway. A healthy “submarine smell” was undoubtedly present, but since we were all in the same boat none of us noticed it. We had all been too busy to become over apprehensive, but as of this moment there was never a happier submarine crew.
The air compressors were now running, for venting safety into the boat and other normal uses of compressed air had raised our pressure several inches above atmosphere. It would blow a man topside should the hatch be opened normally. Even if the hatch were kept on the dogs with the latch as a backup, the time required for this tremendous volume of air to escape past the gasket and equalize the pressure, while we wallowed blind on the surface, would be unacceptable. We waited impatiently. The pressure in the boat was finally down. Sound made a careful sweep, and a mild cheer followed the three blasts. Tang surfaced on an even keel so as not to flood our sound training motors; the remaining air rushed past the hatch gasket and we were topside. The sea was all ours, under a black though star-filled sky, but best of all was the aroma of God’s fresh air.
We headed north to put the scene of the day’s activities behind. Preparations commenced for the repairs to No. 5 torpedo tube, and the aroma of frying steaks filtered to the bridge from the hull ventilation. They had not been on the menu, but our acting commissary steward, Wixon, probably with the connivance of the executive officer, had had them thawing since regular mealtime. Certainly, no one would object.
After we had made an hour’s run, blessed with a calm sea, our divers went over the bow. Tended from on deck with the forward torpedo room hatch open nearby, they would not take long to get below again in an emergency. Just the same, the moments were always anxious when anything could disrupt a submarine’s normal diving ability. Replacing the outer door gasket, working in the dark essentially by feel and mostly under water, could be difficult indeed. If I was concerned about our present nakedness, how did our men diving at the bow feel? I kicked myself.
ComSubPac’s staff always picked the dandiest times to send us messages, and now another one came in on the Fox. Tang was assigned a new area; we’d consider it later, for we weren’t going anywhere until this job was done. What I feared might take most of the night was finished in an hour, however. The outer door gasket was back in its dovetailed groove, the door closed, and the tube drained. We could take care of the inner door gasket while we were on our way. Tang was off at four bells and a jingle, heading north until we considered our new area. The important thing was to put a day’s run behind us. There would be no ships to torpedo back there, and now that Saipan had been given a chance to settle down, enemy patrols would be out for sure. We bent on three engines; with but four torpedoes left, we were sure fuel would not be a factor in terminating this patrol.
I joined Fraz in the wardroom for a very late supper, if one could call steak, potatoes, and ice cream with fresh-frozen strawberries a supper. Our most recent message from ComSubPac was on the dispatch board, somewhat conciliatory in comparison to the others. It read simply:
TANG ASSIGNED AREA OF SOUTHERN BONINS
BELIEVE WE CAN FIND YOU A SHIP THERE
Fraz and I chuckled. Intelligence was good at breaking Japanese operational messages, real or pseudo, but not one of the five ships Tang had put on the bottom could have pressed a radio key, much less completed a dispatch. So apparently the force commander thought we were having a dry run and had noted the manner in which we had been pushed around, more than 3,000 miles just in our areas if we included Wake.
Jones brought down the chart that included the Marianas and the Bonins. The navigator stepped off the distance to the Volcano Islands, for there were no southern Bonins as such. We had another 500 miles to go from our present dead reckoning position, more if we were supposed to pass Iwo and go on to Chichi Jima.
“We’ll never get there anyway,” commented Fraz, implying, I hoped, that the torpedoes wouldn’t last that long. We seemed to be finding ships 50 miles off the Marianas right now, so why change on our route north? The navigator laid down the course I wanted, which would leave Pagan Island about that distance abeam. Jones took the chart back to the conning tower, with my orders to steer 345 degrees true. Fraz hit the hay, for he would have to be up at morning twilight to get his stars, and I went forward to the torpedo room. Hank’s men were just completing repairs on the inner door of No. 5 tube. I picked up one of the lead-backed fillings and asked how we happened to have the lead available.
“We’ve got a pack rat aboard,” Hank explained. “It’s from a piece of toilet plumbing that was lying in the officers’ head next to our storerooms at Mare Island.” In a sense it had served its intended purpose such as no lead elbow ever had before. The night was too far gone for formal night orders. On the page for the previous day I copied down the position of our last attack, latitude 15° 50′ north and longitude 144° 21′ east, then turned to the current date and wrote: Stay alert.
Dawn came on bright and clear, a good day for planes scouting ahead of shipping. The navigator’s morning star fix showed us abreast of Pagan, so planes from any sector were possible. A sun lookout went topside, and we manned the search periscope; if the J
apanese continued running their ships along this island chain, one place was just as likely as another. If they didn’t, then the war in the Central Pacific would be as good as over. The morning progressed uneventfully, and so did the afternoon except for increasing seas. All hands were slowly calming down, and Tang was resuming a normal patrol routine. It included plenty of sack time and, in view of the last few days, no drills whatsoever. Except for a late morning clampdown of the decks below, any man not on watch could spend his time flaked out with a good book or getting ahead on his shut-eye, and most were doing exactly that. The watch standing was something different. If there had been any laxity in the past, and I had reason to believe that in the case of two or three men there had been, the events of the last ten days had made Christians of them. Not just the respect of their shipmates was involved, but their very own hides.
“Smoke on the starboard bow!” The cry carried on into wardroom country.
“Here we go again!” said Fraz, sliding out from the inboard seats in the wardroom, and another cribbage game I might have won was declared no contest. There were no further puffs of smoke, but since they were first sighted on our bow, the enemy must be heading in a southerly direction. We came right until Tang would be converging slightly on his most probable track.
Though Caverly had torn down our SJ radar time after time on this patrol to replace tubes or capacitors or resistors, this was the first time it had been out when we had a contact. To get the thing into a submarine, it had been squeezed from all sides. Now, though the major units could be removed, replacing a part required considerable dismantling. Stepping over parts spread around the conning tower deck and keeping an eye glued to the search scope at the same time was quite a trick. But we could sympathize with Caverly, who was trying to solder parts between our feet.