Clear the Bridge!

by Richard O'Kane

  Jones made the next sighting; just the tops of two ships stuck up over the horizon, but his true bearing was all that we needed at this time. The enemy had surprisingly drawn rapidly to the right, though that first single bearing on one puff of smoke could have been somewhat in error. The change in bearing did confirm the enemy’s southerly heading, however, and now the very large distance between the masts of each ship showed that we were approximately on his beam. We would have to stay out at this range, about 20,000 yards, while moving ahead, for otherwise the enemy would have our silhouette against the late afternoon sun. Without the radar we would have little opportunity for accurate tracking, and from this range we could learn very little about the enemy we were to attack. The navigator consolidated my thoughts. His plot showed that we could not count on shooting before dark. Even the waxing moon would not provide enough light for a submerged periscope approach. We would find out what we had over the horizon first and then decide how to attack, perhaps this night on the surface after moonset, perhaps at dawn.

  The following hours were cautious ones. We stayed abaft the enemy’s beam and closed sufficiently to identify the two major ships by poking our search periscope up over the horizon periodically. Tang’s shears were always hull down for the enemy, even if he had lookouts in his highest tops. It was like submerged tracking, except we were on the surface. The ships’ base course was 160 degrees, and they were zigging mildly with an overall speed of 8½ knots. What we had in sight was enough to make our hearts pound: The leading ship was a large four-goalpost freighter, a worthy ship in herself; but the other was the Horai Maru, a very large, coal-burning, two-stack transport. Her picture was in our identification books. The thin tops of three other ships, probably escorts, were inconsequential. We would attack the transport.

  Without the SJ, I decided, our best bet would be a crack of dawn submerged attack and I privately informed Fraz of my intention. His reaction should not have surprised me. By my tone I had elicited his opinion, and he gave it.

  “Oh, Christ, Captain, then it’s so damned long till dark!”

  I believe Fraz was a little surprised at the language he had used, but he was closer to the troops than a captain can ever be and was undoubtedly reflecting more than his own feelings. Perhaps Tang was not up to another one of those hairy days of evasion so soon, but on the next one we wouldn’t be leaking! Well, Fraz had spoken his piece, and I would not want my executive officer to feel that he couldn’t. His was the major influence, but Lieutenant Beaumont’s report of the SJ being back on the line was the clincher; we would attack tonight.

  The sun set, and then came the end of evening twilight. We moved in to 10,000 yards and tracked from the enemy’s quarter. Now with accurate ranges from radar, it became evident that the convoy’s zigs were imposed on a constantly changing base course, or worm turn, similar to a sine wave. At 2130 the moon had set. We started our approach but quickly found ourselves astern of the convoy as it made a column movement, each ship turning in the same water as the ship ahead, to course 090, due east. These were maneuvers one would expect of warships. It now became a case of searching out the Horai Maru. Ahead were shapes, blops on the radar totaling five, but we could not distinguish all of them with our 7 × 50s. The tracking party had them on a steady course as we started our approach.

  Tang left the trailing ship—a small one that we had not seen before—3,000 yards abeam, and also her patrolling escort, noted only on radar. Then came our Horai Maru, steaming straight east. For an attack we had to pass her up and come nearly abreast of the freighter and astern of the freighter’s starboard escort. Tang was essentially a part of the convoy’s formation, still 3,000 yards abeam, and it remained only for us to turn left and move in for the attack. But the convoy turned first, another column movement, to the right, bringing the freighter close to our bow. We backed away, marking bearings and with the outer doors open. She rolled across our bow in the increasing seas, and I was sorely tempted to mark a constant bearing and let her have two torpedoes as her massive hulk crossed the reticle.

  “She’s turning,” said Jones, who had his eye on the transport. “A little wide,” he commented. He was right; the slick boil of the sea where the freighter had turned was just this side of the Horai Maru. This gave us more time for a setup, so we twisted for a straight shot and I commenced marking bearings. She came on quickly, a shower of sparks rolling out of her after stack.

  “Range sixteen hundred, ten degrees to go, Captain.”

  “Watch the nearest escort, Jones.” It was really an unnecessary reminder.

  “Constant bearing—mark!”

  “Set!” Her great stern came into the field and touched the reticle.

  “Fire!” A slight shudder and our 21st torpedo was on its way.

  “Constant bearing—mark!”

  “Set!” Something was wrong! The wake of the first torpedo was in my binocular field, heading for the middle of the ship. It should have been leading her bow. But any one torpedo could be erratic.

  “Fire!” Her after stack had touched the vertical line.

  “Constant bearing—mark!”

  “Set!” There was no torpedo wake down my line of sight.

  “Zero angle, Captain, but she’s still two thousand yards off.” It was Jones at my side, reporting that the escort was coming in. There was no reason to confirm it; he knew what he was looking at. The transport’s forward stack came on.

  “Fire!

  “Constant bearing—mark!” It would take but seconds to get this last torpedo streaking on its course.

  “Set!” There was the third torpedo’s wake in my 7 × 50s′ field, barely leading my present point of aim.

  “Constant bearing—mark!” Now sure that the TDC had enemy speed too slow, I gave a new bearing well forward on the transport’s bow.

  “Set!” Her stem came on. If the TDC’s firing solution was correct, this one might miss ahead.

  “Fire!

  “All ahead flank.” We would cross the transport’s stern. I crossed my fingers. The seconds went by. We steadied with the escort closing astern. We had missed.

  12

  Tang was not through with this convoy; only the shooting part was over. Operating on priorities as usual, our next task required no major decisions. The problem was dead astern, a narrow shape that was laying down a smoke screen better than our own. She was apparently steam powered, and the smoke was from lighting off more boilers. A minimum of 15 minutes would elapse before she could further increase her speed. The beauty of our Fairbanks Morse diesels was their ability to deliver full power immediately. Our smoke was due to overloading beyond the rated horsepower, but the extra horses were pulling us away. During the coming quarter of an hour (it seemed like more time if I didn’t think in terms of minutes) we had to lose the patrol or she would likely close in and drive us down. In itself, that would only be an inconvenience, but it would surely make our one remaining task impossible.

  Sometime I’ll visit Beloit, Wisconsin, and tell them about their engines, for the range opened steadily to 3,000 yards. Tang slowed to full. The engines stopped smoking, and we came right, leaving a blotch of smoke for the escort to investigate. We closed the convoy again, not to attack with our deck gun—I had once been a party to such a futile effort—but we would do our best to bring a fellow submarine in to attack.

  Mel had our message ready from the contact code. In but five, five-letter groups it gave the basic information of what, where, how many, and what doing. Really, plain language would do, for the enemy would guess its content on the first transmission. The radiomen broadcast it on 4155 KC, the basic submarine frequency, on 8310, and the higher harmonics, but Pearl did not answer. Topside, the mild sparking at our antenna insulator due to the increasing salt spray was disturbing. Nothing came of this until we opened up on the low area frequency, 450 KC. Then the insulator took off, blinking like a loosely screwed-in light bulb. We were a bit jumpy about this, and it proved not to be just our nerves. Ou
t of the night came a signal searchlight. It was quite obviously a challenge, for we received an S-8, S-8, S-8, repeated several times. Perhaps we were thought to be the trailing patrol, which we never had seen through our binoculars, and it was a submarine.

  Tang had been transmitting for more than two hours; if there was a friendly submarine within striking distance she would be on her way to intercept. No receipt or reply would be coming, for Japanese direction finders would then pinpoint her. Our answer to the challenge was a course change, putting the enemy dead astern, and just by chance heading us on 070, our initial leg toward Midway.

  It was 0045 on February 27. I wrote in my night orders: Proceeding on course 070° true at four-engine speed en route Midway Atoll. We have but one priority, to reach port safely. I will expect no relaxation on the part of any watch stander until we pass through the reef. I left no morning call, but before proceeding below I copied down the firing data on our attack. We had fired at 2241 on the 26th. The latitude was 17° 48′ north and the longitude 143° 40′ east. Well, at least we’d scared them more than they’d scared us, I think.

  I received my morning call anyway. It was a message from ComSubPac, addressed to all submarines, and stated:

  SUBMARINE THAT FIRED ON THE HUSO MARU AT

  TWENTY TWO FORTY TWO ON TWENTY FIVE FEBRUARY

  REPORT THE CIRCUMSTANCES

  Submarine warfare surely had changed during the months I’d been away. Now the staff was breaking the enemy’s dispatches and looking down our throats if we missed. SubPac had the name of the ship wrong and had not converted to our east longitude date, but adding the time of our torpedo run to our firing time would put the time in the dispatch only a few seconds off. There had been a couple of flickers of light at the stern of the transport, I now recalled. Perhaps the enemy had a flashlight and stopwatch at hand. I did some quick calculations. We would not be at the 500-mile circle from Saipan, where we would report our departure from patrol, until after midnight. To open up with a radio signal now would provide the Japanese with our position. Another position when their direction finders locked onto our transmission early tomorrow would make it two. They already had one for last night. That would be enough for the enemy to plot our course and speed. SubPac would have to wait. I thanked the messenger and tried to get some more rest. This dispatch didn’t help. It was no use; it would take a cribbage board to get everything back on an even keel.

  As I might have expected, Fraz was waiting in the wardroom, having finished his morning stars and just as incapable of relaxing as was I.

  “I wasn’t going to show you that, not yet anyway, but I figured it would be a sure way of getting a cribbage partner,” he commented, and then dealt. I cut a five, which was good for both of us, but the game was interspersed with talk of the previous day and night. Our pegs moved slowly around the board.

  A submarine was never held accountable for every one of her misses, any more than a quarterback who now and then fails to connect. Most submarines frequently spread their torpedoes to give a greater coverage than the length of the ship, especially when the firing data was shaky. What counted was the end result, though of course the captain, like the quarterback, could be replaced, for the success or failure was on his shoulders. There was no use in our crying over spilled milk, nor in trying to affix any individual blame for missing the Horai Maru. However, if we didn’t iron it out and find wherein we erred, I would be remiss indeed.

  Frank and Mel had come down from the 4-to-8, so after breakfast those of us who were specifically involved in the firing setup reviewed the attack. Looking back calmly, we soon saw the causes for our misses. Except for the tanker, we had been firing on 8- to 9-knot ships, and our afternoon tracking had shown the convoy with a similar speed. Our radar had been out of commission then, and we had very probably missed a wormturning on top of the zigging. This would account for our speed solution being about 1½ knots too slow. On resumption of the wormturning, just before we fired, the transport had turned outside in the column movement, was behind and closing up. The shower of sparks from her stack was a clue that she was pouring on the coal, which could easily account for 3 more knots. We had, perhaps, been putting too much stress on seeking minimum gyro shots, twisting to get our bow ahead of the transport and steadying just before firing. During the twisting period, the bearings I marked would have been introduced into the TDC with an error equal to our ship’s swing during the short period between the mark and the actual physical setting. It would be little, but enough to account for another knot or so of analysis error.

  Sometimes errors cancel each other, but these tended in the same direction, resulting in an estimated enemy speed error at firing of up to 6 knots. Six knots is 200 yards a minute. Our torpedo run was approximately 70 seconds. The ship would have been 650 feet farther along when our torpedoes crossed her track, but the one aimed just forward of her bow must have barely missed her stern.

  There was one other lesson. This was the first attack in which I had not known personally the solution for enemy speed at firing. I was frankly amazed when I learned we had her at 8½ knots. My seaman’s eye had told me about 13. In the future I would keep myself completely informed and would impose my judgment if required, for the responsibility was always mine alone.

  Now that we knew the reasons and could avoid the same errors in the future, we felt better about it, partly because all of us knew that no submarine had ever before put five ships down on her first patrol, nor had any that had unloaded all her torpedoes had anything like our percentage of hits.

  Other than traveling as safely as possible, and that meant as fast as we could go, there were lesser things to be done while en route to base. Some were enjoyable, and some were not. Those men nearing qualification put in extra hours at their studies. The executive officer worked on the data sections of the patrol report, and I unlimbered my pencil hand for some précis writing of the patrol narrative. The content of the usual chapter had to be condensed to a paragraph, the paragraph to a line, and sometimes the line to a single word or figure.

  Early in the morning of February 28, Tang crossed the 500-mile circle from Saipan, and we opened up with the required message, giving the dope on the Horai Maru, the expenditure of torpedoes, and the ships sunk. To avoid the usual extra exchange of messages for routing, we stated that we would follow the route the morning Fox had prescribed for Halibut. SubPac would next hear from us when we crossed the 1,000-mile circle from Midway.

  To keep time from dragging, and for an ulterior motive, we commenced daily field days. Whenever a compartment was ready, I would inspect it that one time. With the responsible officer, petty officer, and chief of the boat present, I laid down the law. If anyone messed up their space they were to report it to Ballinger, and the culprit would clean it up. On the lighter and more enjoyable side, the cooks had a different type of field day, breaking out the best of our meats, which had been none too good—a surprising number of cartons marked “fry cuts” had contained stew meat instead—and splurging with stores that might otherwise be turned in at base. A ship’s company never ate higher on the hog.

  The 1,000-mile circle came quickly. The required message was sent requesting a rendezvous for two days later, at 1000 the morning of March 3. The last compartment had been checked off, and the navigator’s position showed us right on at sunrise. The light-greenish sky characteristic of all coral atoll landfalls showed up dead ahead at 0930. The only escort available was the garbage scow. We rolled up to the reef, slowing as we passed the masts of a sunken rescue vessel. Warned by the hull of a submarine that had missed the entrance in a treacherous sea, Tang threaded the narrow channel through the reef. The harbor had changed since I had last been there. We twisted left, entering a new basin, and moored starboard side to a new pier.

  The exuberant Gooneyville Band was good, the awaiting paymaster better, but what our troops really liked was the sight of their relief crew, who would stand all of their watches for the next two weeks.

&
nbsp; Part III

  Second Patrol

  LIFEGUARD AT TRUK

  1

  Midway Atoll was no Capri, but for a ship’s company returning from patrol it had most of the essentials. No rolling decks, no watches, no tricing up bunks, and good chow when one wanted it were the things that counted most. There were other diversions, one not inexpensive, and to take care of that, payday proceeded briskly. All of the pay records had been forwarded from Pearl to the base disbursing officer. Individual chits had been made out, and it remained only for the crewmen to line up alphabetically to draw their money. Tang’s wardroom, with its two doorways, made an ideal walk-through disbursing office. Each man got to touch his money, put a ten-spot in his pocket, and witness Ensign Enos with Chief Ballinger seal the remainder in an envelope bearing his name. This had become a submarine way of countering the civilian contractors’ workmen, some of whom would have been escorted to the city limits of Reno or Las Vegas. They were pros with dice or cards and always awaited the uninitiated submariner’s first night ashore. Our lads could learn the truth by losing ten bucks, when it was all they had, just as well as by dropping $150 or so. For those who didn’t learn, or did not want to learn, Mel would be breaking out the envelopes from the publications safe daily to make similar disbursements. If, however, a man wanted to send money home, his total was the limit, but he had to return from the post office with the receipt for the money order.

  While this was going on, I walked up the dock with Commander Chester Smith, who had greeted us as we came alongside. He had been skipper of Swordfish in the Southwest Pacific, on patrol when the war started, and sank his first ship but a week after Pearl Harbor. Between patrols his sub had rescued American High Commissioner to the Philippines Francis B. Sayre, 12 of his party, and five enlisted men from Corregidor, taking them all in Swordfish on down to Fremantle. Considered among the best of submariners, he would be our division commander during our refit. We could not have asked for better.