Returning to Tang, for there was still business aboard, I saw my ship from a distance for the first time in six weeks. Gone was the former glossiness of her black paint. Salt water, wind-driven spray, and the tropic sun had bleached it to a slate gray, somewhat splotched, like the camouflaged freighters of World War I. No longer as if out of the showroom, she looked like she’d been places and done things, and indeed she had. I liked the way she looked and made a mental note that no one was to get loose with fresh paint. Coming up the dock was the ship’s company except for the senior petty officers and officers. To a man they were grinning from ear to ear. At the moment I could not say whether the pride I felt was in our ship or these men; both, I guess, for they were inseparable.
Aboard, Fraz was checking the last corrections to the blue stencils of our patrol report. Officers and leading petty officers were going through their departments with their counterparts in the relief crew, and the officer in charge was awaiting me. We inspected Tang casually from torpedo room to torpedo room and then returned to the wardroom.
“What do you think of her?” I asked as soon as we each had a cup of coffee in hand.
“It’s hard to believe you just came in from patrol, Captain. She looks ready for an old-time military inspection.” He hesitated and then continued, “We’ll keep her just this way.” As a former warrant officer, he’d been brought up in the days of spit and polish and knew exactly what I wanted.
Fraz had the stencils ready for my signature with the crazy wire pen at hand. Jones was standing by with the inked tracings from our charts and would deliver the package to the division commander’s office for his endorsement and that of the deputy force commander on the island. Next would come ComSubPac’s endorsement and then distribution to all boats and to 18 interested commands, including the submarine school, all the way up to the Chief of Naval Operations and Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet. So we had all checked our spelling, dotted our i’s, and crossed the t’s. The few repair requests had been discussed with the base repair officer and duly submitted, and I decided it was a good time to go ashore before something should come up to prevent it.
Midway was no longer the single low island with an additional sand spit, sometimes visible at low tide, that I had first seen in the mid-1930s. After the lonely cable station had come Pan Am’s China Clipper facilities, and then shortly the naval and Marine installation. Now, the boat passage through the reef had become a ship channel and the sand spit an air station; low buildings, shops, and quarters dotted the two islands. Only the gooneybirds were unchanged; as before, they were everywhere.
Fraz joined me near the former Pan Am houses, occupied by the senior officers on the island.
“Have you ever seen the inside of one of these houses?” he asked, looking to the right and then down. There on the usual low sign was the name C. D. Edmunds, Captain USN. He was the deputy submarine force commander. The sun was now well over the yardarm; we could make our official call and mooch a drink or two all at the same time. We turned up the walk and were greeted by the captain’s steward at the door. He immediately got each of us a drink, and only then did he tell us that Captain Edmunds was over at Eastern Island seeing Commander Peabody off on the plane for Pearl. He was referring to Eddie Peabody of banjo fame, a loyal reserve officer, who had been knocking himself out for two years now in getting around to see the troops. There was a bit more delay in the captain’s return than his steward had anticipated, and during this time two things happened. Properly, we switched from his whiskey to beer, but in doing so we spotted a boned rib roast, the likes of which we hadn’t seen since before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It had obviously been set out to be at room temperature for roasting.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Fraz?” I asked, glancing at the wall clock.
“You mean that if we play our cards right we should get invited for dinner?”
Fraz understood perfectly. The captain and Eddie Peabody both returned, for the plane had engine trouble. To save time, the roast was cut into thick steaks. Eddie Peabody, a real all-around entertainer, kept us rolling with his banjo and stories, and to top it off agreed to stay an extra day for our crew.
Our days were not completely free, as the responsibility for our ship still rested with us. We would not have had it otherwise. Certain jobs Tang’s crew did themselves, such as the complete recementing of No. 5 torpedo tube’s outer door gasket and the inspection of the other nine tubes. None of us would trust that to anyone who was not going on patrol with us. The base work required inspecting as each job was completed, but little of this caused any real inconvenience since our officers were never more than five minutes away. They could generally be found at the old Pan Am hotel, now popularly called the Gooneyville. A large corner room had long since been set aside as a wardroom or meeting place. Tables, some with and some without poker cloths, a bunch of chairs, and a large refrigerator loaded with beer were the sum total of the furnishings. With friends, what more could one want? It was here that we learned what really happened on submarine patrols, the things a submariner was perfectly at ease sharing with a contemporary but were too trivial or personal to be included in the patrol report. In toto, they made up the woolly narratives, and in them the staff seldom shared. The beer helped let down the bars between junior and senior officers, and should an evening’s yarns have been wire recorded for airing on stateside radio, the term “silent service” would have been dropped forever.
We were seeing little of Tang’s crew, which was the way we both probably wanted it. However, our fishermen had a great day on March 7, returning with the bilges of their motor sailer loaded with mahi mahi. They gave away all they could and as sportsmen refused to let the rest go to waste. Thus started the fish fry. A small mountain of fish, cut up, rested in cold storage overnight, and the 8th started off with softball and beer. CPOs against officers, firemen against seamen, torpedomen against electricians, cooks and stewards against auxiliarymen. It was supposed to be a round robin, but by midafternoon just who was playing whom seemed in doubt. There was one thing clear, however: Whichever team had Fireman Anthony won. At first, they pitched him easy because of his thick glasses. Then it became apparent that he’d lay the ball out of reach and clear the bases if anyone was aboard. Eventually, Anthony ended up at the plate seemingly for all teams. The mahi mahi disappeared along with the beer, and the game folded when Anthony could no longer swing the bat.
The ease with which a slight alteration could be made to a submarine was directly proportional to the distance from the States, or more specifically from the Bureau of Ships, in Washington. The particular work request we had submitted was worded carefully, however, so as not to elicit too much inquiry. It said simply: “Install coaming to stiffen top plate between the periscope shears.” It would certainly seem that this was to get rid of some periscope vibration. What it didn’t say was that an oblong hole would have to be burned in the plate to receive the coaming, which would then be welded in place. Midway was the place to do this, and it was completed beautifully and without question. Tang now had a secure lookout platform in her tops, a crow’s nest. Standing on the next lower horizontal stiffener plate, a lookout would have this coaming at chest height. He couldn’t fall out and only had to raise his arms and duck to start down. He would not have time to use the rungs on “Clear the bridge!” so a padeye above and a cleat forward at bridge level were welded in place so that we could attach a clearing line with sister hooks, to be used whenever the station was manned. No longer would one of us have to hang precariously from the rungs as we had when chasing the tanker.
The second day after the softball game, Ballinger and Fraz came to see me. The troops had had their fill of gooneybirds and the night life and wanted to get on patrol while they were ahead. I presumed Ballinger was referring to the lack of trouble. He was a real chief of the boat, for there had been no mast cases for me to deal with. If anyone had been in trouble, he’d settled it, though perhaps with Fraz’s support. I di
dn’t know and wasn’t expected to inquire.
I reported our readiness for March 16, with two days’ and one night’s training commencing on the 12th, and final loading the day before our departure. The training might not have seemed necessary, but we had some cobwebs to shake out and new crewmen to introduce to Tang’s method of operation. This could best be started during the controlled circumstances of a training period. Then too, we wanted practice in getting below from our new crow’s nest.
While we continued preparations in an unhurried, orderly manner, Sunfish and Skate came in from patrol. Mostly by listening, Fraz and I learned that neither of them had been in a position to take advantage of the first Ultra down at Truk; and each had suspected that the second Ultra pointed the finger at the other for being sighted. But they shared my views in two respects: No remarks were necessary, and any submarine with a chance ought to go after every such possibility. Skate had sunk the cruiser Agano off Truk, and Sunfish had put down two fine ships at Saipan, arriving there the day after Tang had. We had practically run around each other, perhaps even routing ships into each others’ laps. This certainly confirmed that two or more submarines could operate in a relatively small area as long as they adhered to the mandate of not firing on another submarine unless she was positively identified as enemy. We didn’t consider at the time that this could become complicated if an enemy submarine showed up and didn’t know about the rules, for a question of mine disrupted the conversation.
“What the hell is ‘crabapples crabapples’?”
There was a look of some disbelief on the part of both skippers, and then they told us. It was the plain-language code word, specifically for Hailstone, directing all submarines to go to deep submergence while our surface forces steamed through an area. Well, sometimes it pays not to get the news, and those first two ships Tang had sunk near Saipan just didn’t have a guiding star.
The brief training period was to the point and showed up one deficiency, related to the crow’s nest: Our submariners’ hands were not sufficiently callused to take the gaff of sliding down a clearing line. Leather gloves from the Marines’ small stores took care of that. With our Operation Order was a personal letter to me from Captain E. W. (Joe) Grenfell, ComSubPac’s chief of staff. It read in part: “I thought you might like to know what occasioned our dispatch of the 25th. Your answer gave intelligence additional evidence that the transport is being repainted as a hospital ship so that she can return singly immune from attack.”
Well, at least our attack on the Horai Maru had not been completely meaningless. Of perhaps more importance to Tang, the staff was back in our good graces. It was late afternoon of March 15 when Fraz reported that all departments were ready for sea and patrol. In the privacy of my cabin, we spoke of the problem areas of Tang’s first patrol and shared a confidence that these were indeed solved. Moving to our expectations for the coming foray, I found that we were speaking in positive terms, more frequently using the name of our ship. It was a natural change that accompanied our increased confidence and the attendant respect we held for Tang. All hands remained on board for the evening meal, and no one asked permission to leave the ship.
2
In spite of the early hour, Commander Smith had come down to see us off. With his Godspeed I went to the bridge.
“Ready for getting under way, Captain.” Fraz’s report was exact and concise. The joking and informalities ashore at Midway had ceased with our training period. It was necessary that it be this way, lest orders or the significance of formal conversations be misunderstood. Numbers 1 and 2 main engines were on the line, rumbling quietly as if impatient to get on with the work. A long task lay ahead for all four of them.
“Let go the spring lines. Slack the stern line. Take a strain on the bow line.”
Hank watched as Boatswains Mate Leibold took charge in carrying out my orders. This was the young man whom Hank had wanted to swap for a torpedomans mate, any torpedomans mate, but a few months earlier. Tang’s stern swung out from the dock.
“Let go all lines. All back two-thirds.” Tang gathered sternway quickly.
“Port ahead two-thirds, starboard back one-third.” She lost her sternway and twisted toward the basin entrance.
“All ahead two-thirds.” We gathered headway, making the careful S-turn to line us up with the dredged channel and the narrow exit through the reef. The jagged coral heads seemed especially close in the morning light, but in minutes they were all astern, and Tang was once again in the deep Pacific.
Fraz and Jones had been plotting our progress using the after periscope and establishing our departure with bearings on the structures of Sand and Eastern islands.
“Recommend course two five four, Captain,” said Fraz, coming to the bridge. We came right and went ahead standard, then steadied on the first leg of our voyage. It was the reciprocal of our course to Midway and indeed would take us right past Pagan Island, north of Saipan. We would not be patrolling there, however; we would continue for another 1,200 miles to the Palau Islands, generally called just Palau. In preparation for the extra thousands of miles, Tang was loaded to the gills with fuel and chow. The regular sea detail was assuming the watch, while below the ship was being rigged for dive. In minutes Tang would be able to carry out any operation demanded of a submarine. We were on patrol.
Our Operation Order was brief and written in the familiar manner. It said in part: “When in all respects ready for sea, proceed to area 10 W west of Palau. Stay beyond normal search in passing Ulithi and Yap, and regulate speed so as to reach position 60 miles bearing 255 from Toagel Mlungui Passage by 28 March for carrier task force strike.”
The orders were specific and left little opportunity for a submarine to use her full capabilities. Neither Fraz nor I was particularly happy with them, for 3,500 miles was a long way to send a submarine for a one-shot, long-shot possibility. A fleeing ship, if any, would have to pass within 15 miles of our position if we were even to make contact. We had expected an Empire patrol, but in all fairness, no submarine could build a reputation in one patrol, and there were others awaiting an opportunity in Japans coastal waters, too. We looked over the legs of our routing, which Fraz had laid down precisely on the charts. As it turned out, they made a pretty good compromise between a zigzag and a straight course. The daily course changes were sufficient to clear an enemy submarine that might be vectored ahead and at the same time added practically nothing to our overall distance. An average zigzag would add about ten percent, or an extra day’s run, a day of transit in which we would be the prospective target. I would prefer our track anytime.
The days and nights went by quietly, for Tang’s crew was well shaken down. The lookouts were thoroughly briefed in the critical area for their search, the seas to the horizon and for submarine shears beyond. On March 19 and 20, however, patrol planes from Wake were possible, and we would cross the atoll’s likely supply route from Marcus Island, so our lookouts would search the skies as well. The two diesels that had been driving us on had now consumed enough fuel to permit transfer of the extra oil to our normal system. Since the diesel oil floated on top of salt water in the tanks, the transfer merely pushed a like quantity of salt water out to sea. After a routine dive at dawn, we surfaced feeling that Tang was in fighting trim.
The 19th remained bright. There should be no trouble in spotting any plane that could reach our position. Seas from the northwest, however, were causing a roll that made the use of our periscope for spotting another submarine difficult at best. I took over the search scope for a few minutes. My left wrist was in constant motion, elevating and depressing the internal prism to keep the field on the horizon. This was the time to put Tang’s crow’s nest to use, for with a slight body movement in rhythm with the roll, a lookout would be able to keep his 7 × 50s steady on. The manila clearing line went up in place and so did the lookout, complete with gloves and binoculars. His sole job was to spot any submarine ahead. I was more than satisfied. If a man in the tops had proven
necessary over the centuries, who were we to decide otherwise because of on-again, off-again radar? To my surprise, my enthusiasm was not completely shared.
“It’s just such a goddamned long way to the hatch, Captain!” Ballinger replied to my direct question. Well, I had asked, and the answer was short and to the point. That was the beauty of having a real chief of the boat. He had an ear to the crew, and his prestige permitted him to tell the captain. Both Fraz and I had tried out the crow’s nest and it had seemed great. On our short training period, our lookout from the tops was among the first down the hatch. Perhaps he had one eye on the hatch, or maybe it was a bit different just in training next to Midway. Fraz went aloft for part of a watch and came down better understanding the lookout’s apprehension. Hearing the “Clear the bridge” with the wind whistling around his ears was Fraz’s main doubt. There seemed a partial solution, however, in making this a special billet that could be filled only by the extra agile. The select few from each section, all volunteers, were soon held in some esteem. But just to be sure, our OODs now yelled their first “Clear the bridge” direct to the tops whenever the crow’s nest was manned.
There was no patrol from Wake, nor supply ship or submarine on the Wake-Marcus line. My night orders seemed repetitious, giving the routine items of course, speed, status of the battery charge, and sometimes a caution. On the 22d, however, I made the following entry: Proceeding on course 245° true at 80/90 on numbers 3 and 4 main engines. The battery charge should be completed by 2200. Tang will be within 150 miles of Pagan Island by dawn. Ship contacts are possible tonight, and aircraft at daylight. In the usual place at the bottom of the page, I requested a call for 0600.
Clear the Bridge! Page 14