Clear the Bridge!

by Richard O'Kane

  “Ship broad on port bow!”

  The answering bells from the maneuvering room telegraph had sounded, and Tang was listing to port with right full rudder by the time I passed through the control room. I checked my rush to the bridge, for Hank was already taking the correct action in putting the enemy astern. The time was 0512. I went on up to the conning tower and then topside.

  The thin masts, visible with 7 × 50s, immediately suggested a patrol, but she was hull down from bridge height. We would remain on the surface, where we would be able to see her hull in full daylight with our raised search periscope. This would avoid the possibility of being held down, perhaps for hours, should we look her over submerged. The morning surface haze cleared. Our ship was a nice trawler. There had been occasions earlier in the war when some of our submarines attacked such ships and even smaller fishing boats. I recalled the endorsement to one of the patrol reports: “A small but valuable inroad into the vital Japanese fishing industry.” A patrol or two in Empire waters would convince most anyone that such attacks were comparable to swatting mosquitoes on the Jersey Coast. Our business was in sinking merchantmen and warships. Even though the trawler appeared to have a lot of antennas and might be spotting as well as fishing, she was not a suitable target for Tang. We moved back to our track in a wide sweep, with Pagan Island still nearly 150 miles away.

  The day went smoothly. Our dawn contact had brought home to all hands that we were in enemy waters. At lunch, two blasts took us down. A distant patrol plane continued on its course. Tang surfaced and did likewise. At 1700 the outlines of Pagan and Alamagan islands became distinct. Our navigator and Chief Jones checked our position with true bearings on the highest points of each. To avoid being sighted, we dived and continued submerged till near the end of evening twilight. The passage between the islands was uneventful. In the clear to the west, we stopped so Ed and Caverly could check our SJ radar on the islands, known targets at known ranges. Static from internal sources could closely resemble the reflections from the sea, called sea return. In the past, it had not been too unusual for a submarine to barge along fat, dumb, and happy, relying on a radar that was sick or even dead. Various checking devices had been furnished, generally called echo boxes. Even they were not foolproof. The skeptics, and Tang would continue to be among them, would still take advantage of an island or pinnacle for test and tuning. After one patrol, our expert, Ed, had joined the club, too.

  Our short delay assured us of a peaked and tuned SJ. With some anticipation, we were now skirting the area of our major contacts of but a month before. A watch could not have been more alert and eager, but the night passed quietly.

  “Ultra from ComSubPac!” It was Ed’s voice, for now all watch officers had worked into the decoding board. It was not a true Ultra, based on broken enemy codes, but the information was just as good, maybe better:

  BARB REPORTS CONVOY ONE NINE ZERO MILES

  BEARING THREE TWO ZERO FROM PAGAN

  LAST COURSE ONE THREE FIVE BE GUIDED BY

  PROVISIONS OF YOUR OPERATION ORDER

  The time was 0907, and Tang was off at four-engine speed to intercept at a point almost due north. Fraz and Jones plotted it out accurately. If 135 was the convoy’s base course, not just a leg of its zigzag, and its speed was average, we could intercept in five hours. The search was intent. Noon passed and so did 1300. The tops of the convoy could come over the horizon at any moment. Another hour passed.

  “Clear the bridge! Clear the bridge!” and two blaats sent us down with a sharp angle. Two lookouts confirmed a patrol plane on the horizon broad on our starboard bow. Back at periscope depth, we had a Betty in sight. It continued on to the north and disappeared. After 30 minutes down, we resumed our surface search. The first hour revealed nothing, but at 1608 two SD contacts sent us down. The ranges on the radar were ten and 11 miles, but on return to periscope depth neither was in sight. The plane activity indicated a convoy or something, but our search until dark up the reciprocal of the convoy’s reported track disclosed nothing. We were disappointed but not surprised, for we had been trying to do in hours what had required days for our first ship. Somewhat reluctantly, we headed for our assigned station.

  Ulithi and Yap were left well to the southeast of us without incident. We dived at 1651 on March 27 to avoid an unidentified plane and entered our assigned area, 10 W, west of Palau, at 2000. The night was calm as we moved quietly to our station, 60 miles bearing 255 from Toagel Mlungui Passage, and 3,500 miles from Midway.

  3

  Tang lay to in the relative safety of a dark night, made more secure because she was making no noise that would hinder her soundmen, and none at all that could be heard from without her pressure hull. Sixty miles to the east was the enemy. We could not lure him to us; we must search and wait.

  A private communication had accompanied our Operation Order, probably because we were not available for a briefing at Pearl, and it explained the coming strike. Prior to Hailstone, major Japanese naval units had withdrawn from Truk and were now stationed at Palau. From this base they could threaten our pending operations in the Marianas and the campaign of General Douglas MacArthur to capture Hollandia on the north central coast of New Guinea. To remove this obstacle, Task Force 58’s aircraft would strike Palau. The nucleus of the force would be coming from Majuro, a major base in the Marshall Islands, 2,500 miles east of Palau. Additional units now operating off the northeast coast of New Guinea would join it en route.

  We could only guess, but it looked like a dozen or so carriers, together with all of the support ships, would be involved in Operation Desecrate. Coming so close to the Japanese fleet, surely our new fast battleships would be included. Just how a task force of this size hoped to make the passage undetected was beyond us. Perhaps, with a preponderance of force, they did not consider surprise a critical item. If so, they were overlooking its importance to participating submarines.

  With Tang, on an arc 60 miles from Toagel Mlungui Pass, were four other boats. Archerfish would lie to the south of us, and to the north, clockwise along the arc, would be Bashaw, Blackfish, and Tullibee. They were probably already on station. Close in to the pass was Tunny; on the other side of the atoll, off Malakal Pass by Peleliu Island, lay Gar. These two would be lifeguarding during the strike on the 31st. In addition, Pampanito would be at Yap and Harder down at Woleai for subsequent small strikes.

  We were all called fleet-type submarines, but this was just a between-the-wars designation. It had come about when the fleet was looking for eyes to scout ahead. But the task required more speed than could be built into submarines. Longer range aircraft came along and took over the job, but the designation fleet-type stuck and seemed to spark a continued effort to include submarines in offensive fleet operations. In their enthusiasm, the staff seemed to forget that submarines had stayed in business for three basic reasons: their ability to dive and thus avoid detection and operate independently; their long legs, which permitted them to reach the enemy’s front door; the surprise that these first two made possible. Taking away or downgrading any of these reduced the submarines’ potential or destroyed their effectiveness altogether. Our submarine disposition at Truk and now at Palau was not compatible with the preceding premise. For example, assuming that we had reached our station undetected, our chance of making contact with a fleeing ship depended on the ship’s passing within 15 miles of us. Contacts by Bashaw or Archerfish, about 40 miles distant, would be well out of our reach should we even know of them. But just suppose Tang remained lucky, what would we have for a target? It would be a thoroughly alerted ship just leaving port, with echo-ranging escorts, zigzagging at top speed, and racing through our area or over us like an express train. There might be torpedoes fired, but it would not be the precise kind of attack that could coldcock the enemy. Even though the submarine was unsighted, it was expected. True surprise came days into a voyage, or when the enemy least expected attack, not in a situation like this.

  I regretted that Fraz’s and
my ideas on improving exactly this situation had apparently not reached Pearl in time or perhaps were reposing with a routing slip while awaiting further staff comments. They were so simple, perhaps too simple to ring a bell. In them, the submarines were simply staggered at secure communication intervals along the legs of a V covering the probable path of fleeing enemy ships. The submarine closest in, at the apex, would send out the contact using a variation of a code I had learned in grammar school, “One if by land, two if by sea.” In this case, a single echo-ranging ping would indicate the right leg, two pings the left. Relayed out, the message would let all submarines start moving for the attack, and the result could be a surprise indeed. At night, the distance between submarines could be greater, and the same signals could be sent by keyed SJ radar. Of course, lots of boats didn’t have an Ed Beaumont and probably hadn’t operated on their SJs so that the transmitter impulse could be hand-keyed, but switching the high voltage would do the same thing. We had done this to reduce the likelihood of the enemy’s detecting our SJ, for he would hardly recognize a short impulse, but it also permitted using the SJ for simple communication.

  Any fleet or task force commander would undoubtedly desire a plan that offered the maximum possibility of putting a Japanese capital ship on the bottom. It could be debated, no doubt, but I believed the “Paul Revere” disposition would do the job better and with half the submarines. One thing I could not argue with—we had considerably more information about Operation Desecrate than we had had for Hailstone at Truk. But with the knowledge came restrictions we had avoided previously, for at Truk Tang had been on her own most of the time. But again, we were on patrol, and like the other submarines with us, we had to make the best of the situation. I wrote in my night orders:

  Lying to on patrol station, 60 miles bearing 255° true from Toagel Mlungui Pass. SJ, SD, and sound are manned, but do not in any way let this relax the vigilance of all lookouts. Allow up to three volunteer lookouts on the bridge as conditions permit. The duty chief will assure that they have their eyes night-adapted before sending them topside. Maneuver at low speed on the battery as is necessary to dampen out our roll.

  A contact could come at any time from any direction, including up or down, so act accordingly. We’ve made it here; let’s find a ship.

  I reread the orders, crossing my fingers at the last line. The extra lookouts would be those lads, especially from the engineers, who wanted a smell of unused air and a look topside, even into the darkness. There were others who had gone below when we left our base and would take pride in not coming topside until we returned. We were individuals, after all.

  After several hours of uninterrupted shut-eye, the hot coffee tasted particularly good, perhaps because I was sufficiently awake to enjoy it. Topside, the sky in the east had not yet started to gray. It would be a long dive, and Tang might just as well start it off filled with pure, cool night air. Scotty ordered two engines on the line and the forward torpedo room hatch opened, but with a petty officer standing by. The forward engine room door was opened, and I could visualize the gale blowing through the boat, with the curtains in the wardroom and CPO quarters streaming aft at a 45-degree angle. Five minutes from forward, a repeat from aft, and Tang was buttoned up again. Scotty’s two blasts sent us down to patrol submerged on this March 28, three days before the strike.

  In the early days of the war, all patrols were submerged once a submarine reached the border of her area. Then, each periscope exposure had consisted of the low-power sweep and high-power search, as if preparing to surface. There was usually an appreciable time between exposures, and the situation on the surface could have changed, so the cautious procedure was proper. A better way in most areas was to look continuously and therefore always know what was going on upstairs. We would be doing this with both periscopes, and as at Truk, with about 17 feet of scope sticking above the water to increase the distance we could see. This would be the next best thing to a surface search as far as finding the enemy went, and was a reasonable compromise considering the likelihood of one or more submarines being sighted should we all search on the surface during daylight. To receive any contact report from one of the other submarines, radio was guarding 450 KC. The radar elements atop our raised SD mast would serve as our antenna, but they were such a horrible mismatch to the low frequency that I considered intersub communications by this means very doubtful. I did not voice this doubt other than to Fraz, but I’m sure our radiomen felt the same way. They stuck to their listening, nonetheless.

  Our first day wore on. Nothing moved, not even a plane, and here we were only 60 miles from the last major enemy island base in the Pacific.

  Knowing that all was clear, we surfaced with the first stars so that Fraz and Jones could get us an accurate position. After the low-pressure blowers had brought us from an awash to a fully surfaced condition, we again took a suction through the boat. It would be unfair for those below not to share immediately the pure night air and for the smokers to still have their lighted cigarettes die out. Rather than roast the beef in a hot boat, we delayed the evening meal a half hour, and the roasts were turned into steaks for frying after we surfaced. The steaks for all hands were brothers to those Fraz and I had mooched that first night at Midway, and I looked inquiringly at Fraz. He just nodded, then cut me in later. He had personally checked the boxes of boned fry cuts, rejecting those that appeared to have been tampered with, so this time Tang got her share of good steaks, and very probably the staff at Midway got the boxes we had turned in, which said “fry cuts” on the outside but had pot roasts and stew meat inside.

  The 2100 Fox had a message addressed to Tunny and Gar, and for information to us. Without explanation, it ordered them to be on their lifeguard stations on the 30th. To us this meant an advancement in the strike date, and considering the enormity of such a change with hundreds of units involved, an enemy sighting of Task Force 58 seemed the probable cause. Why else would they advance the date? There would be no change in our search. If the enemy moved this way, we would make contact. We made no announcement concerning our guess; the ship’s company would then be keyed up in expectation, with a letdown should nothing move. Better that we maintain constant vigilance.

  The battery charge was completed well before midnight, and all was quiet. Tang took another deep breath before daylight, and then Frank took her down, leveling off at the ordered 100 feet. We listened there until it would be light enough to see through the scopes and then came quickly to 64 feet. A quick sweep revealed nothing, and the high-power search showed only the crisp, clear seas, with small whitecaps cut off sharply at the horizon. No wonder ancient mariners feared the edge of the seas.

  “Bring her up to fifty feet.”

  Tang rose like an elevator, then rolled forward to a slight down-angle at 53 feet, settling in to the ordered depth. Another quick sweep and all was clear. Thus commenced our all-out search for the day. Light clouds seemed low, but that was because they were so distant. Among them we would try to find a single puff from a smoky maru, or a light brown haze from a diesel motorship. I turned the search scope over to Scotty, who had the watch with Frank, and went on below.

  A patrol plane at noon reminded us that airfields and lagoons for seaplanes were only three times as far away as the distant clouds. From 64 feet we watched it cruise by five miles to the east. We hoped its search might indicate the track of a convoy, so Tang moved over onto its path. Nothing developed except some threatening weather off to the northwest. Finally the sun set. Mel had the lookouts standing by when I came to the conning tower. We had been searching all day, but out of habit I went through the customary careful search before surfacing.

  “Bearing—mark!” I glanced up and read the relative bearing, 70, of a thin mast, its pronounced rake indicating an approximate course.

  “Take her down to sixty-four feet. All ahead standard.” I estimated the angle on the bow, though I had not really seen it. Fraz gave the normal approach course, and the steersman steadied on it.<
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  The one thing that every OOD tries to prevent, having the captain come to the conning tower and sight a ship, had happened to Mel. Sooner or later it happened to all of us, for the captain has a pretty good idea of where and when to look, and perhaps of more weight, of just what to look for. Maybe that’s why he’s in command. Mel was somewhat abashed, but he got over it quickly when I welcomed him to the club.

  The ship was undoubtedly a patrol, but we’d move in to look her over and at the same time freshen up our tracking party. On additional thought, if you’re approaching a patrol that’s looking for you, be ready to shoot. Tang went to battle stations. The Bells of St. Mary’s chimed out in earnest from our 1MC for the first time in a month. Even though they never could have the authority of the klonking prewar general alarm bell, the note still raised my heartbeat a bit, and I’m sure I was not alone in this.

  Without going to full speed and seriously exhausting our battery, which was already low after our all-day dive, Tang could not reach the ship. In a few minutes it would be dark, however, so we waited and then moved ahead on the surface for submerged observation in the intermittent moonlight and possible firing. Not the moon but lightning flashes revealed our target after we had dived. It was a PC type patrol, now joined by a similar ship and six large planes in groups of two. The boats had on their running lights and the planes their landing lights, bright ones, and proceeded with their search. It took us two hours at periscope depth and another two at 500 feet to get clear of the mess. No one could say, however, that we hadn’t had a realistic drill, and we wondered if the Japanese antisubmarine commander was saying the same thing.

  The first explosions of Desecrate came during lunch on the 30th, a good one followed 15 seconds later by another. That timed well for torpedoes, so we surfaced for a better look and found three planes to the east. They closed to seven miles and down Tang went, not asking questions, though they were probably friendly. Nothing else happened. The second day of Desecrate was all enemy—a close bomber for breakfast, a medium bomber for supper, and two planes after us at 2230. This pair milled around but came no closer than eight miles, so we remained on the surface, though with the OOD’s thumb resting lightly on the diving alarm. Task Force 58 had made the Japanese awfully mad, and they seemed bent on taking it out on us. We hadn’t even said boo!