The torpedoes that Tang fired had passed under the PC target or sufficiently close to have hit any modest-sized freighter, which would be at least three times the target’s length. The final round of drills had gone well, and we were sure that our ship was ready. Tang headed for port, and those not in the duty section who wished took the waiting bus back to the Royal.
Hank and Mel, with their torpedomen, now had three days to complete the adjustments on our torpedoes and to strike them below. By midmorning of the first day, a Mark 23 was being eased down the permanent skid, through the slanted loading hatch, and onto its portable skid, supported by chain hoists. The torpedo and skid would be lowered away and moved on crossbeams to their stowage position. Of later manufacture, the Mark 23 steam torpedoes had characteristics similar to the Mark 14s and should perform identically.
Unexpectedly the work stopped, and a hush was noticeable below, followed by the hum of the 1MC. Then in quiet words came an announcement: “Allied forces have landed on the Normandy coast.”
I had anticipated that the Allies’ return to the Continent would be a moment of great elation, but like others, found that I could not cheer and pray at the same time. If Godspeeds can carry halfway around the earth, then Tang was helping 80 fellow fighting men ashore.
By nightfall of June 6, the last of our 16 Mark 23s was below forward. Aft, Mel and his men had finished with the eight Mark 18-1 electric fish, the first ever loaded in Tang. Other departments kept pace, and now for the most part two watch sections during daylight hours could complete the loading and final preparations, except for one all-hands function.
Down through the ages, whether it be a share in the plunder or a more formal war prize, the responsible commander received the larger share, for it was through him that this incentive brought re-suits in the field of battle. In more recent times, the substitution of decorations for shares did not alter this. Our submarine force had initially adopted an awards policy that was conservative both in the number of awards bestowed and the time it took for awards to be approved. But wartime losses were resulting in increasing posthumous decorations, nullifying much of the incentive such awards were supposed to impart. So in early 1943 a directive to hasten awards in submarines was approved by Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPac). Now the division commander would review the patrol report, question witnesses, and if warranted could recommend that a skipper sinking one ship receive the Secretary of the Navy’s Letter of Commendation. For two ships, his recommendation could be for a Silver Star Medal, and for three or more ships, the Navy Cross. Depending on his own award, the skipper could then recommend a specified number of subordinate awards for members of his ship’s company, though all had to be approved by CinCPac’s Board of Awards. At first, I thought this procedure was too mechanical, but after listening to junior officers at the Gooneyville tell the complete stories of incidents that, of necessity, had been covered by only a sentence or two in the patrol reports, it seemed that this was in fact the best way possible. Regardless, this morning I would attend my first awards ceremony as a skipper.
Tang’s officers and crew, in whites, were in formation on the pier. As Fraz, Ballinger, and I looked the divisions over, we were of the same mind: Never had a finer-looking ship’s company assembled, nor one as proud. Behind them, moored port side to, was Tang in her gull trimmings, haze gray blending into black decks and tank tops. The inside of the bridge cowl, the limber holes, and other voids now showed white. Taken all together, it was a picture I could never forget.
Fleet Admiral Nimitz, Vice Admiral Lockwood, and others arrived precisely on time. The words to the crew were sincere and to the point, and then came the presentation of the Navy Cross to me for Tang’s first patrol. Though this was a personal award, I like to believe that the ship’s company shared in my pride. In a practical sense, others were affected, for this permitted me to submit recommendations for the award of two Silver Star and two Bronze Star medals, and these nominations would be honored.
The day was still young, and we would not leave until a gentlemanly hour on the morrow. A holiday at the Royal seemed a fitting celebration, though I could not join the others until after lunch with the admirals.
2
The screws were churning, the port one pumping water between Tang and the dock, setting her bodily to starboard as she gathered sternway. The prolonged warning blast had stopped, and the line handlers on the pier paused in their task and stood at attention. No one had ordered this; the moment was charged with some emotion, and it was the natural thing for fighting men to do. Port ahead standard killed the sternway rapidly and started our twist to starboard. Tang gathered headway and then proceeded briskly along the channel at two-thirds speed. We were right on schedule at 1330 this June 8.
How many times had I gone through this same maneuver? It would seem proper for Fraz or one of the junior officers to take her out, and in peacetime that would be the case. They had their opportunities in shifting berth during our refit, however, and for Fraz, during the training period as well. At that time any possible minor damage could be repaired without delaying our mission. Today if any mistakes were made they would be mine.
The rusting hulk of the battleship Arizona was on our starboard hand; I could never give it more than a glance and still keep the clear eye my job demanded, but then came the channel entrance buoys. We were at sea, but in the safety lane, where all submarines were immune from attack, at least by our own forces. Mel took the con and a half hour later, with my nod, brought Tang right to the navigator’s recommended course, 290. We were on the first leg of our voyage to the East China Sea, 4,150 miles to the west. From there, our patrol could take us another thousand miles to the farthest reaches of the Yellow Sea, and even into the great, shallow Gulf of Pohai.
The seas were kindly, from the southwest. Tang’s bow sliced through them effortlessly; the log showed 14 knots.
“Ship rigged for dive” came over the bridge speaker from control. Mel acknowledged and ordered the regular sea detail set, second section. Tang could now carry out any submarine evolution; we were on patrol.
Also patrolling, about three miles ahead, was our escort, a bomber making lazy figure eights. We would delay our trim dive until after its release and thus take full advantage of this bit of protection. I liked its constant turning; it would give an enemy submarine fits. There was a second reason for delaying the dive, for Sealion was now in sight astern. This afternoon we would test our new UHF-VHF antennas and the low frequencies we might use between submarines, too. Fraz had laid down our track a little to the north. Sealion could now pass well to the south of us and still not go much out of her way. Ed and the watch were conducting the tests. With the sharp outline of Kauai already abeam to starboard, I went below to the stack of waiting patrol reports. It was no chore, for at this moment more exciting reading did not exist.
Two words would characterize the control room, quiet business, as if we had been at sea for weeks. This was the result, at least in part, of shortened stays at the Gooneyville and now at the Royal. There had been insufficient time for any of us to fall too far from submarine wartime routine. Now the watch was consciously setting the pace for our new hands, urged by Fraz and Ballinger. Perhaps no urging was necessary, for we were all in the same boat and would share in the results of any mistakes.
In the wardroom passageway, two football legs were slithering down from the overhead. Ensign Richard Kroth, a large, likeable young man from Hamtramck, Michigan, was now getting ready to go on watch. His bunk, one of the new ones, had been hung where the ventilation piping took a convenient jog to starboard. His toes searched blindly for a moment before finding the ladder rung, and then Dick hit the deck solidly. A little more practice and this descent from nearly seven feet might become routine for him, but something for the rest of us to watch out for when going through wardroom country.
A few minutes later, Dick joined us in the wardroom, extolling the virtues of his bunk. Slides providing extra openings
in the air supply and exhaust lines were within easy reach; the light, with its long gooseneck, permitted reading in any position; and it would be impossible to fall out of the bunk in any sea. Also considering the privacy, we began to wonder if this bunk should have been assigned to the junior officer aboard.
We dismissed our escort a half hour before sunset with a well done, and the pilot in turn wished us good hunting. The long June days, even at this lower latitude, would permit the bomber to reach Pearl before dark. We were now cruising singly, with our new hands already on watch, and only a trim dive remained on the Plan of the Day. With deference to the cooks, stewards, and messcooks, we changed the time for diving to 2015, when all mess gear would be secured and the new watch set.
The dive would be well observed, for we had a third lieutenant commander aboard, Morton H. Lytle, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mort would patrol with us as a PCO, or prospective commanding officer, and would thus take command of a submarine fresh from patrol and as up-to-date as we could make him. The five-year spread in seniority between Fraz and me, with Mort right in the middle, was as it should be. He would not just be standing around but would have a place on the watch list and at times would have other responsibilities that would be to our mutual benefit.
The weighted sacks of trash and garbage had been dumped, the messroom hatch secured again, and two blasts on cue took us down. Larry had compensated quite accurately for the torpedoes and stores of our final loading. To see that all was well, Tang swam on down to 550 feet and then back up again. This was a new experience for our new officers and men, but with hands around them taking it all in stride, none of them seemed over concerned. It was an opportunity for Larry to find out now how much pumping was required on the way down and flooding on the way back up again. Things were coming his way one after another, but he continued as if everything was routine.
Back on the surface, the night remained quiet, and having Sealion maneuvering to the south gave our section tracking parties a real target to work on with SJ ranges and bearings. We would return this service on the 9th and so alternate en route to Midway. The orders for the night were brief. Other than the course, speed, and engines on the line, they called attention to the standing night orders, items that the watch officers should review frequently and to which I could refer on occasion. They were now typed and pasted inside the hard covers of the 5-by-8-inch Night Order Book, where they would always be conveniently at hand.
Tang was all in the clear except for Sealion, and her position was accurately plotted by the section tracking party, so this evening offered an uninterrupted period to consider our patrol. Only 16 months earlier I had been in Wahoo when she left Pearl for the same area; she had turned in the top score for the war, eight ships on the bottom. On the table, becoming well thumbed, was her report of that patrol, and though the shipping conditions she had found might well have changed, this report would certainly set the tone for any submarine patrol in these waters. Questions raised by this patrol report I could answer, and surely no submarine was more thoroughly and accurately briefed for her mission.
Nihoa lay to the north at dawn. Fraz and Jones had finished working out their stars, and the plotted position showed Tang to be right on schedule. It was our day to maneuver while Sealion tracked, so the navigator remained busy drawing in our various courses on ahead. They included straight legs, zigzag plans, and then periods of very gradual worm turns, in which the rudder was held constant at a specified angle and then shifted when the ship’s head had swung the directed number of degrees from the base course. The great arcs occurring alternately to port and starboard gave the impression that a ship was wandering all over the ocean, but a good tracking party could usually determine what was going on before it became evident through the periscope.
The tracking exercise continued until late afternoon, when Sealion had apparently solved our varied routes and zigzags or had just had enough for this short passage. In any case, Jones had made a tracing that we’d pass to her at Midway so her party could verify its solutions, and she’d be doing the same for us. An afternoon sun line showed that our longitude was not far off in spite of the constant maneuvers, and this we expected, for Larry’s engineers had been grinding out 2 extra knots to make up for the loss due to the zigging and wormturning. It would take a round of evening stars, or at a minimum a sight on Polaris, the North Star, to verify our latitude.
All had turned out well with Fraz’s evening and the next morning’s star fixes, and Tang was now cruising singly, the way a submarine was meant to travel. Without the distraction of an accompanying boat, the entire watch was intent on this June 11. Below, items in the press news, which had been copied from the nightly Fox, indicated that the Normandy landings were progressing well except for the Omaha beachhead, where our troops had been stymied. I wondered if we could be as brave and slug it out with the enemy without that diving alarm as a backup. But ours was a different battle in another ocean; we were trained in fighting our submarine, and our thoughts and concentration belonged here.
French Frigate Shoals had been left behind, unseen except for the light green sky on our starboard hand, and we would make our landfall on Midway at daylight. Prompted by an experience when green water had unexpectedly loomed up dead ahead, I changed our course 10 degrees to the south and then wrote in the night orders: Proceeding on course 300° true at 14 knots, 80/90 on engines 1 and 2. You will note that our track lies 10 miles to the south of Midway. Accurate navigation notwithstanding, keep a sharp lookout ahead, for approaching an atoll during darkness always imposes an extra hazard. Keep me completely informed, and again do not hesitate to call me and the navigator to the bridge.
I left a call in the usual place for 0500. The call came early.
“Radar signals on the APR-one, Captain.” It was the duty chiefs messenger, making a report that I had never heard before. I shook my head before the significance sank in. Our new radar detector, installed during our refit, was responsible. Though nondirectional, like our SD, it would keep us posted on the presence of enemy radar. Best of all, it emitted no signal of its own to betray our presence. As expected, this signal soon showed as wavy interference on our SJ and was from a similar radar on Midway. Our visual landfall, on our starboard bow, was made on schedule. An hour later, Tang was passing through the corridor cut in the reef. One simple left turn brought us to the fuel dock, next to the old submarine pier.
There was no fanfare connected with a submarine’s stopping to top off. Those whose duties permitted usually showed up, however, like train watchers in a small town. This beautiful morning there were two of us, for Sealion was just coming through the passage in the reef. It was always a somewhat intriguing sight, and coupled with the convenient hour, the turnout today was sizable. It was good to see friends and well-wishers, too, and the coffee makers were kept busy fore and aft.
We had two pieces of business other than taking on fuel. One of these had been essentially completed en route. Now only the final reading, signing, and mailing remained for my four recommendations for combat awards. I wished that there could be more, but these were all that I was allowed to pass down the line. The choice for the first Silver Star was easy, especially after I had learned of Fraz’s actions throughout the night in putting Tang in position for the dawn attack west of Saipan. The next choice for a Silver Star was more difficult. Should it be Hank, whose calm direction of the caulking of the torpedo tube may even have saved our ship, or Bill, whose 15 hours of dive without flaw had outlasted the hounding destroyer? I chose Bill, influenced a little by the fact that his new assignment ashore would make this his last chance for such recommendation. The other two, for Bronze Star medals, were shoo-ins, Ballinger, for his participation with Bill, and Jones, who had been indispensable to me on the bridge. More time-consuming had been complying with the detailed instructions and the preparation of citations, but most of the work had fallen on Fraz and his yeoman.
The second piece of business had also been under way, frankly
from the day I had learned of our probable patrol area. The manner in which Sealion and Tinosa would conduct their patrol could have a great bearing on our strategy. We had been quietly listening without fear of disclosing our plans, for up to this time I’d made no decision. Fraz, Frank, and Jones had been our sleuths, and today we’d have the assistance of Walker. He had steward friends on Sealion, and there was nothing unusual about his helping serve there this noontime. My own decision was starting to firm up; it looked as if Sealion would treat the East China and Yellow seas as another vast sea area and conduct a surface patrol accordingly. Tinosa’s previous patrols would indicate the same. This would increase the possibility of their being sighted, so if we remained undetected ships might well be routed our way.
Submarines occasionally have one or two “reluctant dragons” aboard, and in this respect are no different from other ships; and Tang was not unique among submarines in never harboring one. A day before we reached Midway, an electrical ground had developed in No. 2 main motor. In peacetime this might require a day or more to isolate and correct. One stubborn case in Argonaut was going to require removing the motor until a Fuller Brush man saved the navy $10,000 with $5 worth of special brushes to clean carbon deposits. Strangely, a main motor ground had developed under almost identical circumstances when I was in Wahoo. I now tried the remedy my skipper had used then, an announcement through our new chief engineer that we would leave on schedule and make the patrol on the remaining three main motors if necessary. By early afternoon, the ground had been located and corrected. We gladly held a dock trial as a final test. There were no troubles, though now neither Fraz nor I knew whether the ground had been real or pseudo; frankly, we did not care.
Clear the Bridge! Page 22