Clear the Bridge!

by Richard O'Kane

  Tang was under way on schedule at 1600. Tinosa was way out ahead, with close to a half day’s run. Now Sealions course was taking her to the south of us, already hull down. We would next see her at our agreed-upon rendezvous, 15 miles south of Kusakaki Shima, in the East China Sea. Before dark the seas were all our own. Below, I thought momentarily of these three submarines, traversing another 3,000 miles of hostile seas before sneaking along the Empire to its very back door. Then I checked myself; such thoughts were timid. Here I had command of the best fighting ship ever built, capable of going anywhere and sinking any enemy ship. With complete confidence, I reached for the Night Order Book.

  The 13th broke bright and clear. Well back on our quarter, to the north, lay Kure Reef, the last navigational hazard for a week. Neither was there any real danger from the skies, and for the present our regular lookouts would concentrate on the seas to the horizon. From our crow’s nest and from raised periscopes, we would search ahead, from port bow to starboard bow, for a possible enemy periscope shear. Our posture remained defensive as we passed Marcus Island on the fourth day. It lay far to the south, but Tang was not beyond range of its search planes. To make up for our SD, which would remain secured unless absolutely needed, two extra lookouts manned our front porch. As before, they would clear through the 20-millimeter gun access hatch into the sealed-off trunk should we dive. Nothing but seabirds and occasional flotsam came in view.

  Tang was now approaching the Nampo Shoto, the string of volcanic islands stretching south from Tokyo to the Bonins. In the center, on our track, lay Sofu Gan, which on some charts is called Lot’s Wife. It sticks high out of the sea like a giant thumb and might be considered useless, as it would be impossible to habitate. It was valuable to our submarines, however, for it made a perfect radar target for final tests before entering the Empire areas. Fraz and Jones had enjoyed good morning and evening stars, augmented by sun lines during the day. Their navigation was exact, verified by the SJ radar when it obtained the first contact and range at 38,000 yards, 19 nautical miles. As we approached the pinnacle, our battle stations tracking party put the TDC through its paces, with Sofu Gan representing a stopped ship. The inputs to the TDC of our own course and speed were automatic. Now with the radar range and bearing set in by Frank, the TDC should generate the correct range and bearing of Sofu Gan as we passed by. Additional bearings and radar ranges were checked with the TDC, all close to the computer’s solution. Certainly no one could complain about the performance of either piece of equipment. In hope of maintaining the SJ in this present peak condition, we used it sparingly. A sweep or two every ten minutes or so, and then the high voltage was turned off, but the cathode heaters were left on throughout the night. This should keep down the overall heat and perhaps cut down on tube failures, for their cathodes seemed to burn out when turned on, like household bulbs.

  Every move, every drill, every test increased our confidence in Tang and in our ability to fight her. It was well, for another hurdle lay only two nights away. Our track paralleled the south coast of Honshu, beyond normal search by Empire-based patrol planes. Though we were sure that we could dive before such planes could reach an attack position, our goal was to avoid being sighted at all. There was little reason for the enemy to route shipping across this path when a few extra miles could take it along the safer coastal lanes, through the Inland Sea, and then south along Kyushu, the westernmost of the main Japanese islands. No nation at war would leave her sea areas completely unpatrolled, and it was certainly just a matter of time until our surface passage was challenged. Almost unbelievably, the seas and sky remained clear. We had experienced more patrol activity in areas of the Central Pacific, where the enemy had little reason to search. Could the Japanese be concentrating on Tinosa and Sealion, called in by the emissions from their SDs? We had a more likely answer when Bergman brought in the press news, copied on the evening Fox. United States forces had invaded Saipan on the 15th. Only four months earlier we had unloaded most of our torpedoes just off Saipan, and the island had taken only a token carrier strike. Now it was invaded and our beachheads were secure. Perhaps loss of the supplies in ships we’d sunk had helped to ease the tremendous task of storming that formidable steep island.

  If enemy air forces had been deployed to counter the invasion, they’d be back, and we did not relax. Our position, 200 miles south of Nagoya, the large industrial city west of Tokyo, was plotted on the crew’s messroom chart. Along the track to the west were our dead reckoning positions, showing the times we would pass the Kii Suido and then the Bungo Suido, the passages into the Inland Sea. These names brought a tingle to the spine of anyone who had ever patrolled there or even read the reports of boats that had, for at these passes our submarines had received some of their worst drubbings. It was not necessary to exhort our watches to do their level best, but certainly helping in setting the pace was Mort, our PCO. If he were a rank junior and not coming up for command, we’d most certainly try to steal him.

  Without incident the Kii Suido and Bungo Suido were left behind, but now coming up was the Nansei Shoto, the island chain leading down from Kyushu and forming a loose barrier to the East China Sea. The name carried none of the thunder of many passes, and in truth the islands would not pose a true barrier to a submarine. But passing them undetected could be something else!

  During the intervening hours, the few remaining patrol reports must be digested and then all given the deep six. My laugh when I saw the last report brought Fraz to my cabin. Now, every ship had an artist of sorts. In Wahoo, his product had been a comic strip to accompany the press news. Tang’s Kassube confined his talents to shipboard characters and events, or occasionally to our operations. The wardroom seldom shared in the former, from which one might conclude that, for the most part, we were the characters. But his drawing of the actual scene during the strike and rescues at Truk had been a masterpiece.

  Not to be outdone, Trigger, whose report I held in hand, had produced a sketch that expressed her exasperation with the situation Tang had shared at Palau. It showed an enormous Bugs Bunny, complete with carrot and crossed knee, sitting atop Babelthuap Mountain. Under his gaze to the west lay Tang and Trigger, practically side by side and with hungry shark mouths. Back over his shoulder, a stream of small rabbits scampered through the unguarded Malakal Pass. In the usual enclosed cartoon caption, Bugs Bunny asked simply, “Watcha lookin’ fer, bub?”

  Fritz Harlfinger, rather boldly, had used the full-page sketch as a cover for his patrol report. It seemed to cover most of the points of my private conversation with Admiral Lockwood but insured a rather wider dissemination than might be appreciated. Quite obviously, the staff had failed to understand its full connotation, and Fraz and I laughed at the thought of their trying to retrieve the page from reports already in the mail.

  3

  It was late afternoon on June 22. Yaku Shima, one of the large islands of the chain, was still 30 miles distant on the navigator’s chart. At 1706, still undetected on the voyage, Tang dived to close the Nansei Shoto submerged; we would make our surface passage after dark. Our regular submerged routine continued, watches changed, and the evening meal was served. Now in total darkness, but in an area we had thoroughly searched in the fading twilight, Tang surfaced for the transit. The submerged run had taken approximately three hours, for the time was 2000, and at this instant 142 megacycle radar buzzed our new APR-1. We would have to learn to treat its buzzes for what they really were, warnings of radar only, for the signal was intermittent, indicating a random training. It most likely came from Yaku Shima, which rises cone-shaped to 6,000 feet, and should Tang show on the enemy’s screen we could expect a steady buzzing as the operator trained on us.

  Remaining undetected, or at least not recognized as a submarine, was still of top priority. To this end, Tang was moving along inconspicuously at 8 knots, the speed of a trawler. Our security lay in the dark night, our new camouflage, and periodic searches with the SJ, which was never trained close to the bea
ring of Yaku Shima. Surely an island outfitted with a search radar would also have the relatively simple receivers to detect the radar of an enemy. Our cautions may have been excessive, but our quick SJ searches were covering the critical areas. Ahead lay Colonet Strait, chosen in part because it is relatively wide, but also because I had navigated Wahoo through this same passage 16 months earlier. Somewhat unfriendly, the dark, tall shapes of Yaku and Kuchino Shima loomed on our starboard and port bows. Fraz marked TBT bearings on their apparent high points, then went back to the conning tower to plot them.

  “We’re right on the line, Captain,” came the report, not over the speakers, but from Fraz at my elbow. “Would you like the forward torpedo room to go ahead with the movies?”

  It was a normal courtesy request in case the captain should care to attend, though I seldom did. This night I had no idea that they had been delayed.

  “Well, they weren’t held up, Captain, that is, by anyone’s order. The troops just preferred waiting, and listening to what’s been going on.”

  That would mean with battle phones manned. The simple transit did not require that, but it could have. Our passage undetected might mean an early contact, and having brought Tang this far, I could understand the crew’s desire to participate, frankly like my own here on the bridge.

  The passage had followed an arc around Yaku Shima and now led between Kuchino Shima and shoal ground to starboard. The continued hours of darkness were welcome as Tang slid quietly on through the strait and out into the East China Sea. It was 2300, an hour before midnight, when the navigator recommended our course for Kusakaki Shima and the rendezvous with Sealion. The course was set, and below a Western was starting in the torpedo room.

  “Radar contact bearing zero four zero degrees true!”

  This was not going to be a night for sleep. During the hours from midnight to nearly 0200, we chased an elusive pip that finally faded into nothingness. Possibly it was a submarine, but more likely the radar echo from mountain peaks on the southwest coast of Kyushu. It delayed our meeting with Sealion until 0330, but she was waiting on the spot. Dawn was too close to do other than communicate by blinker gun to arrange for our patrolling in mutual support and for another meeting the following night.

  Fraz needed no morning stars on this June 23. Barely into morning twilight, Dick cleared the bridge, sounded two blasts, and after the hatch was secured, dropped on down and took the dive. We would relax here southwest of Kusakaki Shima and let the enemy come to us. To the northeast of the island was Sealion, patrolling as she saw fit, but we had each agreed to call the other in should a contact be made. Patrolling submerged in what one would call an open-sea area was a new twist for Tang, for it approached the patrol procedures of 1941. Submarine tactics had broadened steadily in 1942 and 1943, however, and now with surface search, end-arounds, and night surface attacks, our boats frequently took on the character of surface raiders with the ability to dive. Many times, endorsements to patrol reports took such tactics for granted, overlooking from the quiet security of an office desk that each tried and proven development still had its place, though often in conjunction with later innovations. The major factors dictating the tactics remained the nature of the enemy and of the area of operations.

  The East China and Yellow seas held everything to be found in the open-ocean areas and the close-in Empire areas combined except one thing, deep water. Only in the region directly to the west of the Nansei Shoto and lower Kyushu was it possible to dive deep and evade below a temperature gradient. Elsewhere, our submarine would be fortunate to have 100-foot depth of water for attack and could not expect over 200 feet in which to hide. By the nature of the coastlines and the shipping routes, contacts might come at sea, with firing close inshore. Sometimes the reverse might be true, and over it all, air patrols, though infrequent, must be expected at any time.

  These considerations did not mean that this was a particularly dangerous area or an undesirable one. They did call for hit-and-run tactics, speed in horizontal evasion, and above all, announcing our presence only with our torpedo explosions. Should the enemy so much as suspect Tang’s presence, he would route his shipping clear, for a hundred different tracks were available. There would be ships. Our boats had not patrolled here for nearly a year, possibly longer, for Scorpion, who had failed to return, may have been lost en route. Finding the enemy and sinking him was solely up to us.

  The crew was enjoying a ropeyarn Sunday, taking care of the personal things that had been put aside during our voyage. They deserved some relaxation after the taut transit. Though we had sighted nothing, neither had Tang been detected. Continuing the vigilance hour after hour and on into days could be more wearing than when occasional tops came in view. Today, men who had been topside were getting the feel of the planes with others in their duty section. More of the crates of oranges stashed throughout the compartments were broken open, and a general feeling of well-being was evident. It even prevailed into the school of the boat, which was in progress in the forward engine room, and I listened to a short lecture on our Kleinschmidt stills. They were electric, with the salt water heated by an enormous coil area, shaped like inverted peach baskets one above the other. The whole chamber was kept under partial vacuum by electric pumps so the salt water boiled at a low temperature. The vapor, which was pumped out, condensed to fresh water. Each still was about twice the size of a 100-gallon drum, and the two of them satisfied the batteries and our ship’s company, who enjoyed a shower a day. It was a far cry from the stringent restrictions on the use of fresh water that prevailed even into the war on submarines equipped with these same stills.

  The rumble of distant explosions coming through the hull interrupted the school. The crack of the detonations was not audible on our sound gear or through the hull, so their source could be 50 or more miles away. Independently, our JK supersonic and JP sonic receiver operators placed the explosions to the east. Perhaps they knew Sealion was patrolling there. We crossed our fingers and went up to take a look. All was clear at 50 feet, and Tang planed up to the surface, ready to roll to a down-angle and disappear, like a whale taking a breath. The horizon and skies remained clear. With lookouts ready and a short shot of high-pressure air to main ballast for positive buoyancy, we scrambled to the bridge. One main engine took a suction down the conning tower hatch. In five minutes, with a fresh supply of air below and the horizon clear above, two blasts took us down.

  There was some disagreement, but the average number of explosions counted was 12. They could be torpedoes and depth charges, or just the latter. Perhaps a salvo of Sealions torpedoes had hit and an enemy ship was on the bottom. We continued periodic high periscope searches, bringing the VHF antenna out for possible messages, but nothing stirred. Air searches out here at dusk seemed unlikely, so we surfaced early into evening twilight while the navigator still had a sharp horizon for his stars, and then the bridge speaker blared: “Hot Ultra from ComSubPac, Captain!”

  I recognized Ballinger’s concise wording as well as his voice. It called me below.

  Dick and Mel had the tape from the coding machine waiting in the control room. Ballinger flipped on a white light over the chart table; all others were red. We ran the tape across the desk:

  DAMAGED BATTLESHIP PROCEEDING FROM RYUKYUS

  THROUGH NANSEI SHOTO THENCE TO KOBE OR SASEBO

  NEXT THIRTY HOURS WEISS IN TINOSA POSITION

  SUBMARINES TO INTERCEPT SASEBO PASSAGE

  Four thousand miles and we still were not out from under the thumb, but this time no one would object. The Ultra gave the complete situation and designated a commander present, who had been told what was wanted and not how to do it. Twenty minutes later a coded message arrived from Tinosa, designating a rendezvous at Danjo Gunto. Three engines went on propulsion, the fourth with the auxiliary would struggle with the battery charge, and Tang headed northwest until Fraz and Jones could give us a more accurate course. It took but a minute, and we came to 320, a 5-degree change to the right. Han
k had the deck; Mort and Fraz joined me in the wardroom, where Jones was waiting with the large-scale chart of the East China Sea. We had a 90-mile run to reach the rendezvous. That gave us plenty of time for our best judgment, but unfortunately, every mile was taking us away from the probable scene of action. Walker served hot coffee to sharpen our wheels, and doubtless also to get a good look at the chart, which we were marking up lightly with possible enemy tracks.

  The Koshiki Islands quickly became a focal point. First shoals and then three nearly touching islands extend just over 30 miles to the southwest off the western coast of Kyushu. They thus form a triangular bay, with an entrance a little over 20 miles wide. The pass on to the north, six miles wide and 20 fathoms deep, was marked as dangerous to navigation, but surely the seafaring enemy would consider this passage a lesser hazard than the submarines that might be lurking in the deep waters to the west of the islands. To us, the answer seemed clear: One sub off Bono Misaki, on the coast, to send the contact report and then attack if the enemy was proceeding into the bay; the second boat ten miles west of the southern tip of the islands, to report if the enemy was going outside and then to attack; the third sub to move in north of the pass, also to send out a contact report before attacking.

  By this disposition, as we viewed it with Tang’s method of operating, at least two, and very probably all three of us could get in to attack. Jones copied down the coordinates for each submarine, and Fraz reached for them, already surmising that he was elected to attend the conference in Tinosa. As a bit of final argument, should that be necessary, I reached up to the bookcase behind me and brought down a volume of Sailing Directions. Specifics of navigational hazards for most any pass in the world are contained in this series, and the Koshiki Strait was no exception. It didn’t read as if it were over hazardous to me.