Clear the Bridge!
Page 29
By blinker gun, we sent Sealion a Godspeed and good hunting, then set course for a position we had previously selected. It lay on the direct route between Daikokusan Gunto and Osei To, close to the Korean coast. The time was 0005 of July 4, and three engines were pushing us up to 18 knots for the race to the passes, a race against dawn.
The assurance I had sent to Eli was not an idle invitation. When the East China and Yellow seas had been stirred up in March of 1943, the shipping seemed to vanish. Wahoo found it skirting the coast from the Shantung Promontory, north past Port Arthur-Dairen, on east through Gaichosan Retto, down the Korean coast, around Choppeki Point, and south through the inshore areas Tang had just patrolled. Tang was working counterclockwise along this track for a reason. The Japanese might hold up shipping scheduled for China until adequate escorts were assembled, but the ships already at sea or those returning from China would have to make it on their own. That meant traveling the long way around, and Tang intended to meet them, not follow them.
Opportunities to copy or even read the press news had been limited. But while Tang, one ship in one of our smallest forces, was busily occupied, grand operations had been under way. Piecing together the sketchy one- or two-line press reports gave us a fair knowledge of the progress. Normandy’s beachheads were secure, with Allied forces now cutting off the Cherbourg Peninsula, and Cherbourg itself, bombarded from the sea, was perhaps about to be liberated. Closer to us, Saipan had been taken except for stubborn resistance at the very northern end. And closer still, the Battle of the Philippine Sea had been successfully waged. We would have to wait for Time and Life to find out what had really transpired, but in the meantime excitement was not lacking.
Hank reported increasing clouds at 0230 and a sounding of 30 fathoms. The clouds could be a characteristic when approaching this coast, but our landfall would not be made until after daylight, while moving in submerged. Minor changes in weather would not be of great importance, therefore. A further report of complete overcast at dawn was significant; with sharp lookouts, we could now continue on the surface, at least for a time. Fraz came below, without stars, and apprised me of the latest situation, fair to good visibility but with a very low ceiling. I joined him for coffee, as we still had some plans to discuss for the day. Our planning was interrupted by answering bells from maneuvering. We listened.
“Ship bearing zero four five!”
The three digits signified a true bearing; she would be to the northeast of us and, we hoped, coming south. The rudder was full right as we passed through control. The OOD would be putting the contact astern, not diving, so without fear of being trampled by lookouts, we climbed to the conning tower and then on to the bridge. Astern, above the horizon, were heavy, black masts and the top of a wide bridge structure.
The time was 0408, and the action to be taken seemed obvious: Open the range for secure raised periscope observation, move onto the enemy’s track, and shoot when the ship came by. In the middle of the Yellow Sea, we might try just that, but here islands restricted our movement, and as luck would have it, a small fleet of fishing vessels was sprawled out along the path Tang must follow. There was but one thing to do, and we threaded our way at full power through 13 sampans and between two trawlers. Fishermen are supposed to be about before dawn, like farmers, or so I had been led to believe, but just as they had been east of Danjo Gunto, the vessels were on random headings, drifting, and with nary a sign of life. From above, our maneuvers would surely have looked like a seagoing slalom. The very presence of these fishermen during our drive to get ahead of the target may have been a boon. The enemy’s bridge had crept above the horizon, and this confusion of sampans could have prevented our detection.
We did not press our luck; now 5 degrees on the enemy’s bow, we slid below the sea. All dives were supposed to be the same, but one from full power with the enemy in full view had a bit added, like the kickoff of a football game. We added a little more by not slowing—the controllermen would just shift the load to the battery—for a final trim would have to wait for another time and place. This short burst would not take much out of the battery and could put us in perfect position. Frank had gone to the TDC and Larry to the dive, so our first team was already manning the key positions. We watched the TDC’s target and submarine dials turn slowly, the inscribed ship now pointing at us. Tang slowed to two-thirds speed for a quick look.
The scope vibrated in the rush of the sea, but not so much as to seriously blur the image. Jones lowered the scope, and we went ahead standard. I liked a part of what I saw, the massive bow, broad superstructure and bridge, the great, heavy masts. Perhaps we had forgotten what a big ship looked like, but everything suggested an auxiliary warship. It would take a broader angle, uncovering more details, before we could further identify her, but the angle she now presented was the part I did not like. It should have been zero or slightly port; it was 10 starboard. The ship had zigged away, but we were hot after her!
We didn’t know what might be in store, so the Bells of St. Mary’s chimed again. The time was 0516, ten minutes after we had dived, and if a submarine was going to have early reveille, this way would raise no objections. There would be another ten-minute run. After battle stations were manned, I dropped down to control to have a word with Larry, for shallow water could make this a taut one. Boatswain’s Mate Aquisti was on the bow planes, working nicely with Motor Machinist’s Mate Robertson, at the stern planes. They both had the feel of the boat, like good steersmen, but what was more, their mutual cooperation left nothing to be desired. The glance told me all that was necessary, and I returned to the conning tower.
Fraz had readied five tubes forward and the two with fish aft. Halfway through the ten-minute run, we stopped our screws momentarily so that Caverly could check the bearing of the enemy’s propellers. It checked with TDC’s. Tang had coasted down to 5 knots and a further midpoint check was in order. Jones brought the attack scope up to my hands.
“Bearing—mark!” Jones read 315; it also checked, but it would not have for long, as the angle on the bow was 50 starboard. The ship had zigged away again or was changing her base course toward the coast. Jones read the stadimeter range on his knees, opposite an assumed masthead height of 100 feet—4,500 yards, not a suitable shot. We could only stay with her as our speed and endurance would permit while steering whatever courses would maintain the best possible true bearing. To converge and close the range would only result in ending up astern, in a hopeless position. Tang was rolling again at standard speed, and we let five anxious minutes pass as we paralleled the enemy. The next observation confirmed our suspicion; we were abaft the ship’s beam, and she was heading directly for the shore. For the moment we did likewise, while Fraz and I took another look at the chart. A great bulge of the ten-fathom curve, extending about 15 miles from the coast, seemed her obvious destination. Everything hinged on what she did when she got there. Of one thing we were reasonably sure; she would not turn left, back toward where she had come from. The other possibilities we meant to see firsthand, and Tang was rolling at full speed.
First sharp and then broadside views had permitted identification details to flow to our party. With the moderately raked bow, mast, heavy bridge structure, more masts and king posts, large superstructure and heavy stack aft, and finally a cruiser type stern, they had settled on the Kurosio Maru. I could not disagree at the moment, but the much heavier masts, king posts, booms, and platform astern indicated a conversion, possibly to a seaplane tender or aircraft transport.
Spurred further by this probable identification, we went to the one-hour rate. This did not mean that our battery would be completely exhausted at the end of an hour, but we would then have to cut our speed radically, down in steps to a crawl in any later evasion. The really important details were the masthead height and the overall length. These figures for the stadimeter could be doubly important if we were forced into a long-range shot.
A half hour had gone by. We made few observations, and many
of these were discouraging, as her zigs at times showed us within 30 degrees of her stern. Fraz motioned for me to come to the chart. “It looks pretty hopeless, Captain,” he said quietly and privately. Fraz was right, not just because of our position, but also because the bottom was shelving rapidly at our plotted location. I wished I had not seen the true presentation; my argument was with the enemy, and I succeeded in pushing all else aside, except acceding to quick soundings and rigging in of the sound heads.
Fortunately, perhaps, my attention was now absorbed in dodging sampans. They were everywhere, and any one of them could ruin a periscope. It was a case of taking a look through a shaking scope, then easing off a bit toward the next clear area and trusting we were in it for the next squint. Amidst it all came Caverly’s sounding, four fathoms under our keel, not critical yet. The navigator seemed relieved, or perhaps resigned, and we continued barging ahead.
To our surprise, at high speed on her almost straight course, Tang was maintaining the bearing on the zigzagging enemy, now about 6,000 yards on our port bow. Fraz reported her now crossing the ten-fathom curve almost simultaneously with Caverly’s “Three fathoms.” We killed our way momentarily for a proper look.
“Up scope.” A look and I flipped the handles.
“All ahead full. She’s turning right!”
A glance at Fraz’s chart showed her just north and west of Amma To. We were back up to speed when Ballinger stuck his head up the lower conning tower hatch: “Plenty of battery, Captain.” It was the report I wanted to hear. We would make a last dash to close this ship and shoot on whatever track she presented. Our dash was curtailed by soundings of two fathoms, one fathom, and then the echo merged with the outgoing signal. This was it.
“All stop. Up scope. Bearing—mark! Range—mark! Angle—mark!”
Jones read 340 and 2,800, then waited for my angle estimate. I called 75 starboard; Jones read 80. Frank called the setup on the TDC, 2,500 firing range, 105 track, but asked for quick bearings since the enemy had slowed. We obliged, and the scope went down.
“Ten degrees to go, outer doors are open forward.”
I glanced at the depth gauge, 58 feet. “Hold her down, Larry!”
“I can’t, we’re aground!”
“All back full. Up scope.” Jones brought the handles to my hands. I must have looked like a reptile, squirming on the conning tower deck, but there she was. “Constant bearing—mark!”
“Set!”
“Fire!” and the first torpedo went for her big stack aft. The next fish went for her middle, and the third forward.
“Left full rudder.” We picked up a swing to the right with our sternway.
“Shift the rudder, all ahead full, steady on two zero zero.”
“Hot, straight, and normal.” The call came from JP by battle telephone. We had practically forgotten our topside-mounted sonic receiver. I wondered what shape the torpedoes were in, for now I could consider what had barely crossed my mind before firing. Torpedoes were supposed to duck about ten feet on leaving the tubes before gaining their set depth. That habit, this time putting them into the mud, might account for a somewhat muffled zing, but JP showed they were otherwise all right. The warheads were something else. Would mud jammed into the impeller recess on the bottom—the impeller that armed the firing mechanism—wash clear during the run? The answer came in two tremendous explosions, and I thanked God that I had been too busy to consider all of these things beforehand.
We slowed for a look; only the bow, stern, and masts were sticking out of the sea. A sweep around and we surfaced, surrounded by 34 fishermen, understandably awe-stricken. They were quick to recover, for in some sampans men were shaking their fists at us while from others came the overhead clasped hands of a boxer’s salute. We assumed that they were Japanese and Koreans respectively.
The time was 0601, five minutes after firing. Astern, for Fraz had brought us to 270 now that our business with this ship was over, were about 50 survivors in the water but with several large lifeboats. We could not have dived there had we wanted to close, and the thought of welcome deep water overcame any curiosity. The stern had sunk before we surfaced, and now the bow went under in a bubbling, foaming sea.
Three engines were driving us west, the others charging. On our port bow was smoke, black smoke, and then the hull of a ferryboat, about the size of those that plied between San Diego and Coronado. Water was boiling from her stern as we passed; we were both running, and I wished we could tell her to close the dampers lest she explode a boiler.
With all trawlers or other craft with antennas now hull down and unable to report our course, we headed north to continue our counterclockwise search. At 0900, with the location of our attack 40 miles away, Mel took us down for the submerged run to our previously selected position toward Osei To, up the Korean coast.
11
The enemy would have to search a semicircle with a 40-mile radius, about 2,400 square miles, to have any hope of finding us. By that time, Tang could well be another 40 miles away. Frankly, the one chance of locating us passed when patrol planes did not show up during our dash to sea. That possibility had caused us to dive earlier than we liked. Without any design on our part, Tang was very close to her original track and could pick up the plan at the point where she had turned south. There would be some modifications, for we were five hours behind and with far less battery gravity. We could move along at 3 knots for the rest of the day and have enough extra for a reasonable approach, but that would not get us to the passes. It did not matter; they would still be there tomorrow, and this morning’s attack had been a grand way to celebrate Independence Day. Just possibly the ship’s company would take the Old Man’s salmon and peas in stride if that helped sink ships. Actually, there was a trick to cooking good canned peas that I had learned from Romero, the chief commissary steward when I was a junior officer. You just drain off the juice and boil it down, seasoning it with salt, pepper, and plenty of butter. Then just before serving, you dump in the peas and bring them to a quick heat. Well, we’d see how they turned out today.
In the wardroom, the conversation did not stray far from the last attack. This was Fraz’s tenth patrol, and he’d neither seen nor heard of anything quite like it. Mort just shook his head slowly. But actually, without escorts to oppose us, it was a straightaway approach with only a few twists. After all, a submarine was not truly aground till she was high and dry. Like Fraz, I was aware of no other case in which a boat had run aground and was backing full while firing. But I had known one submarine that would have gone after this ship exactly as Tang had. I did not voice this, nor did I mention the image of Mush Morton across the table saying, “Tenacity, Dick. Stay with the bastard till he’s on the bottom.”
A late breakfast for all hands had done much to prolong the festive mood, even for the messcooks, as shipmates were lending a hand. The watch, of course, was all business. In the conning tower, one scope was manned continuously and both for high searches every 15 to 20 minutes. We would remain a bit on the defensive until we had an opportunity to jam some more energy in our batteries, but Tang was still on the prowl.
The morning went quickly, and everybody seemed to enjoy lunch, for the cooks had let their imaginations run and had turned out beautiful salmon loaves. Quite likely this was in part due to some encouragement by Fraz and carried out by Dick. The afternoon was quiet until 1500, when the distant rumblings of depth charges commenced, 58 miles distant to be more exact. It was always nice to know where the antisubmarine forces were working, especially when they were miles away. The rumblings remained faint and finally ceased as we moved slowly north, approaching the Korean coast where it juts out to the northwest. Fraz had been up to the conning tower a half dozen times to identify landfalls and finally Osei To, the one we were looking for. Frank reported it abeam at suppertime. We were doing well and relaxing when the wardroom phone buzzed. Mort picked it up and said calmly, “Here we go again, Captain. Dick’s got smoke beyond the Onyo Group.”
I couldn’t place the islands but knew they must be just inshore; there weren’t any to seaward except Osei To. Fraz left to start the tracking; Mort and I followed a few minutes later, giving tracking time to get organized.
The situation was not impossible but far from good. The enemy was heading south between the islands and the coast, a treacherous area for a ship not familiar with the shoals. We examined our chart for any place where we might attack outside the ten-fathom curve, for the moon would be coming up full, and a submerged attack would be required. There appeared to be one chance, a high-speed end-around right back to the vicinity of the morning’s attack. That area was undoubtedly still infested by enemy antisubmarine units, but maybe they would have retired by the time we arrived. It was something we would have to find out, for there was no alternative.
The lookouts were in the conning tower, and preparations for surfacing had been completed. I commenced the customary careful high-power sweep around, over the moonlit island and land silhouettes, across the darker horizon to the south, and then along the sharp edge of the Yellow Sea, scalloped by clouds still colorfully illuminated by the sun now below the sea. I found myself retracing an arc for no particular reason—or was there one? I swung back again; a slight discoloration clashed with the sunset, the faintest wisp of light brown haze.