Clear the Bridge!

by Richard O'Kane

At 1,200 yards I twisted ship to bring our stern tubes to bear, a bit apprehensive while we presented our broadside silhouette. But nary a thing stirred aboard the gunboat as far as we could tell. We were now in position to fire a Mark 18-1 electric torpedo, and its minimal wake, should it miss, would not necessarily alert the enemy. There was an additional advantage; we were already heading away from her should she suddenly come to life.

  The outer doors were open aft as I conned Tang for a zero gyro angle shot. The binoculars rested untouched in the after TBT receptacle, checked below as on 180 degrees, dead astern.

  “Set below.” We were steady on her middle.

  “Fire!” The torpedo left with the characteristic whine. All of us on the bridge watched as the wake petered out after a run of a hundred yards or so, when the torpedo evidently headed down. A loud rumble occurred when the torpedo should have been halfway to the gunboat. Caverly had tracked the fish until the low-order explosion; there could be no doubt that it had indeed hit bottom where the chart showed 250 feet of water.

  The time was 0142, and feeling that the enemy must surely be alerted, I twisted Tang quickly to bring her in alignment for a second straight shot, taking all of the care that we had with the first torpedo. Tang was steady as a rock, the wire right amidships, when I received Mel’s “Set below.”

  “Fire!” was almost instantaneous. The torpedo left with a reassuring whine, and its phosphorescent wake stretched out into the night, visible almost to the target. But there was no explosion or other noise as it apparently passed underneath the enemy. The time was 0144.

  Fraz had joined me on the bridge, expecting an explosion, for Caverly had tracked the fish down the correct bearing. There was no need for consultation; we had one salvo of three left aft and were circling for a bow shot. The question mark turn, steadying, and now closing to 900 yards, seemed slow, but Mel’s “Set” came instantly following my “Mark.”

  “Fire!” and a Mark 23 steam torpedo, set to run on the surface, left with a zing directly for the enemy’s middle. Though Tang was stopped, absolutely steady, and the torpedo had zero gyro angle, it took a 30-yard jog to the left before settling down toward the target and missed astern.

  We were still whispering, though the last two torpedoes must have roared past the gunboat. Her crew was waking up, however, or at least someone was about with a flashlight. They would have to hurry, for a “Set” came from below. The wire was on her gun mount forward, lest this torpedo jog also.

  “Fire!” It jogged left but then settled down for her middle, running close to the surface. The run would be 40 seconds.

  “Come on topside!” It was going to hit, and my invitation was meant for Fraz, but most of the fire control party and others, too, reached the bridge. The explosion was the most spectacular we had seen, topped by a pillar of fire and tremendous explosions about 500 feet in the air. There was absolutely nothing left of the gunboat, but we had seen enough of this ship on this and previous occasions to provide the designers with everything but the blueprints.

  Now knowing that our torpedo difficulties were mainly in sluggish steering and depth engines, we bent on full power to reach the security of the deep seas. There we would temporarily convert Tang to a submerged torpedo overhaul shop, staffed by men whose lives might depend on the quality of their work.

  8

  The course was east and dawn met us after a run of 60 miles. Dick slowed to one-engine speed, as instructed by the single entry in the night orders, and took our ship down for the day. The exacting work on our six remaining torpedoes would start routinely, or so I thought, but Hank had the preliminary findings ready at breakfast. It had been the whole department’s idea to start immediately after the attack, but in a compromise work on the torpedoes had replaced standing their normal watches. Hank and Ballinger had arranged the minor juggling of the watch list, and this was just another example of the flexibility that came with having a few extra officers and men in the ship’s company.

  The findings practically pinpointed our troubles, for three of our remaining six torpedoes had horizontal, or depth-keeping, rudder throws of from three-quarters to a full degree heavy, or deep. It was at least expected after our test firing, and in itself justified expending those torpedoes, at least as far as we were concerned.

  How could this happen in torpedoes that had been run through the base torpedo shop, with preliminary and final adjustments made by experts and witnessed by Hank and Mel on the check-off lists? The answer is that it couldn’t with handcrafted torpedoes from the Naval Torpedo Station. There the differential valves and control engines were hand-lapped, and other mechanisms were fitted to each torpedo in a way comparable to the production of a Rolls Royce.

  The torpedoes under consideration, however, were put together from components that had been manufactured in dozens of different locations. The people making the castings and doing the machining could not visualize the whole torpedo. Even more important, they did not have an active hand in making the whole thing work. So the improper rudder throws existed all the time but were not discovered because the rough valves and engines would stick in their travel and give what seemed to be correct readings. But our task was ahead, and during this day the valves, steering, and depth engines would be operated and operated until they lapped themselves in, or at least were sufficiently worn in to have rubbed off any rough spots. By late afternoon, Hank reported both torpedo rooms ready for the final calibrations and tests.

  In anticipation, the air compressors had brought the pressure that had built up in the boat back down to a normal atmosphere, jamming the air back into the banks. Inter-torpedo room rivalry was put aside by Hank’s 6-foot 4-inch mandate. Mel, with First Class Torpedoman’s Mate Foster and his men from aft, went forward and joined Hank, Chief Weekley, and the forward gang. More than pride and reputation was riding this afternoon. The depth springs were calibrated under the correct atmospheric pressure and then each torpedo in turn was suspended as had been done in the East China Sea. Each was then fired with its high-pressure air only, spinning the gyros and admitting the air to the control valves and engines. Then came the swinging in azimuth to check the actual operation of the vertical, or steering, rudder. Next came the tilting to check the honesty of the horizontal rudder. The same cooperative effort followed aft, and now no holds were barred, the rooms were in competition again. Just prior to loading, the men painted fresh eyes on each warhead to help guide it to the enemy. No real torpedoman would think of loading a fish otherwise, and frankly neither would I.

  It was 1900 when we surfaced this August 22 with the troops exuding confidence. I thoroughly believed that they had done their part, and I meant to do mine. Our heading was 012, directly toward the scene of our first attack of the patrol, where we had missed the old-fashioned black tanker west of Omae Saki. We would move north slowly; there was no rush, and our attacks would be cold, calm, and calculated!

  Checking the torpedoes had taken precedence over food, and the wardroom was enjoying a late evening meal. The fresh ocean air more than made up for the warmed-over sogginess. On the table to go with the meal was the determination by the identification party. The gunboat, as we had chosen to call her, was new to all appearance and unlisted in our publications. The party had used the notations from the Quartermaster’s Notebook, which had been made at various times when the ship was in sight, and the length determination by the stadimeter, which Jones remembered. It all fitted together in a neat paragraph.

  GUNBOAT: Flush deck with raised gun platforms forward and amidships mounting estimated 3-inch double-purpose guns. Aft of midship platform was a goalpost structure, probably for sweeping, topped by a lookout or director platform. Her stern has two very long horizontal depth-charge racks, holding 14 counted depth charges a side, and what appeared to be Y-guns on the centerline. The length is between 225 feet and 250 feet measured by stadimeter, and standard displacement estimated to be 1,500 tons.

  They had put together more than I remembered, and it w
ould go into the patrol report as they had prepared it. This turned the conversation to the current results of our patrol. One freighter down, another damaged, a patrol yacht damaged, and now a gunboat blown to smithereens. It was a motley array to say the least, but the gunboat did add a bit of respectability. Truthfully, the ship was pure gravy, for we would have fired those four torpedoes whether she had been there or not.

  “Suppose we hadn’t seen her,” Frank ventured, and that led to some lively possibilities arising from torpedoes racing aimlessly across Owashi Wan. But she was in our bag, and we now had a chance to make more of this patrol and perhaps really hurt the enemy.

  At 0100 Frank reported Tang in position on the 50-fathom curve west of Omae Saki, and I went topside as we moved slowly into the wide bight off Fukude. There, 6,000 yards from the long beach, we were certain that no ship could pass undetected, and the burning navigational lights spurred the hope that the enemy might try.

  The remainder of the midwatch passed with Fraz up and available. The morning watch came on, and Basil took us down quietly. It was 0417, and this time our dive was in the best possible position to intercept the enemy. We had not long to wait, for bombers commenced searching at daylight. A half hour later the first surface patrol hove in sight, coming westward from Omae Saki. Our periscope searches would be cautious this day, and I took the scope until she had passed. Fraz would take the next one, but now only planes remained, searching methodically along the coast.

  We were at breakfast, as usual, when the phone buzzed. Ed had smoke toward Omae Saki, and since it had just come in view, the ships would be heading our way. The time was 0803 as Fraz and I left the wardroom. As expected, the enemy ships were nearly aground as they hugged the coast, and Tang could finish that job! Just as Jones swung the handle on the general alarm, Walker appeared with our two cups of coffee, no mean trick to balance while climbing up a ladder and through a circular hatch. We would have time to drink them, for Tang was off on a four-minute dash to close a hulk off Fukude, undoubtedly one of our subs’ handiwork. A position 1,000 yards to seaward of the wreck would insure the shortrange attack that we wanted. The enemy course had to be about 280, the direction of the coastline; we would concentrate on the speed determination. The periscope bearing before our dash, converted to true, had fixed the enemy ships’ position as 10,000 yards up the coast, and now as we slowed, the next true bearing would fix it again. It would be a simple case of time and distance run, a problem for a third-grader.

  Welch was calling off our speed, and Caverly with his metronome was beating out the enemy’s propeller turns, 130, a good clip. The log was down to 3 knots when Jones brought the scope to my hands. I checked it in low power and Jones raised the scope with me as if it had a built-in follow-up system. A single sweep and the scope was down.

  “Left full rudder, all ahead two-thirds. We’re inside three SC escorts and have two medium freighters. I’m turning for a stern shot. Angle on the bow twenty port.”

  “All tubes are ready with outer doors open, Captain.” Fraz’s report made unnecessary my pending query. Our stern was staying ahead of the enemy on the TDC. We would steady on 190 for a broadside track. Welch acknowledged one-third and would steady us on. There would be one more setup before the constant bearing. The scope came up in time to observe an unexpected zig towards, putting us underfoot. A full-speed dash succeeded only in getting us between the two freighters, which had zigged and were now on a line of bearing. They boiled past, about 200 yards ahead and astern, followed by a third, smaller freighter previously unseen. All three of them were too close; our torpedo warheads would not be armed at that short range.

  When you tried for a range inside of 1,000 yards it sometimes happened this way; but we still had our torpedoes, and at least that was an improvement. Perhaps we should be grateful that they had not wiped off the attack periscope and that depth charges weren’t raining down.

  Tang had been secured from battle stations for a half hour when an old type destroyer closed our position. She resembled our World War I four-pipers but had two stacks and long depth-charge racks that must have cleared out the arsenal. The suspicion that we had been spotted seemed almost certain with the arrival of a floatplane and then four bombers. The planes did not bother us as much as the ear-splitting echo-ranging of the destroyer, the pings blasting through our hull as she closed the range.

  “Set all torpedoes on two feet and open the outer doors.”

  None of us wanted to shoot this ship, feeling that a better one could be just around Omae Saki, but she could force our hand. When the range was just inside 1,000 yards, the destroyer commenced circling us slowly, very slowly, counterclockwise. We kept our bow pointed at her; we had no choice. She continued her search, sometimes coming very close, and I shifted the scope to low power, not just to keep her in the larger field but so the planes, especially the floatplane, could be observed, too.

  I had made water-lapping looks during approaches, perhaps a hundred or more, some very taut, but never before ones that continued on like this, wherein we were forced to keep her in constant view to attack before she could. The tip-off would be a shift to short scale, the increased ping rate showing that she had an echo. It could come at any instant. A half hour passed and she continued, never closer than 500 or 600 yards, but seldom outside of 1,200 or 1,300.

  We maneuvered slowly, following a smaller circle inside the destroyer’s and keeping a bead on her so there would be no last-minute twisting and attendant swirl to disclose our presence to the floatplane. Caverly had the slow swishes of her screws on the speaker, keeping phase with the metronome. I was calling angles and ranges continuously lest we be forced to attack, and by battle phone the situation went to all compartments. Perhaps I should put our stern to her so that we could sneak away when she gave us a large angle and still shoot if necessary. But turning now would present a broadside to her ping; we had to hang on to our present position and wait her out.

  The destroyer gave ground first, leaving her circle and moving slowly to seaward. The time was 1017; we had been under her thumb for nearly an hour. Her new tactic smacked of Miki Saki, where the patrol had searched the point before turning seaward to drive us out of position. Now that I was able to use a little more scope, the reason for the destroyer’s search became apparent. To the west, under the bombers, were the masts and broad bridge structure of a big ship coming our way along the coast.

  The destroyer had accomplished a part of her mission by dragging us to seaward in her maneuvers, which surely would have plotted like penmanship circles drawn across a page. It was nothing a high-speed run could not rectify. With a single call of “Starboard five, range thirteen thousand,” we were off and boiling, still at battle stations. Besides the planes, the big ship had escorts, but we’d worry about them later. For the moment, this approach was such a breeze compared to the last hour that we were relaxing our shoulders while Chief Culp and his controllermen drove us toward the enemy’s track. Ten minutes into the run Tang slowed, Welch calling out her speed as she lost way.

  The periscope observation was routine, but the ship was not. Her angle had now opened, showing her full import. The decks of her long midship superstructure were dotted with white uniforms, as was her upper bridge. We had a big naval transport for our torpedoes instead of that destroyer. The scope was down and we were off on another run to further close the track. I took the moment of quiet to give the escort picture, especially to Caverly on the JK-QC and Bergman on the JP forward. The transport had a large PC or DE ahead, an SC on her bow, and an LST (landing ship, tank) plus a PC astern. I’d do the worrying about the planes overhead.

  Again we slowed, Welch calling out our speed from the log each half knot, and Caverly a constant stream of bearings. Mel was checking them against the TDC, giving reassuring nods. I glanced at the computer’s presentation; we would fire on this observation, perhaps a double dip of the scope.

  “Get echo ranges to go with my setup.” Fraz stepped aft for a mome
nt to be sure that Caverly had the word and then moved over to the TDC.

  “Fifteen degrees to go for a one hundred track, Captain. The outer doors are open, all torpedoes set on six feet.”

  Jones had the scope ready, having trained it on the approximate bearing by twisting the tube with his hands, and followed me up.

  “Bearing—mark!” Jones read 345.

  “Range—mark! Angle ninety starboard.” Caverly called 800 yards; Jones read 700.

  “It all checks, speed eight and a quarter,” called Frank, and the scope was back up.

  “Constant bearing—mark!” Jones called 354.

  “Set!” came from Mel. Her after deck was coming on. This was it!

  “Fire!” Fraz hit the plunger. The first Mark 23 left with a healthy zing, and the reassuring pressure hit our ears.

  The second and third fish went to the middle of her long superstructure and under her forward deck. The whole ship’s side was manned by sailors in whites, exactly as had been the big naval tanker west of Saipan.

  “Right full rudder. All ahead full.” We would attack the LST.

  “All hot, straight, and normal.” Those beautiful words came from Caverly and Bergman almost simultaneously. Jones was helping our torpedoes on their way with his raised fist. Ogden was counting off the seconds—11 more to go. We slowed and Mel called the new relative bearing. The scope came up, a sweep in low power and back to the transport. The smoky wakes were fanning out toward her middle; the torpedoes themselves would be 75 yards farther on. There was nothing that great ship could do; she was a dead duck.

  The crack of a detonation and the roar of the explosion jammed Ogden’s 30th second back down his throat. The hit was in the after section of the superstructure, the shallow torpedo ripping out a section of waterline the size of a freight car. The next hit was just forward of the long superstructure, under the short forward deck, and gave her a down-angle of about 20 degrees, which she maintained like a diving submarine.