Our tracks converged, reducing the range steadily until Caverly and Bergman were able to make their reports consistently on the same ship rather than the group. With the more accurate information, tracking had arrived at a definite convoy speed of 12 knots. It was an increase of 2 knots over the earlier estimate but would not appreciably affect our approach since the enemy was still ten miles away.
Of greater importance than the enemy’s correct speed was the sighting of the first navigational aid, a dimmed occulting light on our port bow. My first inclination had been to pass the light off as the riding light of a sampan; but with better height and perhaps better eyes, the lookouts had spotted what it was, and they deserved congratulations. Jones called the periods of continuous light and the shorter periods of darkness to the conning tower for possible identification.
It had not seemed likely that the light’s characteristics would have remained unchanged since the start of the war, but moments later Frank identified it as the light on Oksu Island, to the southwest of Turnabout. It had obviously been turned on to facilitate the passage of the convoy, and I dropped below to see what advantage this knowledge might afford us. Frank was a jump ahead, already having drawn the enemy’s track past the island and spun in his favorite circle as he had northeast of Pakusa Point. There, off the island, Tang would attack.
The approach was developing well, with everything falling in place, and I paused for a final glance at the SJ before returning to the bridge. The A-scope was on and Caverly trained left, bringing the reflector on the bearing of the enemy. A veritable forest of small and tall dancing pips sprang up to the right and left of the range step. Caverly twisted the handle on the separate cylindrical switch to bring the presentation to the PPI-scope. Strung out in a line were 14 large blops, presumed to be major ships, and 12 lesser pips to port and starboard of the column. These were undoubtedly escorts, and in addition, a single detached larger pip to shoreward could well be the ship carrying the convoy commander.
In total, it was an array such as we had not seen since Task Force 58 closed Truk, and though this was not a warship formation, at least a bit of the Imperial fleet might have trouble operating without the supplies this convoy could be carrying. For a moment I regretted the four torpedoes we had fired in sinking the first two ships. They were Empire-bound, and though their loss might cause some tightening of belts or use of substitute materials in war production, no nation is brought to its knees solely by interdicting the materials flowing to its shores.
But our task was ahead, on our starboard hand to be exact, and if Caverly’s SJ presentation was planned for my benefit by the complete fire control party, which seemed likely since the steersman’s hand was poised on the general alarm, it had the desired effect. I nodded to Seaman Vaughn on the wheel and his hand swung down. The Bells of St. Mary’s rang out, and our battle stations would be manned to attack the greatest concentration of enemy ships Tang had yet joined.
The enemy was now rounding the northeast tip of Turnabout to seaward of the outer island, and we slowed to steerageway until the convoy had settled on its new course. It quickly became evident that the maneuver entailed more than the anticipated turn, for SJ reported the smaller pips appearing to seaward of the main column. It could be a defensive move while the convoy rounded the next two promontories of the island; but the final disposition, with the apparent flagship now out ahead to port, at least confirmed the convoy commander’s intention of proceeding southwest close to or inside the ten-fathom curve. His choice would now make little difference, for Tang was in position to counter any move.
The range seemed to close slowly, though the convoy’s 12 knots was bringing it 400 yards closer every minute, even a little more counting our steerageway. We searched the general bearing of the convoy with our 7 × 50s and finally had the fuzzy shapes of the leading ships, which had heretofore blended in with the island. Frank called up the time of sighting, 2347, and the current radar range on the flagship, now down to 8,700 yards. Our attack could come in 20 minutes should we let the enemy come to us, one half of that if we closed at the 12-knot maximum firing speed for bow shots with these electric torpedoes.
Battle stations had been manned since five minutes after the alarm, and now the decision concerning the attack was imminent. For the moment, I only ordered all tubes made ready for firing; we were in the driver’s seat, but four engines went on the line and temporary load to preclude any unwanted blotches of smoke at the coming shorter ranges. We waited as the shadows took shape and slowly became defined silhouettes. The only sound was the crisp “Mark!” for each TBT bearing on the flagship as she drew ever so slowly to the left.
I wondered about the enemy formation and why the commander had elected to string his ships out in such a long column when he could place dual screens about a compact formation. Perhaps the enemy’s experience during our last attack was the answer, and he might anticipate that now only an attack on one ship would be possible. For a non-submariner, his thinking would be logical since all except the leading and trailing vessels could have bow, beam, and quarter escorts. They did pose a problem, but not one that was insurmountable.
These considerations were concurrent with continuous observation of the enemy’s van, but then the angles on the leading ships began to open, revealing a two-stack transport and, immediately following, ships with silhouettes resembling raised floating dry docks. Further identification was unnecessary; our priority now was to insure that our torpedoes hit before the enemy became aware of us.
“All ahead standard” ended our brief period of imitating a trawler, and Welch steadied on course 330, the bearing that would take Tang close astern of the flagship. It would not be our final course, for we would pass keeping our bow on her stern, as we had done in the East China Sea, and without an inner screen to interfere, the maneuver should succeed. Jones had his 7 × 50s on the flagship as did I, while Boats kept track of the leading escort to starboard. It was like old times, up to a point, and then came Jones’s whisper, still keeping his glasses glued on the flagship.
“Her angle is sharpening, Captain.”
Until our last attack, we had considered it axiomatic that a merchantman turned away on sighting a submarine and an escort turned towards. One half of our axiom had been blasted by that charging transport, and I now called for quick SJ ranges on the bearing of the flagship, for neither Jones nor I could be sure which way she had turned. The passing seconds seemed like minutes, but Frank had guessed the urgency.
“Range constant at twenty-six fifty, Captain.”
The flagship had for some reason turned toward the main column, and we breathed more easily for the moment, especially since the way promised to become clear for a slice directly toward the transport. Any complacence was short-lived, for two DEs pulled out of the column on our starboard hand and moved toward the main body, then paralleled it in an opposite direction firing bursts of antiaircraft tracers into the air.
As far as any secrecy was concerned, the jig was up, made further evident when the flagship commenced signaling to the ships in the long column. She used the equivalent of a 36- or 48-inch searchlight, however, illuminating the ships down the line. Thus Jones, Boats, and I were able to pick out the prospective targets for our bow tubes. The ship we were approaching was a three-deck, two-stack transport; the next was a two-deck one-stacker, followed by a large, modern tanker. All deck spaces were piled high with enormous crates, accounting for the floating dry dock silhouettes.
Having our presence discovered was no great surprise, for the APR-1 had been saturated with radar transmissions since shortly after the initial contact. But it had been our hope that the enemy’s radar screens were as saturated as our own, and that Tang, in the middle of it all, would reflect just one more indistinguishable pip.
With the searchlight display, we had gone ahead full to bring on the attack while the path to our targets remained clear, and now came Frank’s welcome advice to slow and come to course 300 for firing on a 70
port track at the two-stacker. It required only the satisfying order, “Make it so.”
Equally satisfying were the range of 1,650 and then a few moments later, “Ten degrees to go, Captain. The outer doors are open forward.”
I marked three well-spaced bearings between the transport’s stacks, where all previous bearings had been taken. The time was 0005 on October 25.
“It all checks below, speed twelve, range fourteen hundred, course two two five. Any time, Captain.” Frank’s report was calm, as if he were reading off the football scores from the press news. But he could not see nor probably hear the gunfire now commencing on our starboard hand.
“Constant bearing—mark!” The reticle was again between the stacks, and I waited for the transport’s mainmast to come into the field of the stationary binoculars. It moved quickly into view, twice the thickness of the vertical wire, and they suddenly became one.
“Fire!” The first torpedo left with the characteristic shudder, but only a slight semblance of the whine reached the bridge. It was enough to assure us that this Mark 18-1 was on its way, and five seconds later the second torpedo sped to hit under her foremast.
“Shift targets. Bearing—mark!”
Tang was running the gauntlet between the two columns, and as of the moment the enemy still did not know where. The solution to bringing our ship out in one piece lay in torpedo hits, for they would physically and mentally disrupt the enemy’s counterattack.
“Set below, range eleven hundred.” Frank’s report came up in seconds.
“Constant bearing—mark!” The wire was on the midships stack of the second transport, with the mainmast already coming into the field. This time Dick’s “Set!” was almost instantaneous. The mainmast touched the wire.
“Fire!” I could visualize Frank’s palm hitting the firing plunger and then felt the slight shake forward as when our bow hit a cross sea; the third torpedo was on its way to hit under the point of aim. The fourth torpedo went to her foremast, and we turned to the business of the third ship in column, the tanker.
“Range nine hundred, all set below.” Frank’s call came in quick response to the initial bearing. She was a lumbering ship with her added deck cargo, and now seen in her true size at one-half the former sighting range, she was worthy of all our available forward torpedoes. We’d make all two of them count.
“Constant bearing—mark!” The wire lay amidships, waiting for her stack to come on. The explosion of the torpedo would flood her engine and fireroom spaces, the only substantial buoyancy of a loaded oiler.
“Set!” came quickly. Her squat stack lumbered into the field right to the steady wire.
“Fire!” Our fifth torpedo was on its own, a streak of phosphorescence showing that its initial course would lead the tanker properly. The sixth electric fish went to her midships to break the ship’s back and set her afire.
“Right twenty degrees rudder. Frank, steady us on the reciprocal of the convoy’s course and get me the range abeam to port.” The reply was a cheery “Aye, aye, sir.” No torpedoes had yet hit, for though con had called 73 seconds as the time for our first torpedo to complete its 1,100-yard run, only now came the warning, “Five seconds to go!”
There were other things on our minds topside. A holocaust of antiaircraft and horizontal gunfire was in progress about a thousand yards ahead. A medium freighter was passing some 500 yards on our port hand; we would skip her for the next two ships, and I ordered, “Right full rudder,” to point Tang’s stern at their track. The order was smothered by the first detonation, but our stern, picking up a fast swing to port, told that con had the word.
The detonations continued, like a slow-motion string of monstrous firecrackers. All of the five remaining torpedoes hit, apparently as aimed, and Tang had a holocaust on either beam. Frank corrected my range estimate to 600 yards and reported the outer doors open aft; he forgot nothing. With such a torpedo run on near 90-degree tracks, verifying bearings were unnecessary, and neither was there time, for salvos from the escorts, perhaps by chance, were splashing uncomfortably close.
“Constant bearing—mark!” And the fourth target, another tanker, was crossing the field of my 7 × 50s.
“Set!” came from below. Her big stack was coming on as she unhesitatingly followed the freighter we had passed up, probably figuring that the attack was confined to the first three ships. Her stack touched the wire.
“Fire!” A single electric torpedo whined on its way, the whole task of sinking the ship depending on its 500 pounds of torpex. The run would take 40 seconds, and to preclude the detonations serving as a warning, I swung the TBT immediately to the bow of the next ship, another transport, or passenger freighter with long superstructure.
“Constant bearing—mark!” Her foremast was in the field, coming on.
“Set!”
“Fire!” came instantly, and I left the TBT steady while marking another constant bearing to thus speed up the firing. It had the opposite effect, causing some confusion until I called, “This is to hit under the mainmast.”
“Set!” came in time. I mentally kicked myself for having changed the routine of our firing sequence at such a time, but coming into my binoculars’ field from the right was the bow of a large DE or perhaps a full-fledged destroyer. She very nearly took my mind away from the transport’s mainmast, now about to reach the wire.
“Fire!” and “All ahead flank!” nearly coincided, as did the streak of our last after torpedo and the boil of our screws. There was but one priority, to get the hell out of here, and this time I blessed the great blotch of smoke from our four diesels, for it received a well-placed large-caliber salvo from the DE. Other escorts now directed their fire our way, and my inquiry revealed that Frank was pleading with Culp for more turns. Successive blotches of smoke told of the nature of Frank’s request; I could almost hear the words, “To hell with the overload and smoke, pour on the coal!”
Only seconds had passed, but never had smoke taken a tougher beating from large- and small-caliber fire. We were grateful but not laughing, for the DE was still plowing toward us. The single torpedo had hit home in the tanker, and the fire changed the whole area to an evening twilight. I considered clearing the bridge since we now had no after torpedoes to shoot. The decision was made unnecessary by two tremendous explosions astern, one in the transport and the other completely obliterating the DE.
A path to seaward was clear if the enemy did not illuminate, and we slowed to full power to insure leaving no further smoke to mark our route. Behind us four ships of the convoy had sunk, a fifth, the last transport or passenger freighter, was at least stopped, and either enemy gunfire or our last after torpedo had finished off the DE. The utter finality of the explosion suggested our torpedo, but a good large-caliber hit into her magazine could have done the same. Frankly, we were so relieved by the DE’s demise that sharing or even giving the enemy full credit seemed the least we could do.
Now 5,000 yards astern, occasional low fires on the sea were still accompanied by sporadic gunfire. Hank and Mel, with the forward gang, would be pulling our last two torpedoes, which had been hurriedly loaded during the melee. There were batteries to be ventilated and other routines to perform that had been bypassed during our battle, and as insurance against surprise with two tons of torpedoes loose, we doubled our distance to seaward.
The SJ was still hot and again useful now that the remainder of the convoy had cleared to the southwest. Tracking as we withdrew, Bergman kept the transport spotted and that was all of interest to us except, in a somewhat different way, the two escorts that were slowly maneuvering just to seaward of her. With luck she would sink in due course, but with the probability of one hit forward, this could not be a certainty.
There were no torpedoes ready for immediate firing, and we stood easy at battle stations so a few men at a time could get coffee and otherwise relax from a taut evening. For certain, there was plenty to talk about, and the 30 minutes required for checking and reloading each of
the last torpedoes passed quickly. The bearing of the transport had remained due west as we were each, of course, affected by the same current, and on the navigator’s recommendation Welch brought our bow to 270 degrees true.
It was 0125 on this morning of October 25, and turns for two-engine speed moved Tang briskly toward the enemy. With radar ranges on the transport and identified promontories, plot now had the ship located four miles northeast of Oksu Island. The deeper water was welcome, for escorts willing, we could attack from any quarter. When the range had closed to 5,000 yards, two more diesels shared the load, all quietly rumbling and ready for instant full power. We watched the patrolling of the two escorts, close to DE in size, as they effectively covered an arc around the transport’s seaward exposure but avoided a smaller sector toward the coast. It had been effective until the current had set them out to sea, but now their patrolling pattern posed no problem. We withdrew a thousand yards and commenced the nine-mile run around the semicircle. The time was 0140.
When we were further clear of the escorts, the four engines moved Tang on up to 18 knots, and within the half hour we had slowed, turning toward the enemy’s port beam. All was quiet as we moved in at two-thirds, the speed we used in a harbor. At 4,000 yards all hands were called back to their battle stations and the outer doors were opened on tubes 3 and 4. At 3,000 yards we slowed to steerageway and searched her over for any telltale sign that she was sinking. She was dark, and we could discern no sign of life, but that did not mean that frantic repairs were not going on below decks; we had been in that fix on our first patrol!
We kicked ahead at two-thirds again, slowing to steerageway when Bergman, on the SJ, called 1,500 yards. She was definitely lower in the water than we remembered upon firing, but that was a fleeting glimpse at best. I thought of a similar incident in Wahoo, though in daylight, when a torpedoed, stopped ship suddenly got way on and left us. What was I saving these two torpedoes for! If that ship was actually sinking, either of the escorts could have towed her aground and at least saved her cargo!
Clear the Bridge! Page 51