He closed his eyes. If only Art Hinman had had the new SJ radar on Mako. If only Eelfish had stayed with the Mako a little longer. If. If. If.
He waited for sleep to come.
CHAPTER 3
The Control Room Auxiliaryman, who also served as the watch messenger, knocked softly on the bulkhead of the Captain’s stateroom three times during the eight to twelve morning watch to report that a periscope observation had picked up enemy aircraft. Each sighting was of planes far out on the horizon. Brannon acknowledged each report and drifted back to sleep. He had expected the Japanese would send out aircraft from their field at Tacloban to search for the submarine that smashed up their small convoy. He had expected, too, that the airmen would overshoot the search area; most fliers tended to think about distance in terms of scores of miles per hour, not in terms of a submarine’s slow progress of two or three knots under water.
He awoke when he heard the torpedomen from the Forward Torpedo Room scuffling past his stateroom on their way aft to the Crew’s Mess for the noon meal. He rose and went to the Officers’ Shower in the Forward Room and put on clean clothes. Pete Mahaffey came in to collect his dirty laundry.
“Cook’s got roast beef and mashed potatoes today, sir. I finally taught that man that a little garlic is better than a lot. Gravy is mighty tasty. I can serve when you’re ready, Captain.”
“I’ll eat when the other officers are ready, Pete,” Brannon said. “I don’t like eating alone.”
After Mahaffey had cleared the table Brannon began reading the contact report that Olsen had written. After he had read it and approved it the report would be encoded and sent to the Submarine Commands at Fremantle and Pearl Harbor. He read slowly, weighing each word, each phrase. More than one submarine commander, as he well knew, had come to grief because of a carelessly worded contact report and had been undone by a caustic footnote appended to the report by the Admirals in Fremantle and Brisbane.
Brannon wrote his approval on the side of the contact report and then carefully worded a last paragraph. He noted that targets were extremely scarce in Surigao Strait, and Eelfish, with all due respect, requested a more productive patrol area. Olsen came into the Wardroom, and Brannon showed him the paragraph he had added.
“I know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” he said. “But the mosquito that buzzes also gets slapped.”
The answer to the contact report came from Fremantle two nights later. There was a short sentence of congratulation on the sinking of three freighters and two small escort vessels. In response to the request made by the Commanding Officer of the Eelfish for a more productive area, Eelfish was needed in her assigned patrol area and would stay there until all torpedoes were expended or until early September, whichever came first. Future discussions of patrol areas could be done after Eelfish had returned to Fremantle.
“I told you they’d find fault down there in Fremantle,” Brannon said after he had read the decoded message that Olsen brought to the cigaret deck. “Those fellows sit around in that fancy headquarters of theirs down there. They sit around drinking coffee and trying to figure out ways to make the people at sea feel like a thin dime.”
“You mean that place they call ‘The Bend in the Road’?” Olsen asked with a grin. “I had to take a message over there when we were in Fremantle. You can’t have a messenger boy going to that place unless he wears at least two gold stripes. That place is really something, Captain. I mean that is some sort of luxury!”
“I know,” Brannon growled. “That place is full of people who are making a career out of kissing the asses of Admirals. Doesn’t make any difference which Admiral, just so the ass is gold-plated. They’re a bunch of yes men.
“Admiral Christie is a hell of a good man. At least I think so. But he’s surrounded with ass kissers. Every one of those people knows there’s something wrong with Christie’s pet project, that Mark Six exploder, but not one of those people have got the guts to say anything to Christie. They keep agreeing with him that we’re missing the targets when that damned exploder doesn’t work. Listen to this sentence.” He tilted the message flimsy so he could catch the light of the moon.
“Quote and unquote: It is the opinion of this command that shooting more than one torpedo at a target is an unnecessary waste of torpedoes, which are in very short supply.
“Hell, I know torpedoes are in short supply. But if their damned magnetic exploder worked the way it’s supposed to work, sure we could fire one fish at each target. And if the torpedo went off underneath the target, the way the exploder is supposed to work, that’s all you’d need, one torpedo to one target. Pearl Harbor has, finally, recognized that fact, and if you’re operating out of Pearl you get exploders that have been modified to work only on a contact hit. But not in Australia. You’d think we were in a different Navy out here. I was told in Fremantle by a four-stripe Captain I worked for when I was a youngster in submarines that Admiral Christie has openly defied orders to modify the exploder, orders that came right from Admiral Nimitz!
“What’s worse, that General MacArthur, he’s playing off one Admiral against another to get his own way. He’s got submarines running all over the damned ocean doing things he thinks are important, that he wants done. You should hear what some of the other submarine captains have to say about some of the missions they’ve had to carry out for Dugout Doug. The job of a submarine is to get out and sink enemy ships, not go chasing around landing commando troops and giving food to people in the islands. They can do that stuff with aircraft and do it better.”
“You must have a hell of a gripe session when all you skippers meet in Fremantle,” Olsen said. Brannon looked at his Executive Officer and saw the friendly grin.
“Oh, we do,” he answered. “We really let down our hair. Not that it does a damned bit of good. It just lets off a little steam. And I’m pretty sure that what some of the skippers say gets back to the Admirals the next day.” He turned away and stared at the dark bulk of Dinegat Island. A lone sea bird floated by overhead, its mewling cry a lost and lonesome sound. He turned back and faced Olsen.
“Ordering us to stay here on station is punishment for using up six fish on three small targets, for saying, as I did in the contact report, that we fired a spread of two fish at each target. I said that deliberately, and they know when you say that you fired a spread, no matter if it’s two fish or six fish, they know that you’re firing to get contact hits, not using their damned magnetic exploder.”
Olsen raised his head and sniffed appreciatively at the fresh night wind. “I wouldn’t read all of that into this message, sir.” His voice went down a notch and became gentle.
“You may be right, but the thing is — you’ve got those people by the short hair and you’ve got a downhill pull. You sank ships. They can’t ignore that. Two big destroyers ten days or so ago. Three small freighters and two escorts the other night. That’s seven ships down with twelve torpedoes and some ammunition. They can’t say that’s wasting torpedoes or ammo. Hell, if you’d used all twelve torpedoes to sink the two big destroyers I bet Admiral Nimitz would turn hand springs!”
Brannon grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, John. You’re a good listener, a good friend. I won’t sound off again.”
Eelfish sent its departure-from-station report to Fremantle and Pearl Harbor after receiving orders to return to port and turned toward Australia with twelve torpedoes in her tubes and reload racks. Her course took her southward through the Sea of Mindanao, the Sulu Sea, and the Celebes Sea, down the length of Makassar Strait past the big island of Borneo, across the Java Sea and through the justly feared strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok.
Lombok Strait was narrow, with a strong tidal current. When the Japanese discovered that American submarines were using the Strait as a shortcut, to avoid going to the east and through the Arafuru Sea, they fortified the strait with heavy guns and patrolled it with aircraft.
Running the Strait submerged was considered dangerous
because of the strong currents and uncharted rocks. Most submarine captains preferred to time their arrival at the Strait in the dark of night and make the twelve-mile dash at full speed, risking the danger of shellfire and aircraft.
Once Eelfish had cleared Lombok Strait and was well into the Indian Ocean the men in both torpedo rooms began the laborious work of pulling the heavy torpedoes out of the torpedo tubes, rolling them over and removing the exploder mechanisms to restore the exploders to the condition they had been when delivered to the ship.
The principle of the controversial Mark VI exploder mechanism was brilliant. Prior to the development of the Mark VI, or the “magnetic exploder,” as it was called, all torpedoes were fired to hit the target ship’s hull and explode on contact. The mechanism that exploded the warhead on the torpedo upon contact was simple and reliable.
The unalterable laws of physics decree that since water cannot be compressed to a measureable degree, the major part of the explosive power of a torpedo warhead would vent upward along the side of the ship that was hit. Only a small part of the warhead’s explosive force would be directed against the target’s hull.
If a method could be found to explode a torpedo warhead under a ship’s hull the laws of physics would ensure that most of the warhead’s explosive power would go upward into the air-filled ship’s hull, thus breaking the ship’s keel, its backbone, and destroying it.
The United States, Germany, and Britain all developed an exploder that would do this. Much of the work of development was done in the 1920s and early 1930s. The principle used in all three exploders was similar. A metal ship’s hull passing through saltwater creates an electromagnetic field (EMF) around the hull. A simple antenna built into the torpedo warhead could detect that EMF field. A small propeller mounted in the warhead that was used to arm the contact exploder could also be adapted to run a tiny generator that would charge a capacitor tube with electrical energy.
When the torpedo fitted with the magnetic exploder was fired it was set to run five to ten feet beneath the target’s hull. When the torpedo entered the target’s EMF field the antenna in the warhead would detect the field and relay the impulse to the capacitor tube, which, after a slight delay to allow the torpedo to get beneath the target, would release its electrical energy and fire the torpedo warhead. The target would be destroyed.
The British and the Germans both used their own version of the magnetic exploder in the early months of World War II. Both sides found that the magnetic exploder was unreliable. Both sides abandoned the magnetic exploder by 1941 and went back to the more dependable contact exploder.
Despite this evidence, the U.S. Navy continued to use the magnetic Mark VI exploder, its defenders arguing that the exploder was perfect, the people using it imperfect in that they consistently missed their targets. This attitude, bitterly criticized by submarine captains who were certain they were not missing every target, did not change until late in 1943, until the evidence that the Mark VI was unreliable was so overwhelming it could not be ignored. However, the orders from Pearl Harbor that the torpedo exploders be modified to work only on contact were ignored by the Admirals in the Submarine Command in Australia.
Submarine captains leaving Australia on war patrol routinely ordered their torpedomen to modify the magnetic exploders to work on contact only. Routinely, those same officers lied in their patrol and contact reports so that the Admirals in Australia wouldn’t know about it. Returning to Australia with torpedoes aboard meant that the exploder mechanisms had to be removed from the torpedo warheads and put in the condition they had been when received. John Olsen called it a miserable charade. Mike Brannon agreed with him.
Chief Monk Flanagan, his shirt dripping with sweat from his labors in changing the exploders in the After Torpedo Room, stopped at the coffee urn in the Crew’s Mess where Lieutenant Commander John Olsen was drawing a cup of coffee.
“The Chief of the Boat working?” Olsen chided Flanagan. “I thought when you attained that exalted position you didn’t have to work anymore, just tell others what to do.”
“Those people in the Torpedo Shop in Fremantle check those exploders with an eagle eye,” Flanagan grunted. “They’d love to have a solid case where they could prove that we modified the exploders so they could drag someone up in front of a court-martial. So I’m working.” He sat down beside Olsen on a mess bench.
“This is all a bunch of damned foolishness, you know.” Flanagan kept his voice low so the cook on duty in the galley wouldn’t hear him. “Hell, we wouldn’t have to do this crap if we were working out of Pearl Harbor.”
“I know,” Olsen said cheerfully. “Count your blessings. We’re lucky we’re going to go into Fremantle and to a hotel in Perth for the R and R period. If that Admiral Carpender over in Brisbane had his way we’d be going to our rest and recreation up in Exmouth Gulf. You could have two weeks of playing soft ball in the sand and cool off with two beers a day
“I heard about that deal,” Flanagan said. “Chief Yeoman in the relief crew, guy I knew a long time, told me they even had a name for that deal. They called it Operation Potshot. You know why it didn’t go through?” Olsen shook his head.
“A couple of real hard-assed submarine officers, guys who’d made patrol runs and were too senior to go back to sea on a submarine, they got together and decided that the Admiral was cruising with too much right rudder. They started a big study project on the whole thing. This Chief Yeoman said they’ve been making studies for months and they’re going to keep making studies until the Admiral forgets about it or else he gets transferred.” Olsen grinned.
“What gets me,” Flanagan continued, “is this whole business of treating a submarine sailor as if he was some sort of a dangerous animal. What in the hell is wrong with letting us have some R and R in a city where they’ve got decent restaurants and bars? What’s wrong with a submarine sailor rolling in the sack with some woman — if she’s willing?”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it at all,” Olsen said. “All I know is that the whole command down here is FUBAR. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. You come into port after a patrol run and if you tell Admiral Christie that the Mark VI exploder he developed doesn’t work you’ll find yourself so deep in hack that you might wind up reading weather instruments on some mountain up in Alaska. Last time we were in port I heard that Admiral Christie doesn’t ever allow himself to get into a conversation with the big boss in Brisbane, Admiral Carpender, because if he does he’s afraid he’ll get into a shouting match and he’ll wind up in hack. I haven’t figured out yet how you put an Admiral in hack, but I guess other Admirals know how to do that.”
“Hell of a way to fight a war, isn’t it?” Flanagan asked. “I’ll bet none of those Admirals ever made a war patrol. They should have been with old Stoneface Mealey when he had the Mako that one run and went into Truk and hammered about eight, nine fish into that battleship and then got the immortal shit kicked out of the Mako by about a dozen tin cans. Maybe they’d realize when a man comes in from a tough war patrol he rates something better than a softball game, sand fleas, and two cans of beer a day.”
“I’m pretty sure Admiral Christie recognizes those things,” Olsen said slowly. He stood up, and Flanagan rose. “I guess both of us had to blow off a little steam, Chief. Let’s keep it between ourselves, okay?” Flanagan nodded and went forward, ducking his head and raising his foot to go through the watertight door opening to the Control Room. Scotty Rudolph came out of the galley.
“Got some fresh prune Danish,” he said. “Like one?”
“No, thank you,” Olsen said. He looked at the W.T. door where Flanagan had disappeared going forward. “That Chief Flanagan, he’s a remarkable sort of man.”
“Yeah,” Rudolph said. “He’s one of those old-timey Chief of the Boats. I seen a few of that kind in the fourteen years I been in the boats. Flanagan’s hard but he’s fair. Do what he tells you and do it right and you’re okay. Fuck up and he’ll have your ass in litt
le pieces. I like that kind of a Chief of the Boat. You always know where you stand. I figure we’re lucky to have him.”
Olsen nodded and rinsed his cup and put it in the cup rack. We’re lucky to have Flanagan, he thought to himself as he went forward to the Wardroom. Lucky to have Flanagan and damned lucky to have Mike Brannon. With those two and a little luck maybe I’ll live through this damned screwed-up war. He pushed through the curtains at the door of the Wardroom and saw Mike Brannon sitting at the head of the table.
“Torpedo exploders are all returned to their original condition,” he said. “What’s got you looking like death warmed over, Captain?”
Brannon pushed a message flimsy across the table. “I’ve got to see the Staff as soon as we get in. They want three extra copies of our contact and patrol reports. That only means one thing to me, that I’m going to get reamed out for something. Damned if I know what for.”
“Keep one thing in mind, sir,” Olsen said. “Don’t let them forget it, either. You sank ships. Not one of those people has done that.”
CHAPTER 4
The U.S.S. Eelfish moved along the west coast of Australia, an hour away from the seaport of Fremantle, only hours away from two weeks of rest and relaxation for the crew in the city of Perth, twelve miles up the Swan River from Fremantle. Overhead a clumsy PBY-4 dipped its wings in a salute to the submarine and the Eelfish bridge watch waved back happily.
Jim Rice, a tall, heavily bearded torpedoman, was sitting in the bight of a double bowline knot on the end of a line that had been rigged over the starboard side of the Conning Tower. He braced his bare feet against the side of the Conning Tower and with great care began to touch up the small battle flags that he had painted on the side of the Conning Tower. Two small cans of paint, one red, one white, hung from a cord around his neck. His tongue stuck out of one corner of his mouth, a red tip in a thicket of black beard, as he delicately added a little white paint to the array of flags; four Rising Sun flags that stood for two Fubuki destroyers and two escort vessels sunk by the Eelfish, three white flags with a red ball in each flag’s center for the three small merchant ships Eelfish had sent
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