The chance of escape from the retaliatory attacks by the enemy’s destroyers were not good. If the destroyer Captains were experienced; if they were dogged and patient; if the water in which the attack was made was not deep enough to give the submarine ample room to maneuver, to go very deep; if there were no layers of heavier saltwater under which the submarine could hide the odds were with the destroyers. ... He turned as he heard Lieutenant Bob Lee going through the ritual of taking over the OOD watch at midnight. The Quartermaster going off watch came back to the cigaret deck.
“Mr. Lee brought you a cup of coffee,” he said.
“Thank you,” Brannon said. “Nice night.”
“Yes, sir,” the Quartermaster said. “Hope it’s raining when we get to Lombok Strait. That place scares me.”
“Me, too,” Brannon said. “Pray for rain or at least an overcast.
Eelfish, running at full speed, traversed the dangerous strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok and raced out into the Java Sea, heading for Makassar Strait. Six days later Eelfish submerged an hour before dawn off the northernmost tip of Celebes Island.
Lieutenant Michaels, who wore several hats as the ship’s Commissary, Radio, Radar, and Sonar Officer, came into the Wardroom an hour after Eelfish dove. He handed Mike Brannon a sheet of paper covered with groups of numbers.
“This message came in before we dove,” he said. “I broke it down, but all I get is another code, sir.”
“Okay, Jim,” Brannon said. He nodded at John Olsen, who was sitting at the table with his charts in front of him. “Let’s go into my stateroom, John, and see what we’ve got.”
An hour later Brannon looked at the words he had decoded from the message Michaels had given him. He handed the paper to Olsen, who whistled in surprise. Brannon reached for the chart Olsen had brought in with him. He laid the chart on his bunk, and with a pair of parallel rulers he covered the compass rose on the chart, then moved the rulers to Eelfish’s position and drew a light pencil line on the chart.
“They’re coming right down our street,” he said to his Executive Officer. “Where are the dividers?” He took the dividers, pricked off the distance along the course line, and leaned back.
“I make it they’ll be here about midnight tonight, maybe a little after midnight.”
“If the people in Pearl Harbor who got this information know what they’re doing,” Olsen said slowly. “Seems too good to be true, three tankers and only three destroyers? Big tankers?’
“They know their business in Pearl,” Mike Brannon said. “I didn’t tell you this before, but Admiral Christie told me that those people in Pearl who work with the Japanese codes have gotten so good that last April they broke a coded message that said Fleet Admiral Yamamoto and his staff were going to fly out of Rabaul to visit bases in the Solomons on an inspection tour. The code breakers had his itinerary, the numbers and types of planes in his party, down pat.
“A big bunch of long-range P-38s flew out of Guadalcanal and ambushed Yamamoto’s planes and shot every damned one of them down. The Japanese lost the best Admiral they had and his Chief of Staff and a lot of other high-ranking officers.”
“I never heard about that,” Olsen said.
“Damned few people have,” Brannon said. “From what the Admiral told me they had a hell of an argument in Pearl about using the information they had gotten from the codes. The people who broke the codes were afraid that if they went after Yamamoto the Japanese would know that their codes were broken and the code breakers would have to start all over if the Japanese changed their codes. But Admiral Nimitz and Admiral King in Washington figured that Yamamoto was so valuable to the Japanese war effort that they gave the order to go ahead with the ambush.”
“Japs didn’t realize their codes had been broken?”
“Two things argued against it,” Brannon said. “Or that’s what I’ve been told. First of all, there were some heavy storms, real bad ones, along Yamamoto’s route. One of the planes sent a message about the storms. Apparently none of Yamamoto’s planes reported an attack by the P-38s. And we have never claimed any credit for shooting down the Admiral and his group. But keep that to yourself, all of it. I don’t think the other Wardroom people need to know about it.”
Eelfish surfaced a half-hour after full dark, the water streaming from her superstructure, the four big diesel engines coughing into life and then settling down to a muted roar as three of the engines went on the battery charge.
In the Forward Torpedo Room Steve Petreshock checked and rechecked the torpedo tubes, his anxious eyes searching for evidence of any small fault that would hamper a successful firing. Jim Rice watched him.
“What I’d like to know,” Rice said, “is how those people in Fremantle know we’re supposed to see a convoy of three big oil tankers and some destroyers out here? Hell, we ran all the way up here and never saw one damned ship, not even a fishing boat.”
“I don’t know how they know,” Petreshock said. “Get some oil and take care of that gyro spindle on number two tube, will you? Son of a bitch feels a little sticky to me, and I don’t want a fucking spindle hanging up.”
“Does seem funny, though,” Rice said as he went between the tubes with an oilcan. “If those tankers do come along it will be the first damned thing that’s happened the way it was supposed to happen since I been in this fuckin’ submarine navy.” He squirted some oil on the gyro spindle shaft and worked the spindle back and forth gently.
“So far, seems to me, the Jap is outfumbling us. If he was half as smart as the Japs is supposed to be, he’d have won this damned war by now.” Paul Blake leaned out of his bunk above the reload torpedoes on the port side of the room.
“If the Japs had good sense they would have invaded Pearl Harbor. If they had they’d have won the war right then.”
Lieutenant Arbuckle came out of the Officers’ Head, buckling his belt.
“If the Japanese ever bombed the Panama Canal, they’ve got submarines that can carry small planes, or if they used saboteurs to blow up the Canal locks we’d be in a nasty pickle. I share the wisdom of the bearded savant, Mr. James Rice, Esquire: The Jap is just outfumbling us.” He ducked his head and lifted his leg to go through the watertight door opening to the Wardroom, to Officers’ Country.
Brannon heard the sharp word “Contact!” come up the bridge hatch, and he turned and went forward to the bridge space.
“Contact, Bridge.” The voice of the Chief of the Watch was tinny over the bridge speaker. “Radar contact bearing zero zero five, repeat zero zero five. Range is one four zero zero zero repeat fourteen thousand yards. Several pips on the radar, Bridge.”
“Sound General Quarters!” Brannon snapped. The muted clanging of the alarm floated up through the bridge hatch and Brannon could hear the steady thud of feet down below as the crew raced to Battle Stations. He listened to the reports coming over the bridge speaker.
“All Battle Stations manned, Bridge. All torpedo tube outer doors closed. Repeat closed. Depth set on all torpedoes is four feet. Repeat four feet. Plotting party standing by in the Control Room.”
“Very well,” Brannon said into the bridge transmitter. He turned to Lieutenant Lee.
“Go below, Bob and start the plot. I’ll take the bridge. I want intermittent use of the radar. I don’t want them to pick up the radar if I can help it. Tell John Olsen I want him up here for a minute.”
Olsen climbed the ladder to the bridge and stood beside Brannon.
“They’re a good quarter-hour behind schedule, Captain.”
“We’ll have to speak to them about that,” Brannon said. “How far north of Celebes are we?”
“Fifteen miles north of Celebes, sir. We’re about dead center between Celebes and that little island of Biaro. We should have a three-quarter moon in about an hour.” Both men looked upward as the radar antenna moved in a small arc.
“Targets bear zero zero two, Bridge. Range is closing. Range is now one three zero zero zero.
Repeat thirteen thousand yards. We’d like to double-check range with another radar observation in three minutes.”
“Target speed?” Brannon asked.
“We make that fifteen knots, Bridge, but we’d like to double-check that, too.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. He stood, chewing his lower lip as he worked out the problem in his head. At 13,000 yards the targets were almost seven and a half miles away. At fifteen knots the targets would cover a mile in just under two minutes. That meant the targets would be abreast of Eelfish in about fifteen minutes. He turned to Olsen.
“I’m going to attack submerged. We have to assume they have radar. We’re too far away from Celebes to use the island as a background. Right now we’re too small a target to be picked up, but they’ll sure as hell find us if we stay on the surface. Go below and take over the plot. Tell Mr. Gold that when I dive I want to run at forty feet so I can use the radar as long as I can.” Olsen nodded and dropped down the hatch. His voice came over the bridge speaker a few minutes later.
“Recommend we stay on this course, Captain, at least until we have a better picture of the targets. Mr. Gold has the word on depth. Plot is running.”
“Very well,” Brannon answered. He looked upward at the lookouts.
“Clear the bridge!” he shouted and stood to one side as the three lookouts thudded down into the small bridge space and then dropped through the hatch. Brannon punched the diving alarm twice with his fist and slid down the ladder, pulling the hatch cover closed behind him. Brosmer spun the hatch wheel closed, dogging the hatch down tight.
“Forty feet,” Brannon called down to the Control Room.
“Forty feet, aye,” Jerry Gold answered. He watched as the bow and stern planesmen eased the Eelfish down to forty feet and leveled the ship off.
“Forty feet, zero bubble, sir,” Gold called up the hatch, his voice betraying his pride. His last-minute shifting of water from the variable ballast tanks to compensate for the fuel consumed during the four and a half hours Eelfish had been on the surface and for the flour the baker and the messcooks had lugged from the Forward Torpedo Room to the Crew’s Mess had resulted in a perfect diving trim.
“Very well,” Brannon said. “Mr. Michaels, please come to the Conning Tower ladder.”
Michaels climbed a few rungs and leaned his back against the rim of the open hatch. Brannon looked down at him.
“I’m going to depend on your radar for as long as I dare stay at this depth,” he said. “I want quick readings, on and off. I’ll give you bearings from the periscope so you don’t have to waste time searching for the targets.” Michaels acknowledged the order and went back down the ladder. Brannon turned to Paul Blake on the sonar.
“Let me know if you hear anything at all out there.”
“I’m just beginning to get some faint propeller noises, sir,” Blake said. “Too faint to tell anything.”
Brannon nodded and relaxed, leaning against the chart desk. Lieutenant Perry Arbuckle, wearing one of his telephone ear muffs cocked on his temple, grinned at Brannon.
“Life in the Navy is just one long waiting in line,” he said. “You wait in line to eat, you wait in line to get paid, you wait in line to go ashore, and now we wait to shoot.”
Brannon grinned at the irreverent Reserve Officer. “I’m glad we’re not in that line of ships coming toward us,” he said. “Might get noisy.” He turned as Blake spoke.
“I’ve got steady propeller noises bearing zero zero two, sir. Solid heavy propeller beat.”
“Radar,” Brannon called down the hatch. “Sound has a bearing at zero zero two. Give me a picture.” He waited, hearing the muffled conversation between Michaels and Rafferty down below.
“We have six targets on the radar scope, sir,” Michaels called out. “Range to the first target, a big pip, sir, is one one zero zero zero. Repeat eleven thousand yards. We have three big pips, one behind the other. We have one smaller pip out to port and ahead of the three big pips. We have two more small pips well back, well astern on the starboard side of the three big pips, sir.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. “Secure the radar. Plot, how does it look from here?”
“We can stay on course for another four minutes, sir,” Olsen said. “That will bring the targets to within fifty-five hundred yards, sir. At that point we can come right to course zero zero two and let them come right across our bow.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. He stood quietly in the Conning Tower, glancing at his wrist watch from time to time as he sorted out the factors of the problem in his head, plotting the intricate approach to the moment of the final truth that faces every submarine commanding officer in war; when to give the orders that would send torpedoes shooting out toward the enemy, what the guarding escort vessels might do in retaliation.
“I have several sets of propeller noises, sir,” Blake said. “Slow and fast screws. Pretty broad spread of sound, sir, but I’d say the first heavy screws bear zero one zero, sir.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. He looked at his watch.
“Radar bearing,” he said.
“Targets bear zero one three, sir. Range is five three zero zero. Repeat fifty-three hundred yards. We have the same formation, sir. Three big pips in a line, one ship out ahead to the port side of the convoy. Two ships well aft to the starboard side of the convoy. Target course is zero eight eight. Target speed is one five, fifteen knots, sir.” Olsen’s voice followed hard on the heels of Michaels’s report.
“Recommend we come right now to course zero zero two, Captain.”
“Execute the course change,” Brannon said. He looked at Arbuckle, who had cranked the data Michaels had given into the TDC.
“Give me the torpedo track distance to the targets,” Brannon said.
There was a short silence from below, and then Olsen said, “First target will be in position in six minutes, sir. Torpedo track will be two thousand yards.”
“Too far!” Brannon snapped. “Give me a speed that will shorten that down to a thousand yards. Give me one more radar bearing.”
“First target in line bears three four three, sir. Target course is zero eight eight. Target speed is one five knots. Repeat, fifteen knots. Range is six zero zero zero yards. Repeat six thousand yards.
“Recommend we come right to course zero two zero, sir,” Olsen called out. “Recommend we make turns for five knots, sir.
“Secure the radar. Execute speed and course change. Sixty feet.” Brannon snapped out the orders, bracing himself as the deck slanted down sharply.
“Sixty feet, sir,” Gold called out. Brannon nodded at Brosmer to raise the periscope. He put his eye to the big rubber eyepiece that shielded the periscope lens. He saw the ships ahead of him and to his port side, three big oil tankers, one behind the other. Out ahead of them a destroyer was moving away from Eelfish. He swiveled the periscope to the left. One destroyer, far back along the starboard side of the convoy was moving toward him. He turned the periscope, searching for the other destroyer.
“Damn it,” he said. “I’ve got two destroyers up here. Can’t see the third one.”
“He might have gone around the stern of the convoy, sir,” Michaels said. “He did that once before and then came back, sir.”
Brannon stared through the periscope. The ships were lit clearly by the moon, moving in a line like ponderous elephants. Below him he could hear the small sounds of the Control Room, the muttered commands of Jerry Gold to the men on the diving planes, the shuffle of paper as the Plotting Party penciled in the last bearings of the targets.
“Let’s start the dance,” Brannon said. “Open all torpedo tube outer doors. Stand by for shooting bearings.” Brosmer, the Quartermaster, moved over and stood on the far side of the periscope, his head turned upward, ready to give the bearings to Arbuckle on the TDC. Brannon centered the cross hairs in the periscope lens on the first tanker.
“Bearing on the first tanker in line ... Mark!”
“Three fou
r two,” Brosmer said.
“Range ...” Brannon cranked the range knob with his right hand. “Range is two thousand yards.” He swung the periscope around to his right. “The lead destroyer is way over on the other side.” He focused the periscope on the lead tanker. “Come on, you big, fat cow! Come on, baby!” He swung the periscope to the left. “Destroyer on the convoy’s starboard beam is well back. Range to that destroyer is ... three five zero zero yards. Thirty-five hundred ... Plot. What’s the time factor to close to one thousand yards?”
“One minute, sir.”
“We’ve got a constant shooting solution, sir.” Arbuckle’s voice was steady, calm.
Brannon watched the lead oil tanker loom larger and larger in the attack periscope’s lens. Farther back — he estimated about 750 yards — the second tanker was following in the first tanker’s wake
“Twenty seconds, sir,” Arbuckle said. “Shooting problem is go, sir.”
“I’m going to shoot two at the first tanker and then we’ll set up and try for two more at the second and two at the third ... stand by ...”
“Fire one!” Brannon felt the jolt in his legs and feet as the first torpedo hurtled out of its tube. He counted down from six to one.
“Fire two!” Brannon swung the periscope to his left. “Number one and two torpedoes running hot, straight and normal, sir,” Blake reported from his sonar station.
“Mark!” Brannon snapped.
“Three four six,” Brosmer said.
“Range to the second target is eleven hundred yards.” Brannon’s voice was quiet.
“We’ve got a solution to shoot,” Arbuckle said. A muffled boom shook the Eelfish.
“That was a hit!” Olsen said from the Control Room. “It timed out for a hit, sir.”
“Fire three!” Brannon barked. He counted down.
“Fire four!”
“Both torpedoes running hot, straight and normal, sir,” Blake reported, his young voice loud in the Conning Tower. Brannon swung the periscope to the right and saw the first tanker listing to starboard but still underway. He swung the periscope back to the left and saw a sudden gout of spray shoot up near the bow of the second tanker. Then he saw a huge orange flame back near the tanker’s stern that swelled and burst into a tremendous explosion.
Silent Sea (The Silent War Book 2) Page 9