by Don Keith
Allison watched in fascination through the scope as he saw twinkling lights from the nose of each jet. It took him only a second to realize that they were shooting. At him and Boise.
“Shut indication on the forward escape trunk hatch,” the chief of the watch reported, the relief in his voice evident. Obviously, he did not realize the influx of seawater was not their most immediate problem.
“The flooding has stopped,” the 4MC blared.
“Depth four-eight feet.”
Allison, still looking through the scope, caught a glimpse of a string of waterspouts heading right for him. Then they could all hear and feel a heavy explosion from somewhere up in the sail above them.
“Depth five-five feet.”
It took Allison a second to realize what had happened. They had been hit. The explosion was from the gunfire. Everything in the control room appeared to be normal. There were no incoming reports of damage. Judging by the sound and the jolt, they almost certainly had damage in the sail.
There was no way to investigate right now, though. Just pray they remained watertight.
“Depth six-two feet and holding.”
Allison lowered the periscope as the XO and COB walked into the control room. Both were completely soaked.
“Skipper, we took a lot of water into the AMR bilge,” the COB told him. “I expect the drain pump is taking care of that. The equipment in the AMR got pretty wet, but we’re wiping stuff down now. It’s going to take a while to get things cleaned up and shipshape again.”
“Thanks, COB. Good work. And tell the crew, too,” the skipper responded. “Now, you two go get some dry clothes. XO, find out how our guests are doing and see what Doc needs. I’m going to stay here until we have safely cleared datum.”
“I don’t think the COB and I will need our Saturday night baths,” Foster said. “Will do, Skipper.”
Allison turned to Chastain. “Officer of the Deck, make your depth one-five-zero feet, steer course zero-nine-zero. Limit your speed to three knots. We’ll just pretend like we are a boomer on patrol for the rest of this run. Like they say, ‘We’ll hide with pride.’”
The OOD chuckled. But it was more from relief than from his skipper’s weak attempt at submarine humor.
18
Lieutenant Bill Wilson checked the BQQ-10 sonar display on the George Mason. All four of the Chinese submarines they continued to shadow, designated as Master One through Master Four, continued to paint brilliant pictures on the broadband waterfall display, just as they had so helpfully done since emerging from the clutter of the fishing fleet. Wilson flipped the console over to see the target motion analysis display. Course one-two-zero, speed twenty knots. Absolutely nothing had changed with the four subs in the past week. This had all the promise of being yet another boring watch for the young submarine officer acting as the OOD.
Wilson’s instructions were to keep the Chinese vessels at a range of twelve to twenty thousand yards and to not lose contact. As if that were a problem. The big excitement for the watch so far had been when he had to slow and come to periscope depth for routine communications.
The lieutenant stepped over to the port side of the control room where Sonar Technician First Class Josh Hannon had his team busily searching the immediate waters for any other contacts. Wilson watched the men do their work for a bit and then let out a long sigh.
“This is really getting boring,” the OOD complained. “It would be nice if something, anything, would happen and break the monotony.”
The sonar supe looked up and frowned.
“Respectfully, you should bite your tongue, sir,” Hannon told him. “Boring is a very good thing on submarines. Exciting is downright dangerous.”
Wilson could not suppress a grin. That was one of the things he liked about serving on submarines. Sailors were not afraid to express their feelings to officers if they felt they were saying or doing something wrong. Typically, the sailor was right. The informality went back at least to World War II when most submarine skippers informed their crews that they would leave their rank on the dock. Nobody should challenge authority, but every man could feel free to respectfully offer his opinion.
Just then the broadband operator called out, “Loss of broadband contact, Master Four. Looks like he just shut down.” Then, a moment later, “Loss of broadband, Master Three. Loss of Broadband Masters Two and One. They all shut down. No contacts on broadband.”
“Shift to the TB-29,” Wilson directed.
“Mister Wilson, you’ll have to slow to do that,” Hannon suggested. “A flank bell is above the TB-29’s self-noise speed. Recommend that you come broad so you don’t overrun these guys, too. If they shut down, they aren’t running all-out anymore. You can bet they are going to be really cautious after a long, fast transit like that.”
A red-faced Lieutenant Wilson ordered, “Pilot, ahead two-thirds. Right full rudder, steady course two-three-zero.”
As the boat swung around to the new course, ST1 Hannon busied himself with lining up the TB-29 thin-line towed array to do a narrow-band search. He was soon muttering distractedly to himself.
“Sonar Supe, what’s the problem?” Bill Wilson asked.
“Damned thin-line,” the exasperated sonarman answered. “We haven’t used it for the last week since we’ve been going way too fast.” He forcefully punched a couple of buttons. “Now we need it and it’s on the fritz.”
“Yes, we do need it,” Wilson said. “You think you can get it back online?”
“Not sure yet, but not hopeful,” Hannon answered. “Looks like an open in the acoustic path. I sent one of the guys back to check the towed array receiver board. If it ain’t the TAR board, we’ll have an out-of-commission twenty-nine. Better tell the skipper.”
“Tell the skipper what?” Brian Edwards asked as he stepped into the control room.
Bill Wilson answered, “The Chinese wolf pack shut down their diesels and probably slowed. We lost them on broadband. I slowed and came broad to use the thin-line, but we are having problems bringing it up.”
Edwards nodded. “All the right actions, OOD. Except maybe not telling me sooner.”
The skipper studied the tactical display on the ECDIS. With a couple of button pushes and a spin of the cursor, he drew a red circle around the spot where the Chinese submarines had just disappeared.
“If they slowed, one of two things happened. Either they are spooked by something and are going real quiet to be careful, or they are nearly to their destination and are going quiet to sneak in. Either way, we need to be extremely careful.” He pointed at the circle he had just drawn. “That circle has a ten-thousand-yard radius. We won’t go inside it without contact on them. The last thing we need is to go bumbling into their little party and get counter-detected. Or worse, have a fender-bender in the parking lot.”
“Skipper,” ST1 Hannon interrupted. “My guys just reported that the TAR board checked out fine. The twenty-nine is out of commission.”
The TB-29 towed array sonar used hydrophones attached to a cable trailing behind the submarine and was over a mile long. The design allowed the sensors to be distant from the noise of the submarine to enhance its ability to detect and track very faint contacts, but the wiring was complex and delicate. An engineer once described it as the same as taking a cell phone apart, stuffing it in a garden hose, and then expecting it to work when towed behind a ski boat. TB-29A system did not enjoy a reputation for high reliability.
“Great!” Edwards said, frustrated. “Damn thing is great when it works. It only decides not to work when we really, really need it to.” He turned to Wilson. “Mister Wilson, open out from our friends another ten thousand yards and come to periscope depth. We need to tell the boss the bad news.”
Ψ
CDR Chet Allison was standing on the conn on USS Boise. He watched as Lieutenant Juan Esteban worked with his watch section. There really was not a lot going on, but Allison knew the value of being out and about, “walking the deck-plate
s.” It was a practice he had learned from skippers under whom he had served. It was especially important right now. His inexperienced crew had been shot at, hurt, and then had successfully rescued the two pilots in a tense situation. Then they had been shot at and damaged again. It was important the crew saw that their commanding officer was not particularly worried about things, and above all, that he was calm and in charge. They needed to see that life was reasonably normal aboard the submarine. And that their performance during the whole episode had been completed successfully, just as they had been trained to do it.
CTF-74 had been decidedly unhappy when Allison told them that he took the time to pick up a couple of passengers. Evidently putting a US nuclear submarine at risk in the midst of someone else’s shooting war was something a CO should not do. That was especially egregious if that skipper had already put some dents in that boat by steaming her into the middle of that war.
His orders were curt and direct. He was to “immediately and without further delay” make best speed for Guam. And higher command would get to work trying to unscrew what Allison and Boise had so wonderfully screwed up.
Henrietta Foster stepped into the control room, her expression signaling what she was about to report.
“Skipper, we have a problem.”
“You have to be more specific, XO. Which problem are you talking about?” Allison shot back. “Problems, we got in abundant supply.”
“It’s those two pilots. Doc is in over his head,” Foster told him. “He has the Taiwanese pilot stabilized. He’s sedated and stable. Doc has him in stateroom one with one of the EMTs watching him. It’s the Chinese pilot that’s the problem.”
“Well, of course it is. Okay, let’s go talk to Doc and see what’s going on.”
The two made their way along the forward passageway and then down the ladder to middle level before heading back to the wardroom. When they got there, they saw that the space had been completely transformed from its normal function as a meeting room and dining area for the boat’s officers. It was now an emergency examination room, complete with powerful lights hanging over the wardroom table, transformed into an operating table. Medical supplies were lined up along the shelves while IV bags and tubes hung all about. A green oxygen bottle sat on the outboard lounge, its tube leading over to the injured pilot lying on the wardroom table.
Doc Hugh stood over his patient, a worried expression claiming his round, usually jovial face.
“Skipper, something’s wrong here. Something’s very wrong. He’s just not exhibiting the responses that I would expect based on what I know to be his injuries. His respiration is irregular, shallow and short. He keeps slipping in and out of consciousness. And he is not responding to the treatments I have been trying.”
Doc held up a tablet and swiped over to a particular screen.
“His symptoms keep pointing me here,” he said, tapping the page. The paragraph he indicated started out: “The meninges are the three membranes that encase the brain and spinal cord, the pia mater, arachnoid, and the dura mater.”
“I think he has either a subdural hematoma or a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Neither is good. This is a list of symptoms here. I discounted the headaches and nausea. After all, he did punch out of a jet at six hundred knots and swallowed a lot of seawater when he landed in it. But his motor responses are showing partial paralysis of the right arm. And to top it off, the language barrier isn’t helping and I don’t think he especially likes us.”
“What’s your best guess, Doc,” the XO asked him.
“I can’t tell from the symptoms which problem we have. I don’t have the equipment or training to tell them apart. Now look at this.” Doc Hugh pointed at the final paragraph of the explanation for subarachnoid hemorrhage. It said: “About one-third of all patients die from the initial hemorrhage, and a further fifteen to twenty percent die within the next month. It is therefore necessary to locate the area of bleeding as quickly as possible. Neurosurgery may repair the damage.”
“Truth is, I need to talk to a neurosurgeon and find out what to do,” Doc said as Foster finished reading the troubling words. “If there is even anything I can do.”
Chet Allison was rubbing his chin, deep in thought.
“Lord knows we’re deep enough in the middle of an international incident,” he finally said. “Having the Chinese accuse us of murdering one of their brave warriors would be icing on the cake. Besides, this is a man in danger of losing his life here. We want to do the right thing. We’ll have to talk with somebody.”
As they discussed the situation, the Chinese pilot lay in delirium on the wardroom table. His left leg was splinted and a sizeable gash on his forehead had been closed with a neat row of sutures under a gauze bandage. But the young pilot repeatedly slipped in and out of consciousness. It was clear he was in trouble.
It took the better part of an hour to hook the communications patch up between Doc Hugh and Dr. Levi Yeargin, a neurosurgeon at US Naval Hospital, Yokosuka, Japan.
“Chief Hugh,” the speaker on the wardroom bulkhead squawked. “I have reviewed the information that you relayed to us. Has there been any change in the patient since these last vitals?”
“He is currently unconscious,” Doc Hugh answered. “Blood pressure has been one-six-zero over nine-five. The right pupil is dilated considerably larger than the left. The onset of cephalalgia, together with the other symptoms, points to a subarachnoid hemorrhage. The other possibility is subdural hematoma. Both are way beyond my capability to treat.”
“Chief Hugh, it sounds like your diagnosis is on the spot,” Dr. Yeargin responded. “You know your stuff. Is there any sign of opisthotonos?”
Without hesitation, the corpsman answered, “No, sir, the neck is stiff and he resists movement but no sign of opisthotonos.” That would be spasms of the muscles in the neck, causing arching of the neck and spine.
After a brief pause, the 21MC again came alive as Dr. Yeargin answered, “Well, I think that we have a Grade IV subarachnoid hemorrhage. He needs to be moved to a neurological unit as fast as possible. The nearest one appears to be Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. Can you get him there?”
“I’ll have to talk with the skipper. I believe we are pretty close now,” Doc replied. “What do I do in the meantime?”
“We’ve got to relieve the intracranial pressure, lessen the swelling. You have mannitol and dexamethasone in your AMAL.” Dr. Yeargin’s voice was now much more assured as it crackled over the circuit. “Administer an injection of mannitol and continuous dexamethasone through the IV. That’ll reduce the swelling and maybe buy us a few hours. Place the patient in a cervical collar and catheterize him. Measure the urine output and give me the numbers every hour.”
As they were completing their medical discussion and prognosis, Henrietta Foster interrupted. “Doctor Yeargin, we are about one hundred nautical miles south of Taiwan. Any problems you can think of with a helicopter medivac?”
“Those are always risky, and more so in this case,” Yeargin slowly answered, obviously thinking through the possibilities. “But time is critical. As long as the helo stays below a thousand feet once the patient is onboard, I think it should be all right.”
By the time all the logistics were arranged between CTF-74, the State Department, the government of Taiwan, and the Taiwanese Navy, the sun had set in the west. Boise was steaming on the surface just over one hundred nautical miles south of Taiwan.
Chet Allison stood on the bridge as Juan Esteban guided the submarine toward the rendezvous point. The skipper usually enjoyed the quiet and solitude of the night at sea. A million stars swept across from horizon to horizon with no haze or muck of civilization to obscure any of their brilliance. Still, on this night, he was uneasy, his boat out of its element on the surface for anyone to see.
He could barely make out a few ship masthead lights in the distance. The flashing amber submarine ID beacon played havoc with his night vision.
; “Bridge, Control, XO.” It was Henrietta Foster on the 21MC, disturbing his reverie. “In radio contact with the helo. Call sign Sierra Seven-Zero on channel sixteen. He’s twenty miles out. Says he holds us on radar.”
“Thanks, XO,” Allison replied. “Tell him we’re coming to course zero-one-five to head into the wind, speed three knots. We expect to do a main deck transfer.”
He turned to Esteban to order the course change, but the young lieutenant was already passing the order to the helm.
“Skipper, request permission for the COB and helicopter transfer party to lay topside with the doc and the two pilots,” Esteban said.
Allison smiled. It was encouraging to see youngsters thinking on their feet, anticipating what would need to be done. With a nod, the skipper told him, “Send the COB and helo transfer party topside with the doc. Allow the doc to control when the patients come topside.”
The hatch swung open on the submarine’s deck and several men spilled out topside. Each man had a ChemLight attached to his life vest. That would make it easier to find someone in the sea if they might somehow end up overboard. But the cluster of green-yellow lights gave the dark deck an almost festive feeling.
Soon Allison could make out the green and red helicopter anti-collision lights approaching from the north. He unclipped the marine band radio mike from his belt, put it to his lips, and engaged the push-to-talk button.
“Sierra Seven-Zero, this is US warship. I hold you visually, bearing north from me. Ready for personnel transfer.”
“US warship, roger. I will approach you from astern. Verify all masts and antennas are lowered.” Although Allison knew that the pilot was Taiwanese, the man had no discernible accent, as if he might have grown up in the American Midwest.
“Sierra Seven-Zero. All masts and antennas lowered. Deck is clear for transfer.”
The S-70 Thunderhawk helicopter flashed on its brilliant white landing lights when it was still a mile out. Then he flipped on his cargo-handling light and smoothly came to a hover only a few feet to the starboard of Boise and about fifty feet above the deck. A cable dropped from a hoist at the portside cargo door as the pilot slid the big bird over the submarine’s deck. The COB reached up and grabbed the cable with his plexiglass grounding rod. The difference in the electrical potential between the helicopter and the submarine could be more than enough voltage to be lethal. The grounding rod fixed that.