Clear the Bridge! Page 9

  “Make it eighteen knots, Jones,” said Fraz. He received a ready “Aye, aye, sir.” This was a change no one objected to! Jones left for the crew’s mess to correct the positions on their chart.

  We might not know what ComSubPac wanted, except ships on the bottom, and ComSubPac was unaware of just what we were doing. Within a submarine, however, pending operations became common knowledge. At the initial one-engine speed, Tang was just going, but with three engines the crew knew that something was brewing. We hoped they were not wrong, for this was the situation: All submarines within some hundreds of miles had been pulled down to Truk for the air strike, very probably leaving the Marianas uncovered. This chain of mountainous islands, lying on a northeasterly-southwesterly line, provided a protected path for shipping from Japan to the South Pacific, especially since to the north lay the Bonins, then the Nampo Shoto, then Tokyo. Unless the other boats had surfaced also, which seemed unlikely, Tang was the only submarine to receive the morning message, and it had not been repeated. The others would not get it until after surfacing, probably on the 2100 Fox. By that time we could be 250 miles on our way and should reach a patrol station by the following night. There had to be ships, and with luck Tang would have the Marianas all to herself, at least for a time.

  We rolled along smoothly, although numerous SD contacts kept us from relaxing. These planes ranged from 20 to 28 miles, and certainly suggested a patrol for a convoy. We changed course 30 degrees to the right until we had moved ten miles from our track, and then 60 degrees to the left, crossing our track and proceeding until we were ten miles to the left. The zigzagging considerably increased the frontage of our search, and our ship was still making 90 percent good in the direction we wanted to go. But our side excursions uncovered nothing visually or on the surface-search SJ radar. The planes were not behind us; we had been there. They had not come in from either beam. If they were ahead we’d find them soon enough!

  Finally, about noon, the pips just disappeared. Maybe the Japanese pilots had gone back to Ulul and were sitting down to lunch too. There was, of course, no reason why the acey-deucey game or the casual reading should not have continued, though it was a little bit difficult to concentrate elsewhere when diving was imminent. For the rest of the day Tang had straightaway cruising. The ninth movie in our repertoire was shown for the second time, and then the quiet movement of men coming on and going off watch gave assurance to all hands below.

  The navigator had a good morning star fix to go with his positions of the day before. In spite of our side excursions, we were making good over 17 knots; this would put us reasonably close to Saipan by dark. Our trim dive at 0830 might more properly be called a wetting. It was just to assure us that our submarine would dive smartly. After we leveled off at 60 feet, three blasts started us back up with our speed dropping momentarily to only 10 knots on the maneuver. Back up to cruising speed, Tang was slicing through the tropical seas with a purpose.

  Blaat! Blaat! Down we went. A Japanese Betty was coming in from low on the horizon to starboard. We did not stop at periscope depth, for though these versatile planes were usually called torpedo bombers, they could carry depth charges equally well. We moved a couple of miles from the diving spot before returning to periscope depth. The Betty was still in sight, though just a dot above the horizon off to the north. We called the lookouts to the conning tower but waited another ten minutes before surfacing. This established our routine for nearly half of the day. Very close to the half hour a Betty would arrive; Tang would dive. The Betty would search for a few minutes and then depart. On each occasion, the executive officer or I questioned the lookout, and they were true sightings. We were wasting a lot of time, so when the fifth Betty showed up and hung out on the horizon, Tang continued on the surface.

  The bridge speaker was always on, its cone acting as a microphone as well. For diving, the area on either side of the cone was free-flooding. Bridge noises were transmitted below quietly, but a voice directed toward the speaker came down loud and clear. The next “Clear the bridge! Clear the bridge!” though directed to the lookouts, made us jump below. Bill Walsh didn’t raise his voice, but this command had more authority than had it been punctuated with profanity. In there somewhere were two blasts, but Tang was diving anyway. This time we kept right on going down, blowing negative at 80 feet and leveling off at 250. When Fraz proceeded to question the lookouts in the control room, three stepped forward with the SD operator as well. Our Betty, knowing that it could not get in on us, had lain out there as a decoy and called in two smaller bombers, one out of the sun on our port quarter, the other from a high, small cloud cover on our port bow.

  Twice now we had underestimated the Japanese. On the first attack, Tang’s superior capabilities and a fair knowledge of how to use them had thwarted the convoy commander. Now, though the enemy had not gotten in to attack, his master chart in Saipan surely had our positions and track laid down as accurately as our own navigator’s. Should we continue as planned, the Japanese would likely have additional surprises waiting, even after dark. Further, any shipping would be routed clear of our projected positions. If we were to be successful in our present endeavor, a little more brain power and less reliance on our ship’s capabilities was certainly indicated.

  In spite of our frequent dives, our batteries’ specific gravity still showed a nearly full charge. We could continue submerged until dark at nearly 9 knots. The navigator swung his dividers from our present position. The miles we could run would bring us close to Aguijan. From there we could intercept any shipping proceeding from Saipan to Guam, and approach Tanapag Harbor, the site of the Japanese naval base, from the west. Of immediate importance was proceeding on this new track, which lay nearly 30 degrees to the left of our previous one.

  Surfacing at dusk, we moved on toward Aguijan. As we slowly approached the island, a small pip showed up on the SJ’s screen. It tracked on various courses, suggesting that the ship was a surface patrol. We dived clear of her location before dawn and moved in when it was light to look her over. Our tracking party’s estimate was correct, and though the patrol’s presence was disturbing, it could foretell shipping.

  It was east longitude Washington’s Birthday, with cherry pie on the menu. The Japanese seemed to be celebrating it, too, for there were bombers in sight on practically every periscope observation. They turned near our position to approach their fields on Tinian, and in so doing gave Tang’s OODs some bad moments. Sighting a plane on a straight course was one thing. You assumed it was going on by and didn’t see you. A plane that was circling or just turning immediately created the impression that it had sighted your periscope and was coming in. I’m sure that a part of this was psychological, a part due to the scope’s monocular vision; on the other hand, it was impossible to know how sharply a pilot might turn, and prudence frequently dictated a fairly deep dive. Tang acted much like a yo-yo until she had cleared to the northeast, then proceeded slowly along Tinian’s west coast.

  With bombers still passing overhead occasionally, a Washington’s Birthday dinner might seem a bit incongruous and likewise our holiday routine. However, the latter entailed merely the cancellation of our school of the boat and the usual short period of tricing up bunks for clamping down the decks in the living spaces. Just the fact that a man could sleep on through, whether he wanted to or not, was what really counted.

  Since we had moved into the tropics, the Taylor ice cream machine had more than taken over the load of our late deep-fat fryer. I had to shake my head, however, as I watched the beautiful wedges of pie being smothered with globs of ice cream, but all hands seemed to like it that way. In fact, it had taken my mind off the enemy who was still in the skies overhead, at least for a moment anyway. The report of squalls and the noise of heavy rain on the surface of the sea called me to the conning tower. Dusk was coming, so we prepared for surfacing. The lookouts were ordered to the conning tower with rain clothes, and the wardroom steward brought additional suits. On this occasion I went
to the bridge first, but I was able to call the lookouts and OOD up immediately. The weather was not nearly as forbidding as it had appeared through the periscope, the rain having beaten the seas flat about us. But that aspect was pushed aside, for off in the vicinity of Tanapag Harbor enemy searchlights could be seen between the passing squalls. The apparent signaling could mean ships, and since ComSubPac still had not given us a specific assignment for Task Force 58’s air strike we meant to find out. Tang started off at two-engine speed, charging batteries with the others, and again pushing the MEPs. For the moment, the only wind came from our own speed.

  7

  This night could offer departures from our previous tactics, for it was overcast and further blackened by the passing squalls, which were, in truth, invigorating after our long dive. Already, our tracking party was busy identifying blops on the PPI-scope. Though the blops appeared sharp enough to be ships or groups of ships, one after another their course and speed corresponded to that of the prevailing wind, and they were declassified to squalls. The old-fashioned A-scope seemed to help. On its horizontal grassy line, the contacts showed up as vertical lines or pips, bouncing up when the bearing was on. Perhaps this was my personal preference for this situation, for it seemed to give the operator a horizon to search and a sharp elusive pip rather than the blop retained by the material of the PPI screen.

  The painstaking search continued until a large dense squall that our tracking party was investigating suddenly developed a momentary tall pip. The normal performance of the SJ had been just about halved by the weather, for the range was 14,000 yards. The time was 2200, still February 22.

  We moved in quickly with little fear of being sighted while outside of an attack position. The original pip soon developed into a total of five, with another group of ships now sometimes showing up to the north.

  There were two ways we could attack under these low visibility circumstances. One would be to barge in, spread the torpedoes across the major ships, and retire. It was the method apparently used successfully by German submarines against our large North Atlantic convoys, especially in 1943. It could be efficient when there were many big ships, their ratio to escorts was large, and when replacement torpedoes were not too many hundreds of miles away. Ours was a different type of war. We had brought our torpedoes over 5,000 miles already, and getting replacements by the shortest route would require a round trip of 6,000 more. The Japanese convoys generally had no more than two or three ships, and the ratio of escorts to ships was large and getting larger. Therefore we would hunt out each enemy ship—cargomen of any sort or sizable warships, first come first served—and make every torpedo count. The one extravagance, at least as I viewed it, would be the firing of four torpedoes into each ship on this, Tang’s first patrol.

  Selecting suitable targets under these circumstances would require a little more than just sneaking in for a look. We would have to be ready to shoot, withdraw quietly, evade the enemy’s maneuvers, or perhaps dive. Before we had moved in too far, Hank Flanagan came to the bridge just to ask for a bow shot if it was in any way possible. I gave him my assurance, for we were in perfect agreement, though for different reasons. Hank was hoping to keep peace between his two torpedo rooms. The men from aft would be a little hard to live with if they unloaded their last torpedoes before the forward room fired a shot. I, on the other hand, did not want to end up with a one-ended boat. Imagine the last-minute maneuvering on our first attack if suddenly we could not have fired from aft! Hank went below to his forward torpedo room. We gave Bill time to secure the battery charge and get his final gravity readings, and then Tang went to battle stations.

  Once again the chimes were just a formality. All compartments, from forward to aft, reported immediately after the general alarm had stopped, and we started in on the surface to gain an attack position on the nearest ship. Her base course was 275, essentially the same as that which had already been determined for the entire group. I say group, for as viewed on the PPI-scope, the ships were not in the formation I would expect of a convoy. At 4,000 yards we could not see her, but we knew her ability to spot us had been reduced accordingly. We stopped to assist our soundmen and twisted ship slowly to keep our bow on her bearing as relayed up from the conning tower. She came on with a small zig towards, detected by plot, and would now pass 1,200 yards ahead. The routine orders preparatory to firing commenced.

  “Open the outer doors on tubes three, four, five, and six.”

  “I’ve got her,” whispered Jones, standing just to my left. “She’s a patrol boat.” The almost simultaneous report of fast screws from Caverly confirmed the sighting.

  “All ahead standard, right full rudder” would bring us to a retirement course. We spoke in hushed voices while the range continued to close slowly. For a minute we had to present our broadside silhouette, but then we were in the clear undetected. This was no suitable ship for us; if we missed she could force us down and all the ships might get away. We would try again.

  Tang went after the next nearest pip. There was no long run in this time, but gaining a position on her bow involved passing her up. A stern, or overtaking, chase was always an extended one, for we gained by only the difference in the two speeds. In a half hour, however, Fraz’s plot showed us 30 degrees on the next ship’s bow. The radar range was 3,800, and she would pass inside of 2,000 yards. This time we did not have to wait; her low, chunky silhouette marked her as a patrol or possibly a minesweeper. Our soundman’s report of a slower, heavier propeller seemed to favor the latter estimate. Again we turned and pulled clear.

  We did not secure from battle stations, as the crew would not have left anyway, but all hands not actively involved did stand easy. As understood, the senior officer or petty officer could send a few men at a time to get coffee and the snacks that had been laid out in the messroom. Perhaps it was just this short period of catching our breath that was needed. At least the time was a factor, for the major immediate squalls had now blown beyond us, and the unmistakable pip of a good-sized ship showed up to the north. She became clearly visible at 7,000 yards, but only with the aid of 7 × 50 binoculars. I blessed the patriotic family that had donated the binoculars I held, and Mr. Rogers and his optical shop at Mare Island, who had coated their lenses and affixed the vertical reticle. With the center hinge wedged in the slightly tapered slot of our forward TBT, I was marking bearings on the ship, a freighter, and calling down estimates of her angle on the bow. The base course was 255, her speed 9 knots, and now two escorts were in sight, strangely patrolling most of the time on her starboard bow and quarter, on the other side of her. We did not object.

  A large zig away concerned us, so we moved quickly onto her track, and all hands went back to their battle stations. We were now keeping pace with the freighter 4,000 yards from the bow escort and waiting for the next zig. Zig she did, seemingly nearly at us, but then the slight port angle on the bow commenced to open. Not fast enough, however, and we made a dipsy doodle, a turn and short run away followed by a turn back, to open our distance to her track. Tang stopped, the steersman holding her head on course 270, practically perpendicular to that of the enemy. Fraz, in the conning tower, ordered the outer doors on tubes 3, 4, 5, and 6 opened as I continued to mark bearings and call her angle on the bow. Jones had his binoculars on the bow escort and would interrupt me only should she give us a zero angle on the bow, which would indicate that she had sighted us and was closing to attack.

  “Ten degrees to go,” said Fraz over the speaker system. The submarine and target dials of the TDC were now continuously presenting the respective aspects of Tang and the enemy, identical to what was seen topside. From these dials Fraz was reading the lead angle for a zero gyro angle shot and giving me advance warning of the degrees till the target reached the optimum firing bearing.

  “Stand by for constant bearings,” I warned and then swung the TBT until the reticle was on her stack.

  “Constant bearing—mark!” The TBT remained motionless as the freighter
crossed the field. Her after superstructure was coming on the reticle. Frank’s “Set!” came in the nick of time.

  “Fire!” I barked in an explosive voice, for like those about me I had been holding my breath. The next three torpedoes followed, fired in exactly the same manner to hit specific points along her port side. The torpedoes were on their way, and so was Tang at full speed and with right full rudder. The explosions commenced while we were but a quarter of the way into our turn. The freighter disintegrated under four hits; there could be no survivors. She was gone before we reached our retirement course, but not her bow escort. She put up a brave chase, closing inside of 3,000 yards, undoubtedly knowing that we could fire stern torpedoes down her throat. There was no signal on the maneuvering room telegraphs for the speed we wanted, but chiefs Culp and MacDonald knew. The Fairbanks Morse diesels whirled their massive generators, pumping 5 million watts through Tang’s four main motors, and we pulled steadily away, losing the patrol in the spume and smoke astern. The extra 3 knots the maneuvering room had conjured up in our boat could prove doubly important, for had we been forced down, getting up on the surface again could have been difficult as long as the escort remained in the area.

  Though interrupted during the attack, the navigators plot continued to show the track of the other ships. Overtaking them in due course would offer no problem. The seas had been building up, however, so we slowed to give the forward torpedo room a steadier deck for their reload. For the time being Tang secured from battle stations. Our regular section watch could handle anything in the interim, and our tracking party needed a break, even a short one. I took a much delayed trip to the head, in the starboard after corner of the forward torpedo room, but paused a moment to watch the reload. Were I to make any adverse judgment, it would be that there were too many men involved, extra volunteers I would suspect, but the torpedoes were sliding home smartly. I nodded approval.