Operation Storm: Japan's Top Secret Submarines and Its Plan to Change the Course of World War II (19 page)

Since Portsmouth was a government yard, it didn’t have to worry about profit margins. Designers could concentrate on construction techniques that reduced time on the building ways. Some sub sections were prefabricated before a keel was even laid. This modular approach shortened the time from keel to commission. The fastest Electric Boat ever built a sub was 317 days. By the time the
Segundo
was commissioned in May 1944, Portsmouth had reduced that time to a record 173 days.
⁵

Interestingly, Portsmouth’s construction methods stood in stark contrast to Japanese methods. Though Japan would eventually lead the world in automotive assembly techniques, she had not yet learned the fine art of mass production. One reason Japan’s sub construction faltered was that the Imperial Japanese Navy never consolidated behind a standardized fleet boat design. Instead, they built almost as many sub variations as General Motors built car models. This approach took longer to produce subs, cost more, and hampered quality. When material shortages struck, Sixth Fleet sub production further declined.

The key to American success was building one submarine design at a time. Once the United States had standardized behind the Gato-class design, shipyards could concentrate on increasing sub production.
⁶
It was exactly this replacement capacity that Hitler feared. Portsmouth was the first shipyard to build the Balao-class sub. Balaos were the successor to the Gatos and were virtually identical, with one important difference. They could dive 100 feet deeper. This was crucial because Japanese depth charges were
often set to explode at 150 feet.
⁷
Since Balao-class subs could dive twice that depth, they stood a better chance of surviving an attack.

The secret to their increased depth was a thicker hull design using high-tensile steel. This enabled the sub to reach a depth of 925 feet before collapsing.
⁸
Sub designers, conservative by nature, set an operating limit of 400 feet. This may have been playing it safe, but it was still an improvement over Gato subs, whose safety depth was capped at 300.

For obvious reasons, submariners referred to Gato boats as “thin skins” and Balao boats as “thick skins.” In the beginning, some feared the Balao’s thicker hull might reduce flexibility, causing her to rupture when depth-charged. This did not turn out to be a problem though. In fact, many sub commanders felt comfortable enough to take their subs down to 600 feet in an emergency, well below the prescribed “safety depth.”

The Balao sub’s depth limit was so important, it was labeled top secret.
⁹
If Japan were to learn of it, American subs would lose their advantage because Japanese depth charges would be set to explode deeper. One hundred and nineteen Balao subs were built between 1942 and 1945.
¹⁰
In keeping with her lead role, Portsmouth built the first, laying her keel on June 26, 1942. When Congress authorized the 1943–44 Combatant Building Program, hull numbers 381 through 410 were assigned to Portsmouth. Hull number 398 would eventually become the
Segundo
.

The
Segundo
was a typical Balao-class sub. She was 312 feet long and 27 feet wide with a draft of 15 feet. She ran on four Fairbanks-Morse diesel engines (the most reliable sub engines of the war), was rated at a top surface speed of 20 knots (9 submerged, which she could only maintain for a limited time), and had a cruising range of 11,000 nautical miles. Additionally, the
Segundo
was operated by ten officers and 70 enlisted men, could patrol for up to 75 days, and could remain underwater 48 hours albeit at very slow speed (12 hours was more typical). And she was by no means small. Displacing 1,525 tons surfaced and 2,415 tons submerged, she was one of the largest submarines the United States had to offer.
¹¹

Because of her hull number, a Portsmouth worker called the
Segundo
a $3.98 sub knocked down from four dollars. He meant it as a joke, of course. Brand-new fleet boats were regularly called “gold-platers,” mostly out of envy.
¹²
They were state-of-the-art combat subs and every commanding officer wanted one, especially if he had something to prove.

When the
Segundo
launched in February, she still required four more months of construction. Not surprisingly, her commanding officer, Lt. Cdr. James D. Fulp, Jr., was concerned that if his boat wasn’t finished soon, the war might end without him. By mid-1944 the United States was flooding the Pacific with so many submarines, Japanese naval targets were becoming scarce, which is probably why Fulp and his crew were eager to get back to the action. For the meantime, they’d have to wait until the
Segundo
was finished.

T
HIRTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD
F
ULP WAS
an experienced submariner when he was named commanding officer of the
Segundo
. If a sports team is nothing without a winning coach, then the same can be said for the crew of a combat sub. Fulp began shaping his men two months before the
Segundo
even touched water, and his influence would continue well beyond the four patrols he would captain. In many ways, Fulp did more to shape the future of the
Segundo
’s crew than his successor, Capt. Stephen L. Johnson, which would turn out to be both a blessing and a curse.

When the war began, Fulp was executive officer of the USS
Sargo
(SS 188) based in the Philippines. It was a baptism of fire because the U.S. Asiatic Fleet was outgunned, outmanned, and virtually obsolete compared to the Japanese navy. When hostilities commenced, the
Sargo
was one of the first U.S. subs to go on war patrol. By the time Fulp finished seven patrols, he was already a hero.
¹³

James Douglas Fulp, Jr., was born August 27, 1910, in Ridgewood, South Carolina. Known as Toots to his family and J.D. to his friends, Fulp had brown hair, blue eyes, and a mouth full of crooked teeth. His mother was named Daisy, and his father, J. D. Fulp, Sr., had served in the army during World War I. Fulp’s ancestors had come from Scotland and, according to the 1790 census,
were already established in what was to become North Carolina. A staunchly Presbyterian family whose relatives had fought in the Revolutionary War, the Fulps had a strong military heritage. If J.D., Jr., learned anything growing up, it was respect for the military.

Fulp was raised in Greenwood, South Carolina, where he played softball, football, basketball, and track, excelling at each sport. He transferred his junior year in high school to the Bailey Military Institute, where his father, “Colonel” Fulp, was superintendent. The institute was a modest affair. The school’s main barracks consisted of a three-story brick building with a front portico and side porches. Cadets wore uniforms and, for special occasions, jodhpurs, boots, Sam Browne belts, and a dress sword. Precision drilling took place on the school’s broad lawn, while its brass band paraded regularly through town.

Records show that J.D. was one of Bailey’s best athletes, especially in football, where he excelled. His grades were consistently in the high eighties and low nineties, and when he graduated with honors in 1928, he was fourth out of a class of 42. It’s unclear how much slack if any J.D.’s father cut him at Bailey. One area where he may have received help was getting appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy. When J.D. passed the entrance exam, he was still short a physics credit. As a result, he didn’t report until July 1, 1929,
¹⁴
three months after Nambu had started at Etajima.

Fulp was well liked by his peers. They considered him a natural leader, though like a lot of midshipmen, he struggled his freshman year. Within the first few months of his arrival, he was deficient in math and physics and failed the school’s swimming requirement, a surprising lapse for a midshipman. Matters grew worse when Fulp spent the better part of October in the infirmary due to a football injury.

A December 1929 letter from the secretary of Annapolis’s academic board to Colonel Fulp explained: “It is difficult to state just what has been the cause of your son’s deficiencies … the course here is an intensive one and boys quite frequently have a bit of difficulty in adjusting themselves to their new surroundings.”
¹⁵

Fulp had to forgo Christmas leave and spend it at school
undergoing remedial instruction. He was probably still “adjusting to his surroundings” when he was given 50 demerits for “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.”
¹⁶
Records indicate Fulp was returning from the city on Christmas Eve when a commander, suspecting he was drunk, escorted him to the officer of the watch. On reaching Bancroft Hall, Fulp made a run for it.
¹⁷
It was poor judgment, typical of boys his age, but that didn’t help his case. Fulp “bilged out” of Annapolis a month later.

Despite this record of failure, Fulp was encouraged to reapply. When he was admitted for the 1930 fall term, he never looked back. By the time he graduated four years later, Fulp had gone from being a somewhat doughy, awkward-looking teen, into movie star handsome. Annapolis had not only fixed his teeth, it had turned him into a serious young man ready for responsibility. Fulp may have felt more at home on Farragut Field than with academics, but his classmates considered him “a true southern gentleman” for his good looks and polite behavior.
¹⁸

Upon graduation, Fulp was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy and posted to the USS
Tuscaloosa
(CA-37). He was soon promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) and transferred to the USS
Winslow
(DD-359), where he won distinction as a gunnery control officer.

Fulp’s life changed dramatically in January 1939 when he enrolled in the basic officer class at the Submarine School in New London, Connecticut. Classmates included Chester Nimitz, Jr., son of the famous admiral, who six months later graduated second out of a class of 26. Fulp graduated sixteenth. Soon afterward he was assigned to the
Sargo
.

Fulp found time to marry in between war patrols, and in August 1943 he entered command class at the New London Sub School. Enrollment in the six-week course was for only the most promising candidates. Lt. Cdr. Nobukiyo Nambu had entered a similar program in Japan the previous year and emerged a full-fledged sub captain. Fulp hoped for a similar result. Continuing his mixed academic performance, he graduated tenth out of a class of ten. In
January 1944 Fulp was transferred to the Portsmouth Navy Yard to fit out the
Segundo
. If all went well, the new sub would be his first command.

T
HERE
’
S NO UNDERESTIMATING
the complexity of a Balao-class sub, even if it operated on basic principles. There were miles of piping, a rat’s nest of wiring, and complex ballast tank arrangements to understand. Emergency valves hung from bulkheads like mushrooms after a rainstorm, and there were so many systems to comprehend, it could be intimidating to the uninitiated. In addition to propulsion, ventilation, refrigeration, and air-conditioning systems, there were trim and drain systems, as well as water-distillation and waste-removal systems (all with their own plumbing), not to mention hydraulics, steering, bow and stern plane mechanisms, anchor handling gear, and fuel and oil lubricating systems. Many of these were necessary to keep a sub not only habitable but a functioning war machine as well.

The sheer mechanical intricacy of a World War II sub was so overwhelming, it required an understanding of math, geometry, science, chemistry, physics, biology, mechanics, and engineering. And if that weren’t enough, whenever a sub was at sea, the very environment she operated in threatened to flood her at any moment. It was a never-ending battle that put a sub crew on their guard, and this was before they’d even encountered a single enemy.

In terms of sophistication, a Balao-class sub was the space shuttle of its day, only safer. And though low-earth orbit may be a hostile environment, at least it didn’t have enemy ships whose sole purpose was to sink you with a depth charge. One way sub designers managed risk was to build redundancy into every system. If steering failed in the conning tower, there was another steering station in the control room. If bow plane hydraulics failed, they could go to manual. If the sub was having trouble surfacing because a main ballast tank was ruptured, they could always blow the safety.

It was this emphasis on redundancy that made submariners
check and double-check everything they did, because one mistake could cost them their lives. Safety extended even to the way submariners spoke, with each command crafted to ensure accuracy and clarity. Nothing was left to chance.

I
T WAS A
major challenge to forge a group of sailors into a functioning crew. You couldn’t just take 80 guys, plop them in the middle of Portsmouth Navy Yard, and hope they’d form a team; a captain had to work at it. But training a crew while a sub was under construction was “like training a racehorse locked inside the barn.”
¹⁹
Fortunately, Fulp didn’t have to do it alone, he had an executive officer (XO) to help him.

Lt. John E. Balson had a sharp mind and an unflappable manner. He also had a sense of humor so dry, it could run a sub aground in the middle of the Pacific. Balson didn’t talk much, which led Fulp to nickname him “Silent Joe.” But if Fulp calling Balson quiet was the pot calling the kettle black, there was no mistaking Balson’s aptitude. He was the same kind of XO Fulp had been aboard the
Sargo
. The two were well matched.

One important way Fulp shaped his crew was by not playing games with them. He might not have talked much, but what he said counted for a lot. A man always knew where he stood with Captain Fulp. Best of all, he radiated the kind of quiet confidence sub crews just lapped up.

Fulp taught his crew how a “hot running” boat operated, and they learned to take pride in a job well done. Fulp’s legacy left a lasting impression aboard the
Segundo
, a legacy his replacement would rely upon when it came time to face the
I-401
.