Submarine! (18 page)

In the meantime, the Japs obviously can see
Trigger's
black hull, too, and their ready guns begin to bark. A few shells scream overhead, but not very close. They are probably too excited to settle down, and we ignore them, intent on getting our stem tube salvo off. But the third tanker pulls a joker and sheers out of line directly toward us. By this time we are running directly away from him, and he is coming, bows on, 700 yards away. We are still increasing speed, but so is he, and he's gaining on us with his initial advantage of speed. A gun on his forecastle opens up, and this time the shells whistle fairly close. One or two drop alongside, not too close yet, but no doubt he'll improve.

Maybe he thinks he has the drop on us; he cannot know that we have the drop on him too. We could dive, but
Trigger
is stubborn. Standby aft! Continuous aim. Angle on the bow, zero. Range, 700 yards. We're starting to hold our own now, as we pick up speed. Fire SEVEN! . . . Nothing happens. Fire EIGHT! . . . Nothing. We must hit him! Check everything carefully. It must be the tumultuous wash of our straining screws throwing the torpedoes off. Fire NINE! . . . Still nothing. Now we are in the soup. One torpedo left aft. It has to be good. He is coming much too close with his shells now. Give him one more, then dive! Fire TEN!
“Clear the bridge!”
“Honk, honk!” goes the diving alarm.
“Dive! Dive! Take her down!”

Down we plunge, listening for that fateful crack which tells us he's found our pressure hull with a five-inch shell before we could get her under. We pass forty feet and breathe easier. Startlingly a voice squeaks over the welcome gurgle of water and the drumming of
Trigger's
superstructure: “Where's the Captain?”

No answer. We look about. “Did anybody see him get off the bridge when we dived?”

No answer. Fear lays an icy hand over us. Just then a stream of furious curses shocks our ears and warms our hearts. There is Dusty, inside the periscope well, supporting himself on the edges by his elbows, struggling to climb back out, cussing a blue streak. He has reason to cuss, too, for the quartermaster has his big feet firmly planted on the skipper's hands and is calmly and nonchalantly lowering the periscope! End of tableau.

About this time, as we pass seventy-five feet, a good loud WHANG reverberates through the water. We had almost forgotten the target in this novel emergency, but get back to business quickly. “Target's screws have stopped!” This from the sound man. “Breaking-up noises.”

“Control! Sixty feet!” The order snaps out, and feverishly we get
Trigger
back to periscope depth, put up the 'scope and take a look. Wonder of wonders! There floats the stern of the tanker, straight up and down! So we surface, hoping to catch one of the two remaining ships with our last few torpedoes.

We find one. We track him. As usual he doesn't see us—or so we think, until he opens fire with both his deck guns. While we think over this development, another ship—the only other ship—opens fire behind us. Then, as shells from both parties scream overhead, we realize the truth. They are shooting at each other. We are still undetected; so we make four separate attacks on this bird up forward, use up all six of our remaining torpedoes, and get only two hits. Finally we are forced to leave him, sinking slowly by the bow.

We find the last ship, too, but we can't hurt him. So we turn
Trigger's
bow east and shove off. As we go, we pass close by our first tanker, by this time nearly consumed, his steel hulk red-hot from end to end. In the distance another fire flares up and bursts into brilliant flame. We take a look there, and find to our delight the second tanker stopped, abandoned, and ablaze from bow to stern. We verify his
complete destruction, and depart at last after one of the shortest patrols on record.

Score for the night's work: three big tankers sunk, one freighter sunk, one freighter probably sunk. Total, five out of six, and a very unhappy good evening to you, Tojo!

Less than a month after leaving Pearl Harbor,
Trigger
was back at Midway, with a cockscomb of five miniature Jap flags flying from her extended periscope. The usual crates of fresh fruit, leafy green vegetables—lettuce and celery especially—ice cream, letters from home, and assorted bigwigs, were on the dock awaiting us.

This business of welcoming a submarine back from war patrol had been started as a sort of morale booster, and to say that it hit the mark is putting it mildly. After having been deprived of these things for about two months we were almost as avid for fresh fruit and leafy vegetables as we were for the mail—and it was not at all uncommon to see a bearded sailor, pockets stuffed with apples and oranges, reading letter after letter in quick succession, and munching on a celery stalk at the same time.

There was one submarine, however, which, so the story ran, was always welcomed somewhat differently. It seems that months before the war started,
USS Skipjack
(SS 184) had submitted a requisition for some expendable material essential to the health and comfort of the crew. What followed was, to the seagoing Navy, a perfect example of how to drive good men mad unnecessarily. For almost a year later
Skipjack
received her requisition back, stamped “Cancelled—cannot identify material.” Whereupon Jim Coe, skipper of the
Skipjack
, let loose with a blast which delighted everybody except those attached to the supply department of the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California.

This is what he wrote:

1. This vessel submitted a requisition for 150 rolls of toilet paper on July 30, 1941, to USS HOLLAND. The material was ordered by HOLLAND from the Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, for delivery to USS SKIPJACK.

2. The Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, on November 26, 1941, cancelled Mare Island invoice No. 272836 with the stamped notation “Cancelled—cannot identify.” This cancelled invoice was received by SKIPJACK on June 10, 1942.

3. During the 11¼ months elapsing from the time of ordering the toilet paper and the present date, the SKIPJACK personnel, despite their best efforts to await delivery of subject material, have been unable to wait on numerous occasions, and the situation is now quite acute, especially during depth charge attack by the “back-stabbers.”

4. Enclosure (B) is a sample of the desired material provided for the information of the Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island. The Commanding Officer, USS SKIPJACK cannot help but wonder what is being used in Mare Island in place of this unidentifiable material, once well known to this command.

5. SKIPJACK personnel during this period have become accustomed to the use of “ersatz”, i.e., the vast amount of incoming non-essential paper work, and in so doing feel that the wish of the Bureau of Ships for reduction of paper work is being complied with, thus effectively killing two birds with one stone.

6. It is believed by this command that the stamped notation “cannot identify” was possibly an error, and that this is simply a case of shortage of strategic war material, the SKIPJACK probably being low on the priority list.

7. In order to cooperate in our war effort at a small local sacrifice, the SKIPJACK desires no further action to be taken until the end of current war, which has created a situation aptly described as “war is hell.”

J. W. COE

It is to be noted that Jim Coe was wrong in one particular—it had been only ten and a quarter months. But his letter, carrying in it all the fervor and indignation of a man who has received a mortal hurt, achieved tremendous fame.

We also heard that it had achieved rather remarkable results back in Mare Island, although this was mostly hearsay. But one result was extremely noticeable indeed: whenever
Skipjack
returned from patrol, no matter where she happened to put in, she received no fruit, no vegetables, and no ice cream. Instead, she invariably received her own outstandingly distinctive tribute—cartons and cartons of toilet paper.

Jim Coe, a most successful submarine commander and humorist to boot, is no longer with us. After three patrols in command of
Skipjack
, he returned to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to place the new submarine
Cisco
in commission. On September, 19, 1943,
Cisco
departed from Darwin, Australia, on her first war patrol, and was never heard from again.

Our orders said, “Refit at Midway,” which didn't please us particularly since the only things of interest on Midway were gooney birds and whisky, the former of which became very boring after an hour or two. That evening at the Gooneyville Tavern I met Don Horsman, who had been repair officer during the overhaul of the month before. Don had been trying his best to get into a submarine on patrol, and I was glad to see that he had finally broken away from the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard.

We had much to talk about—mutual friends; his cute family of three little girls; and the performance of various items of equipment in
Trigger
which we had worried over together. In the midst of the conversation a thought struck me.

“Don,” I said, “what's the dope on the
Dorado?
She should be due in Pearl any day now, shouldn't she? We heard from Penrod that his wife christened the ship, and that his father was also there when she was launched. That was several months ago.”

The grin faded from Don's moonlike face, and he put his drink down. “She's down, Ned,” he said.

It didn't hit me at first. “Down where?” I asked naïvely. “Didn't they send her straight to Pearl?”

“I mean—down—gone. Penrod never even got to the Panama Canal. One of our own planes claims to have sunk a German submarine at the time and place where she was supposed to have been.”

I pressed Horsman for more details, and the noise and confusion of the first day back from patrol faded from consciousness. But that was all Don had heard.

Some of the stories of World War II can never be fully told. Some will live only in the hearts of men who took part in them, who will carry their secrets silently to their graves. Some stories will not be told at all, because the only men who could tell them lie at the bottom of the sea. And some are part of our naval heritage, and will go down in history with stories of
Old Ironsides
, Thomas Truxton and his
Constellation
, John Paul Jones and
Bon Homme Richard, Enterprise
, and many others.

Such a story is the story of
Archerfish
, the ship which broke the heart of the Japanese Navy.

The keel was laid for USS
Archerfish
in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on January 22, 1943. Exactly one year later
she sank her first ship. And on November 28, 1944—but let's start at the beginning.

The story really begins in 1939 in Yokosuka, Japan. The Japanese Naval Ministry was holding secret sessions. The probability of becoming involved in the European war was growing greater and greater; the probability of then finding their nation pitted against the United States was almost a certainty. How, then, to assure Japan of a telling superiority? How to fight that great American sea power in the Pacific? And how to do away with the London Naval Treaty, which limited Japan to an ignominious three fifths of the war vessels allowed the United States?

There was only one answer. The treaty already had been violated—tear it up. Start building in earnest for the war they know is coming.

Secret instructions were sent to the largest shipyard in Japan. Millions of board feet of wood came from the forest reserves, and thousands of carpenters were employed to build a gigantic yard. Houses for 50,000 people were requisitioned and these, too, were fenced in around the fenced Navy Yard. Finally, one day in 1940, an order was issued from the Commandant's office: “From this date henceforth no one leaves the Navy Yard.” And so was born the battleship
Shinano
.