Submarine! (30 page)

The skipper's mind is working like lightning. Apparently there is still a chance of avoiding detection, if he doesn't persist in the attack and gets the periscope down immediately. Whatever is wrong with the TDC is either deep-seated or completely inconsequential. If deep-seated—the torpedoes will probably miss by a wide margin; if it is simply a burned-out bulb, he can go ahead and shoot. But somehow he
knows
the trouble is more than a burned-out light bulb!

Jim Blanchard seizes upon the one thing left to him by which he can rescue his approach from dismal failure. The huge Japanese carrier, obviously one of the biggest class—the
Shokaku
or one similar—is now right at the firing point, racing past with all his majestic glory, completely unaware of the ominous periscope in the water so close to his starboard side. So near, and yet so unattainable! So near . . . and Jim decides to take that last desperate chance which may yet bring victory out of seemingly hopeless confusion.

“Standby forward! Standby ONE!”

“One standing by!”

“Bearing—
mark!
” The skipper has moved the periscope hairline slightly, now holds it perfectly motionless. His voice is loud, commanding.

“Three four eight!” from the Executive Officer.

“Set!” from the TDC.

“FIRE ONE!”

“One fired, sir!” This is something new in the way of procedure for firing torpedoes. Ordinarily they are fired from the TDC, as the fire control officer gets the instrument set up for each succeeding fish and as the proper time interval passes. The Captain has deliberately taken over firing the
torpedoes himself, and, by his specific commands, has completely contravened the training they all have had.

It is normal, too, to put the periscope down as you are shooting torpedoes, at least between fish. But Jim Blanchard is not putting down his periscope. Suddenly he speaks again.

“Standby TWO!”

“Number two standing by, sir!”

The skipper moves his periscope to the right a perceptible amount, stops it, and says,
“Mark!”

“Three five five!”

“SET.”

“FIRE TWO!” And number-two torpedo ejects and runs out toward the enemy.

“Standby THREE. . . . “Bearing—mark!” . . . “Fire THREE!”

“Standby FOUR!” . . . “Bearing—mark!” . . . “Fire FOUR!”

. . . “Fire FIVE!” . . . “Fire SIX!”

What Blanchard has done, quite simply, is to watch where each torpedo goes, and then compensate for it in aiming the next one. Since he is firing steam torpedoes, it is possible to tell where they are going by their telltale stream of bubbles and the small amount of smoke they make. In each case it has been obvious to the skipper that the torpedoes were passing astern of the target, and in each case he has had to compensate by aiming more to the right. The final bearing of the sixth torpedo was quite a bit on the starboard bow and considerably ahead of the target.

Now there are six torpedoes in the water, and there is nothing left for
Albacore
to do but get away and hope that one or more may strike home. But first a look at the onrushing destroyers. Jim Blanchard spins his periscope.

“Take her down! Take her down
fast!
” The skipper roars the orders through the lower conning tower hatch to the diving officer in the control room just below. “All ahead full!”

He is answered by the swoosh of air as negative tank is vented into the control room.
Albacore's
deck tilts steeply forward, and down she rushes. Just before the periscope goes under, the skipper sees three destroyers heading his way, and
the airplanes which had been flying overhead have apparently turned and headed for the spot from which the torpedoes had come.

Much as Jim wishes to, there is simply no time to wait and see whether any of his torpedoes hit. He has taken enough chances with his ship and crew already, and it would not be fair to expose them further. Nothing he can do now will change matters, and the obvious maneuver is the well-known
get the hell out of here!

Down goes
Albacore
, struggling to reach the friendly depths before the ash cans arrive. Throughout the ship her crew are feverishly rigging for depth-charge attack.

Thirty seconds after the periscope goes under, while the submarine is still speeding to deep submergence, a single explosion is heard. One hit! In spite of all the troubles he has had,
Albacore
has managed to get one fish into the target. That will slow him up some. Then the preliminary gladness is submerged in bitterness. A perfect firing position, with six fish fired, for only one hit!
Damn
that fire control system!

So much for the Japanese carrier, for one minute later
Albacore
has something else to think about. Payday arrives with a flourish. Jim Blanchard has, of course, left his periscope up entirely too long. The nearest enemy tin can could not have been more than five or six hundred yards away when
Albacore
completed firing her torpedoes, and is coming for her with express-train speed.

The frenzied beating of the destroyer's propellers resound through the submarine's hull as he races closer. Somehow, there is nothing to compare with the furious menacing cadence of the propellers of an anti-submarine warfare ship of any kind—especially when that particular ASW vessel would have words with you.

With his stop watch in hand, Commander Jim Blanchard listens as the roar of the enemy screws grows louder, louder, ever more deadly in timbre, until finally it reaches a screaming crescendo of churning, malevolent, revengeful fury; until the very bulkheads vibrate with it, the THUMTHUMTHUMTHUMTHUM coming in such rapid sequence that
Albacore's
whole hull resounds to it like a huge tuning fork—and then he starts the watch, holding it negligently in his hand, its leather thong looped around his left wrist. No point in looking at the watch—he keeps his eyes on the depth gauge. The submarine is still on her way down, seeking the protection of a few hundred feet of sea water between herself and the attacking destroyer.

With the watch perhaps Jim can get some kind of line on the depth settings the Jap is using. It takes almost as long for the depth charges to go off, once you're reasonably sure the enemy has dropped some, as it does for your torpedoes once they're fired, with the difference that you know exactly when the torpedoes get in the water. It's getting about
that time
now. The skipper is holding his watch hand more attentively . . .

WHAM! . . . WHAM! . . . WHAM! . . .
WHAM! . . . WHAM!
. . . WHAM!

Six beauties, evenly spaced and expertly dropped. The fourth and fifth are real humdingers.
Albacore's
finely attuned steel hull shivers throughout her length with a hundred discordant frequencies. Light bulbs dance around on the ends of their short cords, and a few of them shatter. Dust and particles of cork fill the air. One or two men are flung sprawling to the deck.

The destroyer proceeds across on his run and turns for another, slowing his propeller beat not one revolution. Overhead he comes again, dead on as before, and again a string of close ones is released. Then he turns, waits for the uproar in the water to subside in order to regain a firm contact, and once again he sails in. Then another short wait, and yet another deliberate attack. There is no question about it, this lad is a graduate of the number-one Japanese antisubmarine school.

Many German submarines, in similar circumstances, simply surfaced and gave up the fight. But not United States submariners, and not Jim Blanchard. Deeply submerged, running slowly at her maximum designed depth,
Albacore
creeps along, hoping and looking for the opening which will
facilitate her breaking contact. And, as so often happens, the break comes rather sooner than might be expected.

By noon
Albacore
was at periscope depth again, well out of sight of the task force. When she returned to port, she reported damage to one large enemy flattop of the
Shokaku
class, little knowing of the final irony.

For H.I.J.M.S.
Taiho
, less than two years old, the newest in a long line of Japanese aircraft carriers, a sister ship—though considerably improved—of the famous
Shokaku
, had indeed received one torpedo hit. The sixth and last fish fired by the American sub hit under one of the elevators. The damage was in itself slight, and
Taiho
reduced speed from 27 to 21 knots more from force of habit and doctrine than anything else. But the gasoline stowage for refueling aircraft happened also to be under that elevator, and the torpedo explosion started a small fire in the gasoline stowage deck. This did not bother the Japs either, for a great carrier like
Taiho
is well equipped to handle a small fire. Nevertheless the three destroyers were ordered to forget the submarine and concentrate on assisting the carrier.

Fighting the fire was a little difficult, as a matter of fact, because of the heavy gasoline fumes about the lower decks, and the order was given to start all blowers and fans, and to open all ventilation lines and bulkhead doors in an attempt to clear the atmosphere, or at least to reduce the concentration of the vapors. And thus it was that the Japanese skipper qualified for the United States Navy Cross, which he certainly deserved for assisting in the destruction of one first-line Japanese carrier.

For the inevitable occurred a few hours after the torpedo hit. With a sibilant
swish
a spark ignited the whole lower deck, and
Taiho
instantly became a mass of roaring flame.

So it was, eight hours after being hit by
Albacore's
lone torpedo, and thirty miles from the position of the attack, that
Taiho
finally gave up the ghost and, mortally wounded, meekly bowed her head to the sea. Her hull seams opened by the heat within her, some of her compartments above the water line flooded in the effort to put out the fire; her decks
and sides gutted with gaping holes, she sank lower and lower into the water and finally, belching great clouds of smoke and steam, disappeared beneath the surface.

Less than one hundred miles away from the spot where
Taiho
had been tagged,
Cavalla
maintained her patrol station. After many patrols as second or third officer during the earlier years of the war, Herman Kossler had been sent back to the States for a much-deserved rest and to put a brand-new submarine into commission as Commanding Officer. Now he was back on the firing line for his first patrol in command, with his new ship and a newly organized crew. One advantage he had over boats which made their first war patrol in 1942 or early 1943 was that many of his crew and officers, like himself, were already seasoned veterans. It had been merely a matter of training until they were all accustomed to working together, the inexperienced as well as the experienced.

In order to give a new boat a chance to get really shaken down before letting her in for the tough assignments, it was customary to send her on her first patrol in the less active areas—unless, indeed, her performance during the training period marked her as outstanding from the start. Such a boat was
Cavalla
, and so it was that Herman Kossler found himself patrolling, on June 14, between Guam and Mindanao, the route enemy task forces would probably have to take to get within carrier strike range of our forces then engaged in the campaign for Guam and Saipan.

Cavalla
also made pretty heavy weather of it on the 14th, somewhat heavier than
Albacore
, and no doubt passed closer to the storm center. On the 15th, with the storm passed, she entered her assigned area and commenced surface patrolling. Except for USS
Pipefish
, also on the same mission, no contacts were made until an hour before midnight on the 16th.

At this time five ships—two large and three small—are contacted by radar. Immediately Herman mans his tracking party and begins maneuvers to close. The convoy is making
high speed, and it is not until 0315 in the morning that Kossler is able to submerge on the convoy track. Through the periscope the enemy is identified as two tankers and three destroyer-type escorts. With the crew at battle stations, Herman starts in. He hopes to make his first attack with stern tubes, figuring that the convoy's 15 knots will leave him with a better chance to whip around for a bow shot in case of a bad zig at the crucial moment.

At 0355 the convoy is getting close to the firing point. A periscope observation shows one of the escorts, a fast destroyer of the
Asashio
class, closing rapidly, showing a slight port angle on the bow. Thinking fast, Herman orders a slight change of course to the right, to give the Jap a little more clearance in the hope of avoiding detection, and at the same time not spoiling his shot at the larger tanker.

No luck! With the main target only five minutes from Torpedo Junction, Sound reports the destroyer's screws have speeded up. A swift look proves the worst:
Cavalla
has been detected.

Herman can't see much of the destroyer, for all the periscope shows is a huge bow boring right in, close aboard, and pushing a tremendous froth of water to either side.
“Take her down?”
The urgency in the skipper's voice galvanizes the diving officer and his crew into instant action.
Cavalla's
depth gauge registers only seventy-five feet as the destroyer churns overhead. A narrow escape! No telling why depth charges are not dropped—maybe he had not had time to get them ready. Evidently he was trying to ram, and nearly succeeded.