War Beneath the Waves (12 page)

Angling patiently but fruitlessly for more than ten hours.

Finally, at 4:38 in the afternoon, he shot four torpedoes, and then immediately went deep and rigged for a depth-charge attack. On the way down, they heard one of the four torpedoes explode. The sonarman also reported that he heard the screws of one of the ships stop turning.

Fifteen depth charges rattled
Billfish
. The submarine eventually settled at five hundred feet, attempting to hide beneath an area of colder water that might scramble sonar pings from the surface ship. That was one of the tricks submarine skippers quickly learned. The difference in seawater temperature at different depths gave a false reading on sonar of where the pings were coming from when they echoed back.

Three and a half hours after the last depth charge exploded, Lucas brought his boat to the surface and checked for damage. It was light and the crew quickly repaired it. There was no sign of the vessel they believed they had hit. No oil slick, no debris, and no damaged vessel sitting dead in the water.

Billfish
received credit for damaging two ships on that first war patrol—a total of 11,860 tons—but sinking none in the process. Still, despite the lack of success on any of the other targets, Admiral Christie was pleased with his experienced captain’s first run on his new submarine.

“This patrol is considered successful for purpose of awarding the Submarine Combat Insignia,” Christie wrote in his endorsement, a part of the official patrol report. “The Task Force Commander congratulates the Commanding Officer, Officers, and crew of the BILLFISH upon an ‘assist’ in the group attack on the convoy on 25 September, and upon inflicting . . . damage on the enemy.”

The commander of Task Group Seventy-one Point Three, J. M. Haines, wrote in his endorsement of
Billfish
’s initial run, “It is unfortunate that the attacks on the two convoys were not more productive of visible results.”

Still, no one questioned Captain Lucas or his methods. Admiral Christie was especially pleased with the results of the teamwork between Lucas and Willingham.
Billfish
came back in one piece. Now she would get some needed maintenance, give her crew a chance to enjoy the Australian hospitality, and pick up some new crew members as she prepared for her next run.

That was where Lieutenant Charlie Rush’s fate became forever entwined with
Billfish
, her skipper, and her crew.

While
Billfish
was tied up at the submarine pier in Fremantle on October 10, 1943, Rush, in his capacity as duty officer, met with the skipper and his new XO, who had come aboard for her second run. Rush evaluated what the boat needed in the way of replacement personnel. He was pleased to see they had a strong CPO running the engine room—Charley Odom—and that would enable him to assign some relatively inexperienced crew members to that department.

The second in command, Gordon Matheson, seemed to be a good submariner, but Rush knew little about him. He was new to
Billfish
, having replaced Frank Selby, an experienced submariner who had been with Lucas on the boat’s first patrol as XO.

Selby had been rushed off
Billfish
when she returned from that first patrol and was immediately given his own command of another submarine, USS
Puffer
(SS-268). She was a submarine with some disturbing recent history.

During her just-completed run, the captain and his officers had lost control of their crew during a vicious depth-charge attack in the Makassar Strait. After staging an assault on an enemy vessel, a destroyer chased them deep and began littering the sea with depth charges.
Puffer
would ultimately remain submerged for more than thirty-seven hours, which was easily a record to that point, and probably for the entire war.

During that interminable siege, the strain, the fatigue, the heat, and the foul air contributed to a general loss of morale and fighting will. And, unfortunately, to a failure of command.

At one point, the captain determined that they should surface, man the deck gun, and try to fight their way out of their dire situation. When some of his officers and crewmen objected to such an idea, claiming it would be suicide, the captain pointedly avoided making a command decision. Instead he announced that he would take a vote among the crew about what they should do, and he told them that he would do whatever they determined to be the best course.

It is the only recorded instance of a submarine commander taking a vote among the crew on what action should be taken. It is not the way a naval commander is supposed to make decisions.

Though most of the men admitted they were past caring one way or the other, that they had long since given up, the vote was taken. They stayed there, hovering at five hundred feet, still getting rattled occasionally by charges from the dogged destroyer on the surface above them.

Finally, after a day and a half, there was no choice. The men could no longer breathe. Many were in their bunks, unable or unwilling to answer a call to watch.

The captain, without taking a poll this time, ordered
Puffer
to blow the ballast tanks and surface by the shortest route, at a sharp angle. Only one small craft was close and, back on diesel-engine power, they easily outran it on the surface to get away. Then they headed straight back to Fremantle.

When
Puffer
made it back to squadron headquarters, Admiral Christie actually praised the ship and her commander. In his diary, he wrote, “Strength of character, skill and experience and knowledge, the excellent state of training, all helped to save the ship. This was a brilliant job carried through by guts, determination and the inspired example of the Commanding Officer.”

Only after a thorough investigation by the squadron staff did the truth emerge. The captain was relieved of duty and the officers and many of the enlisted crew members were scattered among other boats until a disciplinary hearing could be held. Frank Selby, assuming command of
Puffer
after that incident, had himself a handful—50 percent of his crew were newcomers and the other half had been a part of the discipline issue—but he took the helm and never looked back.

Selby eventually took that problem boat—
Puffer
—on four successful war patrols and ended up as the fifty-first most successful submarine skipper of World War II.

Meanwhile, Charlie Rush was rounding out the relief crew for
Billfish
. If he didn’t know much about her new XO, he knew even less about Captain Lucas. He was aware that he was an experienced commander with years of service in peacetime prior to the war, though much of it was from behind a desk and not in the conn. In fact, Lucas had come directly from a staff position to the newly constructed
Billfish
when the war started.

Then there was the fact that he had now taken his boat to war and brought her back safely. That Admiral Christie and the other high-level folks seemed pleased with what he had done on that run. And he seemed to be a cordial enough fellow, if just a bit reserved and aristocratic in demeanor. Nonetheless, Rush did his best to get a good mix of crew members before Lieutenant Commander Lucas took
Billfish
back to war.

Then Rush received an unexpected invitation, one that would dramatically change the course of his life.

The young lieutenant was about to embark on a truly remarkable voyage.

A voyage that would not truly end until sixty years later.

—Sir Thomas Huxley

C
harley Odom was a self-proclaimed “snipe,” the term the men who labored in a submarine’s engine rooms proudly tagged on themselves. The rest of the crew took to calling them that, too, mainly because it somehow seemed to fit. It soon became a badge of honor for submarine enginemen, just like skinned knuckles, the aroma of sweat and diesel fumes, and grease and oil in every orifice of the body. Even the girls in the submarine bars at various ports were able to tell the enginemen from other crew members, mostly by their distinctive “cologne.”

These were the guys who made the boat go, not just when it wanted to but when it needed to—when it needed to go in a hurry. After the torpedoes spun away from their tubes during a surface attack, the snipes knew what came next. If they stayed around after sending away their fish, they were at risk to get pounded for a while. Sometimes, even if they moved away at all good speed, they still got pounded, but at least they had a better chance of survival if they vacated the immediate area where they launched their attack.

Their diesel engines had to respond on command. To keep them in proper condition to give that response, the snipes willingly crawled into filthy bilges, battery wells, and spaces so hot and uncomfortable no normal man would go there. They did it, though, often carrying tools as big and as heavy as they were. Did it without even giving things time to cool down. The engines themselves heated up to about 150 degrees, and when they ran, they created a noise that measured at over a hundred decibels. Today, when you talk with a submarine engineman who served on the diesel boats, you have to yell to be heard. Their hearing would never be the same after standing watch around those loud, hot engines.

Charley Odom was the “old man” in the
Billfish
engine room. He was twenty-nine years old.

Odom took great delight in overseeing the men who worked for him in the engine room, and especially the younger ones. He had his preferences for the kind of sailor he wanted, if and when he was granted a choice. He picked farm boys when he could, even if their submarine knowledge was spotty, because they typically had experience fixing tractors and other machinery back home. The diesel engines did not pose much of a problem for them.

Others, who did not take to the engines as well as some did, became “gauge watchers,” the crew members who kept eyes on the indicators that reported to them how well the engines were performing. They performed that function until Odom and his experienced snipes could get them up to speed with wrenches and hammers. By that time, though, they usually got shipped off to another boat.

He taught his guys other nuances of submarining, too. Things that were not part of the curriculum in the classrooms and on the training boats back at sub school. Not in the manuals either. However, they were things that could possibly save their lives someday.

On their first run, during the vicious depth charging they endured, one of the young sailors stared up toward the top of the pressure hull, awaiting the next blast, while he idly stirred his coffee with a metal spoon. Although the youngster did not notice it, the ringing of his spoon against the inside of his ceramic mug created enough of a noise that the Japanese might well have detected it. That could have been more than enough to allow them to home in closer with their charges.

The bastards needed no help!

Odom pointedly took the spoon from his shipmate and whispered to him, “Stir with your finger or don’t stir it at all.”

“Silent running” meant complete silence.

While they were in Fremantle after the first run, and when Lieutenant Charlie Rush came aboard to determine needs for replacements, one of the men he conferred with was Charley Odom. Rush knew the chiefs often had a better feel for how the current crew was jelling than the officers did, and especially ones as experienced as Chief Odom. They would be honest in asking for only the men they really needed, too, and not simply issue a wish list.

Odom placed his order and then left the boat to enjoy a few days off, though he and the rest of the engine room crew often had to work a good portion of the time when they were in port. Repair crews did most of the work on the idle submarines, but it was still up to the enginemen to get the engines refitted, tuned, and ready for serious duty once they were back on patrol. Working on a busted motor while on patrol was a dangerous proposition. That was especially true if the boat had to be on the surface at the time.

A few days later, after he completed the reassignment of the relief crew for
Billfish
, Charlie Rush heard a knock on his office door.

“Lieutenant, may I have a word?” the visitor said. “I’m John Rendernick. I’ll be part of the relief crew on one of the boats here shortly, as soon as I draw my assignment.”

Rush scanned his list. Rendernick was a first-class electrician’s mate, and, as he said, he was as yet unassigned.

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

“Sir, I have finished up all my paperwork for chief. I was wondering if you could sign my papers before I get placed on a boat and we ship out. I’d really like to go out as a chief if I could.”

Making chief petty officer is the biggest promotion a Navy enlisted man can achieve. Such a promotion carries requirements of time in service, superior evaluation scores, and good results on a battery of exams. There is also a requirement of peer review. A chief petty officer can advance only after review by a selection board of active-duty senior and master chief petty officers. Rendernick had successfully navigated his way through all those strenuous requirements. Now there was just the formality of final promotion.

Still, in Rush’s estimation, there was one obstacle, one thing that, according to the paperwork before him, Rendernick had not yet achieved.

“Let me ask you, Mr. Rendernick, have you made a war patrol yet? I don’t see . . .”

“No, sir,” Rendernick replied, shaking his head. “But I’m about to, I’m sure.”

“Well, there are lots of first-class guys out there on war patrol right now who take precedence over you. Your scores and recommendations look good, but I think the guys making the patrols deserve to make chief first. Come back to see me when you get back from your first run and we’ll make it formal.”