Ghosts of Bungo Suido (2013)

by Deutermann, P. T

  “Nope, we’re good right now. We’ll trade movies if you want to, but so far, nothing’s broken down. Yet. I’ve included some pass-down notes with the BT data about their air search patterns and when they seem to quit for the night.”

  “These radar-equipped planes?”

  “We think so—the two times we’ve been jumped they came straight in on us.”

  “You have your radar on the air when they did?”

  “Once yes, once no. We only come up at night, and preferably in dirty weather. They don’t seem to like flying when it’s low viz. May be different if something big’s coming in or out. If the merchies are running, they’re way inshore under all that air cover, or over in the SOJ.”

  “We have anybody there?”

  “Not that I know of. Ever since we lost Wahoo, I don’t think anybody’s made it through either Shimonoseki or La Pérouse Strait.”

  They talked for another few minutes, mainly about the currents running closer inshore and any communications frequencies they’d been able to monitor. There were four other American subs patrolling in the empire areas, and none of them were having much luck, either. Enright wished Gar good luck with whatever craziness they were up to, and that was it.

  Gar checked with the forecastle crew to make sure the bathythermograph logs and pass-down notes had made it on board, waited for the IC-electrician to send across and then receive some movies, and then ordered the light-line to be retrieved. Five minutes later, Archer-fish rumbled off into the darkness, headed back out into her patrol area. The three-man line-handling party came to the bridge with the small waterproof bag sent over from Archer-fish and took it below to the control room. Gar decided to stay on the surface to top off the batteries as long as the radar didn’t indicate any snoopers; he told the OOD and the bridge crew to listen as well as look.

  Back down in the conning tower he checked the track, adjusted the ship’s speed to make the planned entry point at the straits two hours before dawn, then went below to see what Enright had sent over. Normally he would have sent off a position report, but the orders were clear: radio silence. Archer-fish would report the rendezvous, so Pearl would know the Dragon had made it this far. Considering what they were about to attempt, that might be the last time anything was ever heard about the Dragonfish. Everyone on board except perhaps Hashimoto-san knew they might very well end up on that dreaded “missing, presumed lost in Empire Patrol Area” list, like Pickerel, Runner, Pompano, Wahoo, and Golet.

  Gar tried to banish that thought. Getting through the minefields of Bungo Suido was going to be a one-man, one-sonar show, and he did not need the distraction of a bunch of drowned ghosts, wherever they were now sleeping.

  EIGHT

  “This is the captain speaking.”

  That announcement produced the usual quiet throughout the boat. They were submerged at 300 feet and basically standing still as the boat pointed into an east-running current coming at them out of the entrance to Bungo Suido.

  “We’re about to do something that is unusually dangerous. We’re going to penetrate the straits of Bungo Suido and go into the Inland Sea of Japan. We’re on the hunt for a very large aircraft carrier that has been spotted by army air force reconnaissance planes at the Kure naval arsenal. Our mission is to torpedo this ship, wherever we find her.”

  Gar paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. He rarely got on the 1MC to address the entire crew. Up to now, he’d always kept his cards pretty close, but he’d finally concluded that the danger of what they were about to do justified letting his people in on the secret mission orders.

  “Many of you know that our boats have been told to stay out of Bungo Suido and the other straits of the Home Islands for over a year now. We’ve lost five boats in this area, and when we go in tonight, we may be driving over their remains. Or not. Nobody knows where they actually went down. But the Japs have this place covered with destroyers, patrol frigates, land-based air, minefields, miniature submarines, and shore-based radar stations. The fishing boats that operate along this coast each have a soldier on board, a soldier with a radio. They know we’d love to get into this protected area, and they’re determined to prevent it.

  “Now, we’ve had boats outside Bungo Suido, and the northern entrance, Kii Suido, for over two years. They know we’re here, and when their fleet units do come out, they come out at high speed and with lots of cover. We’ve been able to sink the occasional merchie, but rarely a major warship. One of the things we’re counting on is that they will have become complacent about the possibility that we’d try to force the straits and actually go into the Inland Sea.

  “We have an upgraded version of the new FM sonar. This sonar can see mines. If we can see them, we can avoid them. That said, if we can get through the minefields, we’ll still face lots of challenges that we don’t normally have to worry about. The Inland Sea is small, and it’s relatively shallow. Lots of small islands and reefs. Thanks to Hashimoto-san, we have much better charts than what the Hydrographic Office could give us. But—we have to also get through the Hoyo Strait, where the tide causes large whirlpools. Then we have to get within torpedo range of a major Japanese naval base. We can probably do that, because the last thing they’ll expect is an American submarine hunkering down right off their piers.”

  He paused again, because this was the hard part.

  “If we succeed in putting a spread of torpedoes into a brand-new aircraft carrier moored to a pier, we then have to find our way out of the Inland Sea and back to the safety of deep water. How we do that is going to depend on a lot of things, and all I can say now is that we’ll surely be winging it when the time comes. Some of you might think this is some kind of suicide mission, but I can assure you that it is not. I intend to get in and get back out, and to hurt them bad in the process, but for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours, I need everybody, absolutely everybody, to play heads-up ball.

  “Okay. The tide out of the straits is coming up on the end of the ebb. We’ll have about an hour or so of slack water, and then the flood begins. If all goes well, we should be through Bungo Suido and then the Hoyo Strait in two hours’ time, after which we’ll have to see where we are and what we’re looking at. Keep the chatter on the sound-powered phones to a minimum, please. We’ll be at GQ stations, buttoned up but not at silent running, which means we’ll be able to breathe. Man your GQ stations in fifteen minutes. That is all.”

  He hung up the 1MC microphone and left the control room. He knew the people in Control would want to comment to each other on what he’d said, and they couldn’t do that if the captain was still standing there.

  Once he got to his cabin, he called the exec and asked for the chief of the boat to come see him. Cob must have been expecting it, because he was there in under a minute.

  “Swede,” Gar said, “this one’s gonna be a level bitch.”

  “Piece’a cake, Skipper,” the chief said.

  “Yeah, right, but look: What I’ll need you to do is float. The first time we drag a mine’s mooring chain down the paravane wire, guys are going to piss their pants. I need you to buck ’em up. Keep ’em focused. Keep ’em quiet. All sorts of shit can go wrong here, and we’re going to be jumping through our asses just to stay alive. Savvy?”

  “Piece’a cake,” the chief said again. “Just lemme get some diapers on.”

  Gar laughed then. “Bring a set for me,” he said.

  * * *

  Dragonfish headed into the straits at slack water, running at periscope depth so they could do their piloting with the radar. They were trimmed bow-down 5 degrees and with the radar mast up. The night was still clear and calm, with no visible moon. On his last periscope observation, Gar had seen small patches of fog and mist here and there. He would have preferred a heavy fog, but he knew he couldn’t have everything. They had taped down the old man’s annotated chart on top of the new dead-reckoning tracer plotting table. The DRT would allow the conning team as well as the officers in Control to do
radar navigation.

  Hashimoto-san had told them to keep to the middle of the Bungo channel and to the left, or west, side of the Hoyo channel. They expected Bungo to be mined but had no information on Hoyo. Hashimoto-san said the water on the west side of Hoyo was very deep, and the tidal whirlpools there would make mooring mines almost impossible. There was one ledge they’d have to watch out for, but otherwise, once through Hoyo, they should have a straight shot to Hiroshima Bay.

  “Gotta love this DRT,” Russ said. The plotting table had a glass top, under which a small light projected a compass rose onto the chart from below. Whichever way the submarine turned, the light, driven by a series of gears and servomotors slaved to the sub’s main gyro, turned with it, giving them a real-time view of where they were and where they were headed.

  “It’s the radar fixes we believe, XO,” Gar said. “Everything else is an approximation.” He didn’t mind having the new plotting table to look at, but the downside was that it required two more plotters in the already crowded conning tower. “Speaking of which, let’s get a round of bearings.”

  The radar operator called out ranges to preplotted points on the shore, and the DRT plotters penciled in the results. So far, they were right on track, moving into the not-so-loving arms of the straits at 5 knots. Because it was slack water, that was 5 knots over the ground. It also wasn’t suffocatingly hot in the conning tower for a change. The outside water temperature was a chilly 55 degrees, a far cry from the stultifying tropical waters of the South Pacific. Gar had to thread his way through the various operators to stand behind the FM sonar display. Popeye Waller was on the stack, as the operators called the display. He wore headphones and was constantly adjusting the intensity and brightness of the scope.

  Gar would have preferred being down at depth so that the new sonar could look up into the minefield. The problem was they couldn’t navigate if they ran deep. He’d ordered the boat trimmed down 5 degrees to give the sonar a more level look ahead of them, but even so, the sonar would probably not see any mines right below them. He was counting on encountering only contact mines; if they had planted magnetics, the Dragon would be in deep trouble.

  A gonging sound came out of the sonar speaker. Hell’s Bells.

  “Relative bearing, thirty port,” Popeye said. “Drifting left, no threat.”

  It was almost a relief to “see” their first mine. Gar kept one eye on the DRT and the other on the sonar scope. There was an amber smudge to one side of the scope. The smudge kept changing shape like some kind of ghost as it passed down their port side and then disappeared.

  “DRT, plot every one of these contacts.”

  “DRT, aye.”

  It wouldn’t be a very accurate plot, but it would be better than nothing when they came back out. If they came back out.

  Another gong, then a second.

  The Dragon was in the minefield. The muted conversation in the conning tower went silent.

  “Two contacts, relative bearing twenty port, twenty-five starboard.”

  “Split the bearings,” Gar ordered.

  “Recommend three three zero true to split the bearings,” Popeye said.

  “Helmsman, make it so.”

  As long as there was no current, the mooring chains that anchored the mines to the bottom should be standing straight up and down. They were traveling at keel depth of 60 feet. The mines were somewhere between 250 and 20 feet below the surface, each with a mooring chain leading down to the bottom. The bad news was that they were in a minefield. The good news was that no Jap destroyer could come in there after them. But a plane could, Gar reminded himself.

  Gong.

  “Dead ahead, range five hundred yards,” Popeye announced, his voice no longer quite so calm.

  Gong. Gong.

  “Two more, relative bearing twenty port, thirty port.”

  “Come right to three five five,” Gar ordered. “Sound, confirm bearing drift when you get it.”

  Gong.

  “Relative bearing starboard twenty.”

  “Mark your head, helmsman.”

  “Three four two, Captain.”

  “Steady, three four five.”

  “Three four five, aye, sir, shifting my rudder.”

  Gong.

  “New one, dead ahead,” Popeye called out. “Range six hundred yards.”

  “All stop!” Gar ordered, thanking God they weren’t heading into the big, 6-knot tidal current that ran through here. That didn’t mean there was no current, however.

  “We have bearing drift port and starboard,” Popeye said. “Should clear.”

  “Should clear?” Gar echoed. “That’s nice.”

  No one laughed, and Gar realized how frightened everyone in the conning tower was.

  “Range to the one dead ahead is four five oh, no drift.”

  “Sing out when the beam contacts are at ninety.”

  “Range dead ahead is now three five oh.”

  Gar felt the boat slowing down as its forward momentum came off. He couldn’t wait much longer to turn or the diving planes would lose effectiveness.

  “Two five oh, and we’re just about abeam on the side contacts.”

  “All ahead one-third, turns for five knots, come right to zero one zero with full rudder.”

  “Zero one zero with right full rudder aye, sir.”

  “Range is two five oh, and entering the sea return. Captain, I can’t see it anymore.”

  Gar watched the gyro repeater above his head, mentally shouting at it to begin turning, but the boat had so little way on that she wasn’t responding.

  “Starboard stop, starboard back Bendix,” he ordered. He could hear the first threads of panic in his own voice. Steady on, he told himself. Steady on.

  Then they felt the starboard propeller bite in, going astern, yanking the bow to the right. As soon as Gar saw the gyro repeater indicating that they were turning, he stopped the starboard engine and then ordered both to go ahead together at 5 knots.

  Clank.

  Gar felt the hair rising on his neck.

  Clank. Clank. Clank.

  They were hearing the mooring cable of a mine scraping down the port side of the submarine, riding that steel paravane cable strung between the bullnose, the forward portside diving plane, and the after portside diving plane. As long as it didn’t catch on anything, they’d be safe.

  Gong. Gong.

  “Two more, starboard twenty, starboard thirty. We need to come left.”

  “Steady as you go, helmsman.”

  “Aye, sir, shifting my rudder and steadying on—zero zero seven.”

  The clanking sound stopped as the boat’s stern swung to the right, away from the deadly caress of the mine’s anchor chain. Gar waited for a full minute to make sure they were clear.

  “Starboard contacts will clear; good bearing drift.”

  Gar exhaled quietly, as did everyone else in the conning tower.

  Gong.

  “One more, port ten, maybe less. Contact is in and out. Probably deep.”

  Gong. Gong.

  “Two more, one dead ahead, one starboard ten.”

  “All stop. All back full. Ranges?”

  “Nearest mine is four five oh and closing.”

  Gar waited until he felt the propellers going solidly astern, then stopped engines and shifted to bare steerageway ahead. He wanted the boat to drift forward with enough speed to maintain control, but not so fast as to run up on the mines ahead. He also had to make sure they didn’t back into the ones they’d just passed. He tried not to make eye contact with anyone else in the conning tower. They were deep in a box of spiders and everyone knew it. His brain was racing to find a way out. He had to keep a 3-D picture of all the mines they knew about, and the new ones ahead, too.

  Gar realized he needed help.

  The exec leaned in toward him. “Put a twist on?” he asked quietly. “See if there’s a hole somewhere?”

  Gar nodded. Good thinking. “You got the bubble?” />
  In this case, “bubble” was slang for the tactical picture. Having the bubble meant you thought things were under control. Losing the bubble meant you’d become confused. Russ said yes.

  “Okay, take the conn, twist us through an arc of sixty degrees, each way, and try not to make forward progress.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  “XO has the conn, “Gar announced. “Sound, report all around.”

  He stepped back from the FM sonar stack and went to the DRT table. As the exec gave quiet maneuvering orders, he ordered the radar operator and the plotters to get a fix.

  The radar mast went up and on. A quick round of ranges was taken, and then the mast came down. The resulting fix, plotted on the DRT, was sloppy but showed they were off track to the north. There was a current.

  “Conn, Sound.”

  “Conn, aye.”

  “I have echo ranging, bearing one five zero. Faint up Doppler.”

  This wasn’t Popeye reporting, but the secondary sonar operator, who was listening passively on a broader spectrum of frequencies. Gar studied the chart. One five zero was behind them. A Jap destroyer was coming up the right, or northern, side of the Bungo channel.

  The sub was trembling slightly as the opposed screws twisted her to port. She didn’t twist like a destroyer—she was heavy and distinctly logy. She also had to be making a fair amount of noise. To Gar’s right he could hear the exec and Popeye exchanging information on the mine picture.

  “Any luck, XO?” Gar asked. The plotters were laying down a line of passive bearings to the echo ranger. It could be anything from a small patrol craft to a full-sized destroyer.

  “Not yet, sir,” Russ said. “We’re going to twist back to starboard, see if there’s a hole out there.” He turned to the helmsman. “All stop, starboard back one-third, port ahead one-third. Shift your rudder.”

  Gar stood back from the plot to organize his thoughts. They had mines all around them, with no apparent escape route. Now they also had a warship of some kind coming up from astern, type and range unknown. As long as they were in the minefield, the warship could not roll in on them with depth charges in the event he gained sonar contact. The Dragon, on the other hand, could fire a torpedo at the warship from the “safety” of the minefield, but for that, they needed a range. He ordered the radar mast up again for a single sweep, range display set to 10 miles.