Hellcats

by Peter Sasgen

  In San Diego, the USS Flying Fish (SS-229) and the USS Redfin (SS-272) were being prepped to conduct the comparison tests of the other sonar devices under consideration by the Navy. In San Francisco in late February, the Bonefish, after shakedown and testing at sea, participated in an antisubmarine exercise with Navy pilots off Monterey, California, after which she returned to Hunters Point. On her arrival, Lawrence received his departure orders.

  Sarah and Boo had train tickets for their return to Atlanta, where they would wait for Lawrence’s final homecoming from the war. He bade his family a tender, tearful, and agonizing good-bye. His concern over Sarah’s pregnancy during the long train trip home was eased somewhat by the fact that she’d be accompanied by several Navy wives, some of them pregnant, also returning home. To sustain him during the long, arduous days of patrolling in the months to come, Lawrence would draw on his memories of the days and nights he had spent with Sarah and Boo in Atlanta and San Francisco. He was still excited about having “Junior,” due in August, waiting for him when he returned home. Sad as the separation was, a letter from his parents lifted his spirits. He quickly wrote back, saying:[I appreciated your letter] considering that we are all a bit (to say it mildly) down in the dumps still from having to leave our families so recently. It was really hard to leave them you may be sure. I think I can say that for all the boys, but I know I can say it with ten times over for myself.

  [Boo] will probably disappoint you about [not] talking of the zoo, oceans, ships, etc. I think she is much more impressed with her “bow dog” at home, to hear her tell it. She will also be overjoyed, I think, to get back to her tricycle.... Not that I still don’t think she’s the world’s cutest little girl! If “Jr.” turns out to be half as much pleasure and joy to us as Sarah has already been, he’ll be far more than just welcomed, that I know.

  . . . I’ve been told that present plans are for this to be my last patrol, and that I’ll probably go to Admiral Lockwood’s staff upon its completion. Hope we can make this patrol a good one.

  Also, my Navy Cross is here, now, merely waiting for a day when the admiral can find time to have the appropriate presentation ceremony. I’m awfully glad that it has come before we depart on patrol. Now I can send it home to Sarah before we leave, and you can see it too—even if it is about the least gaudy and fancy of all decorations. Sarah will also no doubt show you the Bronze Star received for the patrol before this last one. . . . 6

  The Bonefish sailed for Pearl Harbor at the end of February. During the voyage Lawrence began writing a long letter to Sarah.

  Most precious wife,

  It is approaching a week since I last saw you and Boo—that is what the calendar says. If it weren’t for the calendar, though, I’m sure I’d have no clear idea of how long it has been except that it has been at least months and for far too long. Again we are facing the mere beginning of a long period of operation, one which seems hopelessly long from where we are now—so long that its end is only something to conjure . . . theoretically. I know that my only hope is to remember that once before we were faced with the same situation, and eventually, some way, time passed.... [A]t the moment the time is dragging, oh so slowly, and the pain of not being able to return to you . . . is like an open wound in my very heart. . . . I don’t believe that I have ever been so terribly impatient for this war to end as I am now. And that means only to be able to return with honor to live a normal life with you and Boo—and Junior/Virginia—to do only those things we can do together, to try to show you I love you as well as tell you. . . .

  Coming down to earth a bit . . . For our trip, so far, I’ve been sleeping and reading for the most part. Reading some radio [technical manuals], a little math, a short history of China, a mystery and some short stories about, of all things, fishing. The first day, I got sea sick again and haven’t felt really good or had a decent appetite.... All in all, I guess no one has been too enthusiastic about leaving. Maybe it will be good for us to get back out where we will have to think of something besides ourselves!

  Gee, Angel, it will be wonderful if by some . . . streak of luck I really can be there on Jr.’s/Va.’s birthday. I do hope so with all my heart. Who’ll take his picture if I’m not there to do it?

  By for now, dearest sweetheart. Once again, here is all my deepest love to you and Boo. . . .

  Lawrence

  The Bonefish arrived in Pearl Harbor on March 2. Edge and his crew immediately began an intense ten-day period of training for her next war patrol. Her FMS received a thorough going-over by technicians, who pronounced it ready for unlimited operation. Back at sea and on the way to Guam, Edge conducted drills and training exercises to maintain peak performance. Blue skies and towering cumulus clouds kept the Bonefish company as she made her passage westward, the distance noted only by the change of time zones on the ship’s chronometers and her line of advance marked on navigation charts. Though the Pacific west of Hawaii was for all intents and purposes an American lake, the lookouts and watch standers kept their eyes open for the periscopes of Japanese submarines. The enemy’s big I-class boats still roamed the Pacific, though in small numbers. Most had been pressed into service as transports to deliver supplies to what remained of those troop garrisons on islands bypassed by U.S. forces and left to die on the vine. Most of the emperor’s smaller, short-range RO-class subs had been sunk, many by U.S. subs.

  As the Bonefish steamed westward Edge could only speculate on what was in store for him and his crew at Guam. Scuttlebutt said it would likely be the same thing that had awaited the other FMS-equipped subs that had preceded the Bonefish to Pearl Harbor. As always, scuttlebutt provided the answers that SubPac’s senior officers refused to divulge ahead of time. It was said that in Guam, the Bonefish would receive orders to map enemy minefields for the Third and Fifth fleets. But there was something else, too. Something about an invasion of Japan by submarines. Was that true, or just a figment of someone’s overactive imagination? Someone who had caught a glimpse of Mush Morton’s ghost?

  PART TWO

  The Hellcats

  CHAPTER NINE

  An Operation Called “Barney”

  As the planning for the raid gained momentum, Lockwood still didn’t know for certain whether FMS sonar—and not some other gadget—would ultimately be the tool submariners would use to foil the mines guarding the Sea of Japan.

  He complained to his correspondents at the Navy Department that he had been trying to move heaven and earth to get a reliable mine detector into submarines. The uneven performance of the Bowfin’s and Tunny’s FMS had made him uncertain about FMS’s future, if not angry that after struggling to get hold of a reliable mine detector he still didn’t have one that was foolproof. “Lack of such a gadget leaves only the old method of under-running the fields, not a particularly inviting solution when mines can be set at most any depth,” he wrote.1

  Lockwood also complained about Admiral King’s denial of his request for a relaxation of the restrictions that had been placed on publicity regarding submarine operations. Lockwood had always insisted that his submarine force operate in the shadows and that any information released to the public about its ships, missions, and personnel would be too risky and might help the Japanese to bolster their antisubmarine defenses. The term “silent service” was an apt description of the force. But now with the end of the war just over the horizon, Lockwood had had a change of heart. He wanted to release information about the sub force that would bolster its image in the public’s mind and educate people about the genuinely astonishing accomplishments and sacrifices of the force. It would also inform the public about how dangerous submarine operations were and set the stage for the honors that would be owed the men who had participated in the raid. Lockwood said that publicity would blunt some of the “ballyhoo from our allied services. The remark [made by a general officer] about the AAF [Army Air Force] making possible the invasion of Europe still rankles.” A letter from King disapproving any and all submarine publicity had se
ttled the matter, at least temporarily, Lockwood grumbled. When his raiders returned from the Sea of Japan things would look quite different.

  In his relentless drive for advanced prosubmarine gear, Lockwood pushed hard to speed up delivery of those cutie homing torpedoes. Since his last push, he’d learned that the Royal Navy had captured a GNAT (German Naval Acoustic Torpedo), the homing torpedo that had been used so successfully against Allied shipping by U-boats. An autopsy of its innards had disclosed important facts about its operation, especially its exploder. Lockwood urged BuOrd to appropriate the exploder’s design for use on U.S. Navy torpedoes.

  It was mid-March and Lockwood had four FMS-equipped subs available for his mission: Spadefish, Tinosa, Tunny, and Bowfin. A fifth sub, the Bonefish, was on her way to Guam, and a sixth sub, the Flying Fish, in San Diego, would be available after her duties as a test bed for the competing sonar systems. (The other test bed, the Redfin, would be released for regular war patrols after performing similar duties.)

  Lockwood had a decision to make and he had to make it now. Lacking anything better, he’d planned the mission around FM sonar. Working sets had been installed in subs. There was no guarantee that the other mine detectors due for competitive testing would perform any better than FMS. Even if they did it would take weeks, maybe months to rip out the FMS installations, replace them with another system, and conduct tests under combat conditions. It was too late for that. Those were weeks and months Lockwood couldn’t afford to waste. Given the U.S. advance across the Pacific, the invasion of Iwo Jima that had begun in February, and the invasion of Okinawa scheduled for April, the noose around Japan was tightening by the day. If the mission had to be delayed until July or August it might as well be scrubbed right now. His instincts told him that he’d made the right decision, that none of those competing sonar systems would best FMS. He’d keep an open mind if it would help garner support for the mission from the skeptics back in the States who, for various reasons, were pushing their own pet versions of submarine mine detectors. But he was fully committed to FMS and not about to switch.

  With this decision, Lockwood and Voge plunged into the details of the mission. They debated how many subs to employ for the raid. Two other subs were undergoing overhauls and FMS installation on the West Coast. They were the USS Crevalle (SS-291) and the USS Seahorse (SS-304). It seemed reasonable to send in as many subs as possible, perhaps as many as a dozen, depending, of course, on how many FMS sets were available for installation. This action would force the Japanese to spread their antisubmarine forces over a large area to hunt for many subs, instead of concentrating their efforts on just a few in a small area. The final decision about numbers would have to wait until after the sonar competition and until it was determined how many sonar-equipped subs were available.

  Lockwood had already decided that the raiding subs, helped along by the swift-inflowing Kuroshio Current, would enter the Sea of Japan submerged via the Tsushima Strait south of Kyushu. His decision had been made based on all the information collected about patrols, tides, currents, and minefields. Lockwood and Voge had even identified a starting line for the operation, located south of the entrance to the Tsushima Strait. It was time now for an FMS sub to map that area so the raiders would know where the mines were and how they were lined up in the mouth of the strait.

  Lockwood and Voge chose La Pérouse Strait in the north for an escape route. With its outflowing Kuroshio Current and mine-free channel used by the Russians, it would be ideal for the purpose, provided the USSR didn’t declare war on Japan, which would cause the Japanese to seal the entire strait with surface mines. Lockwood worried that if the Japanese sealed La Pérouse while the raid was unfolding, the subs would be trapped inside the Sea of Japan until they ran out of food and fuel and were hunted down and sunk. That possibility seemed remote, as the Russians were in no hurry to open a second front in the Far East. In that case, Lockwood was confident that the subs, using stealth and speed, could make their exit dash out of La Pérouse unmolested.

  Lockwood and Voge knew that FM sonar was far from perfect, perhaps no more than eighty percent effective. They knew, too, that some of the minefields the subs might have to breach were part of the old antisubmarine fields laid by the Japanese in early 1941 and since scrambled up by storms and time. Regardless, there was little they could do but make the best of what they had; no amount of hand-wringing over these issues would ensure total success. Lockwood the doer was committed to his plan and to seeing it through no matter what. A keen observer of operations in the European theater as well as the Pacific theater, he had long ago adopted a credo espoused by General George S. Patton: “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”

  Despite Lockwood’s determination to launch the mission before summer, he still had to solve the lingering problems plaguing FMS. He wasn’t happy with the diminished range sensitivity exhibited by some units, especially under less than favorable sea conditions. Lockwood believed that the problem of diminished sensitivity could be solved if the subs were to underrun the minefields at a depth—say, greater than 180 feet—where they’d encounter quiet water conditions that would enhance FMS’s sensitivity. His reasoning sounded good, but in practice was hard to prove in the turbulent environments in which submerged submarines often had to operate.

  The arrival at Saipan of the Tinosa and Spadefish proved how much work still needed doing. The Tinosa’s FMS did not perform satisfactorily even with help from Malcolm Henderson with his circuit testers and amp meters. The results left her CO, Richard Latham, baffled. He’d turned in a satisfactory mine recon of Okinawa with the very same equipment. While Henderson fiddled with it, Lockwood turned his attention to the Spadefish. She and her new skipper, Commander William J. Germershausen of Baltimore, Maryland, were scheduled to depart on a war patrol, and Lockwood wanted to be certain that the Spadefish’s FMS was in top form.

  After long hours spent in cramped, hot quarters tuning the Spadefish’s FMS, which had been updated with the very latest electronics from UCDWR’s labs, Henderson declared it ready for unlimited service. Germershausen, itching to go, received a set of sealed orders from Lockwood that included an important set of instructions to reconnoiter the southern limits of the Tsushima Strait’s minefields. Germershausen also had orders to pick up any Japanese survivors from torpedoed ships found floating in the ocean, especially around Tsushima, who might have information of value to the impending mission.

  With that settled Lockwood returned to the Tinosa’s sonar problems. Discouraged at having to wrestle with a balky FMS installation that had once worked so well, Lockwood worried that all the effort he, his staff, the scientists at UCDWR, and the skippers and sub crews had expended to turn FMS from a bright idea on paper into a working reality could yet go down the drain. His natural optimism had deserted him. And so had his luck. No one would blame him for taking a scuttling sledge to the damn thing. He might have even been on the verge of wielding one aboard the Tinosa when all of a sudden his luck changed.

  In quick succession the Tinosa’s retuned FMS turned in an excellent performance at sea, the best of any sub so far; and the Tunny’s skipper, George Pierce, radioed that they’d had extraordinary success charting mines in the East China Sea. His message read, “Top Secret. To ComSubPac. Completed passage through the East China Sea mine field. Have charted rows of mines spaced about one thousand yards apart. Position about 170 miles north by west of Okinawa. Am now in the East China Sea and have charted 222 mines in the vicinity of Lat. 29-20 north, Long. 127-10 east [the Ryukyu Island chain south of Kyushu].” At the end of the message Pierce added what he knew Lockwood desperately wanted to hear. “FM Sonar gear running like [a] sewing machine.”2

  Pierce confirmed what Lockwood had surmised all along: Minefields had indeed been sown south of Kyushu, and they were responsible for the loss of at least four, and perhaps as many as six, U.S. submarines. Pierce had proved that a submarine equipped with FM sonar could penetr
ate these deadly fields, map them, and count them like so many rows of pumpkins. Lockwood was ecstatic; his luck hadn’t deserted him after all. He couldn’t wait to trumpet Pierce’s successful recon; it would be a confidence builder for all those who still had doubts about FMS. Yes, it would still require a lot of arm-twisting and cajoling, but Lockwood was good at that.

  In earlier correspondence with those officers in charge of FMS training on the West Coast, he had laid on the line what had to be done to convince the naysayers. “. . . [C]onfidence must be built up by familiarity with use and knowledge of enemy mining systems and limitations. Dr. Henderson and I have been doing it here [at Guam] and while I like to get out in the boats, eventually there will be more than I can handle. Where we find COs opposed to use of FM Sonar, we will have to relieve them [of command], for no one will do a proper job of mine detecting unless he has confidence in his gear and has plenty of guts.... Each sub should have at least 3 good operators.... We’ve got to get that Tsushima job done—and soon.”3 Finally, he had a solid success that would prove how good FMS was at mine detection.

  Lockwood’s report to Admiral Nimitz on the Tunny’s success elicited CinCPac’s congratulations and a personal message to Pierce and his crew for a job well-done. Personal recognition by Nimitz was always a terrific morale booster and, in this case, one that polished Lockwood’s brass in the bargain. Basking in the glow of Nimitz’s praise, Lockwood tried to wheedle himself a ride aboard the Spade fish, about to depart on her mission to Tsushima, claiming that it was imperative that he go along to size up her performance. He hurriedly sent his request to Nimitz, only to find that the admiral had departed for Washington. With no time to waste he pleaded his case to Nimitz’s chief of staff and war plans officer, Rear Admiral Charles H. “Soc” McMorris. Speaking for Nimitz, McMorris turned him down flat. “You know too damned much about our future plans,” he said, in a rare instance of a rear admiral issuing orders to a vice admiral. “But, Soc, if we come to grief on this mission—which I’m sure we won’t—there’ll be no prisoners.” McMorris shook his head no and that was it.