A Tale of Two Subs

by Jonathan J. McCullough

  The torpedoes had two speed settings: The first was 46 knots with a nominal range of about 4,500 yards, and the second was at 31½ knots and 9,000 yards. Practical experience during the war would dictate that they use only the fast setting and at targets only within 2,500 yards, the closer the better. But at this point they’d been at war less than three months, and Voge opted to fire all four torpedoes at a great distance with the slower setting.

  The Sailfish went northwest under the waves and sidled into the path of the formation, then made a 180 degree turn to bring the stern tubes to bear, waiting for the flattop to wander into his firing zone. With his tail to the carrier, Voge also hoped to be able to slip away quickly from the hornet’s nest he’d stir up. The Sailfish would need all the help it could get going against no fewer than three destroyers. Voge made periscope observations and chatted with the TDC officer until it seemed like they could get no closer before firing. He called for the scope, made the bearings, and shot the fish at twenty-second intervals. As he watched the torpedo wakes recede into the inky water toward the carrier, he decided to shoot the last torpedo slightly ahead of the bow.

  “What’s the track?”

  “Four-five-oh-oh yards, sir. Three minutes till the first one hits.”

  They were accustomed to waiting a minute, maybe two. It was a curious feeling to have, like waiting for a terrible car accident they’d set into motion but could not, and would not, do anything to stop. They also knew the odds against them when the game was up. Unless they hit the carrier with the first salvo, there would be no second chances; it would increase speed beyond their ability to keep up under the surface. If they surfaced, the carrier and destroyers could outrun them. The only thing they could do was hope that that first salvo sent it to the bottom and wait for a shellacking from the destroyers, maybe creep out of there in one piece. The control room was deathly silent, as though any comment now might jinx the torpedoes. It was already a long shot.

  “Up periscope.”

  “Up periscope, aye aye, sir.”

  Voge looked at the formation. If they’d spotted the torpedoes, they hadn’t done anything about it. As the seconds wound down, the men in the submarine heard a CRACK, then a distant rumble. Voge saw flames shoot up 150 feet into the air along the side of the carrier.

  A cheer went up throughout the boat.

  “Four minutes, nine seconds, sir. That was probably the first torpedo.”

  After they’d shot the torpedoes at twenty-second intervals they counted down the seconds, waiting for the others to hit—five, ten, fifteen, twenty—nothing—twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty—nothing—forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, sixty—nothing. Could the last three have missed completely?

  “Down scope.”

  “Down scope, aye aye, sir.”

  CRACK!

  “Up scope!”

  “Up scope, aye aye, sir.”

  “That was four minutes, nineteen seconds after the last shot, sir.”

  Voge watched, transfixed, as the destroyers started to belch smoke when they fired up their turbines for more speed. Soon they were crisscrossing the water madly around the crippled ship, which had slowed and taken on a list. Then they heard the first depth charge, far away: clickclick BANG.

  “Down scope. Come to course one-one-oh, depth two-five-oh feet. Rig for silent running. Rig for depth charge.”

  The control room barked the commands back to him and went about coming to the new course and depth as the destroyers tore the water above, stopping altogether from time to time to ping. Water is a better conductor of sound waves than air; the soft tinks traveled faster and clearer toward the submarine than if it were on the surface, eerily bending and distorting until it reached the steel walls of the Sailfish, where the men strained their ears in complete silence to hear it.

  Tink . . . tink tink tink . . . tink . . . tink tink . . .

  The men interpreted the number and frequency of the pings, trying to divine what was going through the minds of the men who were trying to detect them. Each ping was a revelation: Was it louder than the last? Were they closer? Farther? Were there more pings now than before? Was that an echo? Did the destroyer pick it up?

  From the time they heard the first depth charge they would have had a shot of adrenaline, and with it the seemingly superhuman sharp vision, the coordination of movement, the burst of energy. But when rigged for silent running, there was nowhere to put that exertion, and as the excitement receded the tension piled up. Their bodies involuntarily reacted to the stress as their hearts pounded and they gasped for breath. Their skins tingled as their pores opened with little pinpricks and bead after bead of ticklish sweat slowly rolled down their bodies in the relentless heat. As a reaction to the stress, even their guts would stop the normal process of digestion, and their bladders would seize up, seemingly turning into solid rocks.

  Tink . . . tink . . . tink tink . . . TINK TINK TINK . . .

  The men sat with their hearts in their throats. Mundane sounds—a cough, a sniffle, even a nervous man grinding his teeth—became maddening distractions, but there was nothing, nothing they could say. If a man dropped something, a cup or a tool perhaps, all of the sailors wanted to yell at the top of their lungs for him to shut the fuck up, but all they could do was sit absolutely still in frustrated, mute horror and cast murderous glances at the offending seaman.

  Tink . . . TINK TINK . . . tink . . .

  The pinging stopped. The crewmen let out a long breath. Had they given up? They waited, listened. The screws of the destroyer picked up speed. They realized with dread that it was going to make a run and lay a pattern of depth charges. The men looked to the walls of the sub as though they could see through them, straining to try and track the movement of the ship trying to kill them as it crawled along the surface. They heard faint splashes—distinct from the sound of the water rushing against the destroyer’s hull. Depth charges. Suddenly the floor below them seemed to drop away and the ship all around them tilted down at the bow. The skipper must have heard them, too. They weren’t falling after all. He must be taking them deeper. If a depth gauge were handy they might take a look to see . . . 250 feet . . . 260 . . . 270 . . . how far was the old man going to take them? They were already below test depth. The shipyard wouldn’t make any guarantees beyond that. With the additional pressure coming from a depth charge, well. Only time would tell.

  Clickclick bang . . . clickclick BANG click BANG clickBANG BANG BANG.

  They flinched, the muscles in their faces frozen with anxiety. It was like trying to stand stock-still in the dark and hold your breath while a blind man nearby blasted away with a shotgun. Even a blind man gets lucky sometimes. To take their minds off it they counted the charges. That was seven so far. Eight . . . nine . . . We’re all right so far! BANG BANG BANG BANG.

  Even yet they sat stock-still. There was nothing to be done. Waiting between explosions they might wonder how they got here: What have I done? This was a terrible mistake. Why was it I got into submarines in the first place? The money? What if I die here? Should’ve gone to the surface fleet. Why didn’t I listen to my brother? What was it the guys at boot camp said? At least you can swim away from a sinking destroyer fer chrissakes.

  Tink . . . tink . . . tink tink . . .

  The sub started to level off . . . 290 . . . 295 . . . 297 . . . 301. They glanced at the walls beyond the wires and tubes, wondering if they would hold. All around them were their comrades’ pale white faces. What would it be like to die here? With all these men? Jesus Christ, do I look like a goddamn sissy? Buck up, sailor.

  Tink . . . tink . . . tink tink TINK TINK TINK TINK TINK TINK tink . . . tink.

  Splashes.

  Come on you stupid bastard. Take your best shot.

  Clickclick BANG . . . clickclick bang . . . bang . . . bang . . .

  Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Jesus, will it ever stop? Thirty . . .

  The stifling heat took its toll. The men strained to get a breath as th
e compartments filled with CO2. Each depth charge filled them with new outrage upon outrage, anger, fury; they wanted to scream, to run, to hit something, but the body’s normal reaction to mortal danger—fight or flight—was utterly snuffed out, repressed to the very deepest recesses inside them. It was unnatural. They couldn’t run—there was no place to go. They couldn’t fight—they would surely die up there on the surface. They couldn’t lift a finger, move a muscle, or even make a peep for fear of being heard. It was like a nightmare of being strapped into an electric chair. Their palpable fury had nowhere to go but inward. They sat there, clenching their jaws. Clenching their fists. Crossing their arms. Uncrossing them. Twitching. Hit the bulkhead with your fist! No, no, no. Breathe. Your heart’s pounding.

  Take a deep breath.

  Get up.

  No, sit down.

  Clickclick bang . . . click BANG . . . BANG BANG . . . clickclick bang.

  Close your eyes. Clamp shut!

  Breathe.

  Just as their nerves had unconsciously strained taut, one by one their bodies could do no more. Eventually they sagged, limp with perspiration, utterly exhausted from merely sitting and listening. The air was hot—over 100 degrees—and the boat was moist. It felt like the compartment had filled up with hot gravy and they were drowning in it. They felt beaten up, listless. Still, their guts clenched with every explosion. BANG . . . thirty-seven . . . BANG . . . thirty-eight . . . BANG . . . thirty-nine . . . BANG . . . forty . . .

  Finally it stopped, though they couldn’t believe it at first. The sounds of the destroyers’ screws faded away to nothing. They became aware of the silence, the utter, blissful silence all around. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. The skipper was still keeping the boat down. Despite the heat, they felt that they could all breathe easier. They’d get out of here yet. It would be easy street from here on out. The skipper probably sank a carrier out there tonight. Won’t have to do another damn thing to make this patrol a success. Maybe we’ll haul clear and take a couple days off, have some depth charge medicine. Maybe some cheap-ass rum. Or brandy. Mumma never would have stashed that stuff.

  But it was at precisely midnight when it happened.

  They never heard the destroyer coming—maybe it had been up there all along, just listening . . . listening. They didn’t hear the eight splashes up above, either. If what had happened before was like a nightmare, the eight explosions that ripped the sea all around them was like waking up to find that the nightmare was real.

  They crept away, nerves strained to the breaking point, wondering if they would ever be safe. They would be on patrol another sixteen grueling days to wonder, and just as the bottleneck of Lombok Strait funneled ships toward the Sailfish, the ship’s patrol assignment made it vulnerable to the Japanese destroyers that seemed to harass them twenty-four hours a day, sometimes before they could even get an effective battery charge in for the night. Before they would leave for Australia, many of the men would wonder if they’d gone mad.

  The stresses were compounding on the Sculpin, too. In addition to the depth-chargings, the officers and crew were demoralized by the futility of their faulty torpedoes and the danger they presented. One man came to Lieutenant Mendenhall to complain about serial headaches and fatigue, and in the middle of their conversation he collapsed from sheer nervous exhaustion. He was taken to his bunk and spent the rest of the patrol there, limping out from time to time. He was not the only one however. As Chappell would write in his report:

  The physical and, to a greater extent, the psychological well-being of the men is deteriorating at an accelerated rate. Manifestations are sleeplessness, chronic headaches, general lassitude, loss of appetite, marked decrease in mental alertness, emotional instability, and increasing nervousness . . . any radical change in the ship’s course or speed, particularly at night, would cause noticeable tension to develop . . . the slightest physical ailment would affect the men out of all proportion and it was therefore necessary to make rather free use of sedatives.

  7

  Minazuki

  Like the men in the submarines, the code breakers at Hypo were putting in thirty-hour shifts to accomplish their important work. Although they realized that the Benzedrine was causing side effects and health problems that could shorten their lives, they rationalized its use as necessary to getting the job done and almost certainly not as dangerous as facing bullets, shells, and depth charges. As Holmes would later write, “There is no justice in a war that sends one man to safe duty in a basement while thousands of his comrades are dying in desperate battle.”

  Hypo’s chief, Joe Rochefort, and the chief intelligence officer for the Pacific Fleet, Edwin Layton, were especially aware of the intelligence failures leading to Pearl Harbor and vowed never to let it happen again. In the early months of 1942 they would confer with each other on a direct telephone line up to forty times a day. To ensure security, the phone wasn’t even wired into the switchboard system and relied on a hand-crank magneto to make it ring.

  Rochefort’s team started to break through the JN-25 code in earnest. Each decrypt—though incomplete—added tantalizing clues about the Japanese navy’s capabilities, movements, and plans. It was like reading the enemy’s mind, but with every third or fourth word blanked out. When the same string of five numbers cropped up in multiple radio intercepts, the code breakers had to rely on their photographic memories to recall certain instances where they’d last seen that five-digit code, as well as its context, in order to infer what that code meant. Sometimes the last use of those five numbers had occurred days, weeks, or even months ago. Luckily as the Japanese kicked their complicated offensive operations into high gear, the code breakers had more than enough examples to start making sense of how the Naval General Staff and the Combined Fleet were moving the Japanese navy across the vast chessboard of the Pacific. The Naval General Staff was roughly analogous to the U.S. Navy Department, and the Combined Fleet under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was the counterpart to the American Pacific Fleet under Admiral Chester Nimitz.

  With a staff of only about fifty men, Rochefort’s team started by prioritizing the messages; obviously a message from a task force commander promised better information than the message of a supply ship skipper. Then the cryptographers stripped the messages of additives. The ex–USS California band members began the laborious process of hand-punching the tabulator cards for the IBM machines, while Tom Dyer’s assistant Ham Wright supervised the machine’s operation twenty-four hours a day. Most messages took about sixty or seventy punch cards, sometimes more.

  The resulting code groups—the strings of five-digit numbers stripped of their additive numbers—would go to cryptographer/linguists, the most specialized and highly trained of the lot. These included Rochefort and his assistant Dyer, as well as Joseph Finnegan and Alva Lasswell. All had attended Japanese language instruction in Japan and had special abilities for the task, which, as Layton put it, was like putting a puzzle together without all the pieces. Finnegan was an intuitive code breaker who made broad, but calculated and logical, leaps based on the associations of disparate messages, whereas Lasswell made meticulous and conservative estimations drawn only from what could be demonstrated. Rochefort recognized a good pairing when he saw one, and as Holmes recounted, when Finnegan had an impressive hunch, Rochefort would pretend not to believe him. Finnegan would then enlist Lasswell’s complementary skills to fill in the gaps between what seemed to be Finnegan’s flights of fancy. The result was an inspired, but solid, intelligence product. Even this result had gaps, however, and Rochefort and Dyer would spend hours trying to fill in blanks for 100 to 150 messages a day. The result of several hours on one message that had seemed at first to be a major breakthrough might eventually reveal itself to be only a mundane report about the water supply on some godforsaken coral outpost in the middle of nowhere. But even that new information was grist for the mill, useful in that its codes were no longer unknown entities; Rochefort’s exquisitely compartmentalized mind would fil
e it away for possible use someday.

  Finnegan learned that the Japanese radio operators on newly captured Wake Island in the Central Pacific were recording American call signs to analyze radio traffic between the U.S. Navy’s ships and outposts, as well as listening to commercial broadcasts from Honolulu for possible intelligence information. Since this represented an opportunity to compare the Japanese reports of what the Americans were broadcasting, if Finnegan could get his hands on broadcast transcripts he might be able to identify several valuable code groups. Holmes had recently transferred his plotting duties to other offices in the Navy Yard and had taken on whatever administrative tasks would lighten Rochefort’s load, so he volunteered to try to get transcripts of the Honolulu broadcasts. Unfortunately, he discovered that the radio stations didn’t keep such records. Stumped, Finnegan reasoned that the broadcasts were based on reporting from the local newspapers, and asked for a complete copy of both local news-papers since December 7.

  Rochefort also learned about the Kamikawa Maru—a seaplane tender or mother ship that could launch and service several seaplanes—located around the Woodlark Island area that Holmes had decoded. This suggested that the Japanese were conducting reconnaissance in the 500-mile radius of the seaplane tender and setting up for an offensive action. Finnegan discovered the presence of a new mystery ship he dubbed the “Ryukaku” based on the information he had available. It had land-based planes associated with it instead of seaplanes, and they surmised that it was a new, smaller aircraft carrier capable of supporting invasions. As more pieces of the puzzle dribbled in, they came to find out that the Japanese navy’s Fourth Fleet—a collection of cruisers and destroyers suitable for protecting a landing operation—was assembling in Rabaul, a Japanese stronghold that was within striking distance of northeastern Australia, the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea. The kicker came when they started getting traffic about a geographical location code-named “MO.”