In the end, Charlie wanted to do it to see if he could and live to tell the tale.
Kane said, “I know where the exec stands on this. Rusty, what do you think?”
“I think it’s too much risk.” He snarled at Reynolds, “Talk about a knife to a gunfight.”
“Harrison?”
“We have a way in and a way out,” Charlie started but then stopped. He cut to the bottom line. “The whole thing is obviously a big risk, but so is going to Duke of York Island. Going straight to Rabaul is just one more level of risk but with rewards that are much bigger.”
The reasoning appealed to the analytical Kane.
“I’m inclined to agree,” he said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll go north. If we shoot our wad before we get there and sink some ships along the way, we turn back. If not, we go to the harbor and take a look around, feel out the defenses. If Frankie’s up for it and we can get a good shot at some ships, by God, we’ll take it. If not, we’ll beat it for somewhere safer. Agreed?”
There were a lot of “ifs” there, but the captain had laid out a logical flow of decisionmaking. It all seemed sensible to Charlie.
“Roger,” Reynolds said.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Charlie said.
“Hoo-ray,” Rusty said at his sarcastic best.
“All right then. Reynolds, conn the boat into a course for Rabaul. Dismissed.”
In the passageway, Rusty said to Charlie, “Now Evie’s really going to be furious with you.”
“I’m sorry, Rusty. I had to speak my mind. I honestly think we can do it.”
The engineering officer stared at him as if to say, What the hell do you really know about it? He said, “You think we can do it because you want to do it. Simple as that. This isn’t an adventure film starring Douglas Fairbanks. This is real, with real consequences. In real life, the good guy, the hero, he dies all the time.”
Charlie didn’t know what to say to that. Rusty was right, but he was wrong. Damn it, this was war. War was full of risks. Somebody had to take a big risk, or they’d never win.
“Listen, the captain’s made up his mind in any case,” he said. “He’s got a good plan. Don’t get so worked up about it. Hell, we might end up not even doing it in the end if the risks are too bad. Captain Kane has good judgment. I trust him.”
Rusty shook his head sadly. “A captain trying to save his career, an exec who’s got a personal vendetta against some Jap Moby Dick, and a young lieutenant who just knows it’s all going to be fine. Sure, I’ll trust you guys. I’ll trust you with my life.”
Charlie recoiled, stung. “Jesus, Rusty.”
“Wishing the Japs dead isn’t going to make them dead. Like I said, this is real. Think about what Evie’s going to be feeling when she gets a letter from the Navy saying you’re missing and presumed lost. Think about what my Lucy’s going to feel. My son, who’ll grow up without his daddy. Because we’re going to die up there, Charlie. We’re going to die.”
Map detail showing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in the South Pacific.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ONE MAN TO TELL THE TALE
Billy Ford shook him awake. “The exec needs you topside, Mr. Harrison.”
Charlie rolled over. “Beat it, Billy.”
“He said he needed you.” Another shake. “Sir?”
“Did Braddock tell you to get me?”
“No. Mr. Reynolds did.”
Charlie bolted out of his bunk and put on his sandals. “Thanks, Billy.”
He climbed the ladder up the main access trunk but didn’t find Reynolds on the bridge.
One of the lookouts pointed. “He’s down there, sir.”
Charlie found the executive officer standing on the main deck. The storm had passed, and the boat floated on moderate seas rolling with white caps. The bow broke the waves and flung spray. The air tasted like brine. The sky was black and full of stars.
“You asked to see me?”
After the disastrous attack on the Furutaka at Savo Island, Reynolds had stopped coming down on him. He obviously believed that, from then on, the war had much more to teach Charlie.
This wasn’t about instruction. The executive officer wanted a private conversation with him.
“We just got a radio message,” the exec said. “Two Jap battleships shelled Henderson Field. They came close to destroying it. They’re going to try another offensive soon to retake the island.”
Charlie shook his head at the news. Though victory often appeared rationally inevitable, it just as often felt impossible. As Rusty had warned him, the Japanese were good at war, and they never gave up. Since August, thousands of Americans had died in a war of attrition just to maintain their toehold in the Solomons. At this rate, it might take a decade and only God knew how many lives before they reached the Japanese home islands.
Reynolds said, “You asked me why I hate the Japs so much.”
“You were right. It’s none of my business.”
“I’m not sure that kind of thinking applies anymore on this boat, Harrison. It’s possible we won’t be coming back.”
Reynolds wanted to unburden himself of his nightmare, and he’d chosen Charlie as his confessor. Charlie no longer felt sure he wanted to hear his confession. He was already scared.
He said, “Do you think we’ll get out of Rabaul alive?”
The exec considered his answer. “We can blame this broke-dick boat all we want, but at some point, we have to take a chance. If we don’t get in the war, we’re just taking up space.”
Charlie had to agree with that.
Then Reynolds told his story, and Charlie listened to every word.
The S-56 had fought a running battle during the retreat from the Philippines. In the Banda Sea, the captain stopped the boat for repairs near Gunung Api, a small island west of Papua New Guinea. That night, a patrolling Japanese destroyer found them.
The Mizukaze, Japanese for “water wind.”
“A Minekaze-class DD, 1,600 tons,” Reynolds elaborated. “An old ship, not nearly as good as the newer Fubuki- and Asashio-class DDs. The Japs use their older DDs for merchant escort and coastal defense. The ship had no business being way out there, but there he was, and he came steaming at us with a bone in his teeth at forty knots.”
The S-56 dived and rigged for silent running as the destroyer thrashed overhead. The ship dropped a pattern of depth charges.
“I remember seeing Captain Scully smile as the explosions rattled the boat. He always did that during a depth charging. He’d break out in a grin like we were kids who’d pulled an epic prank. Then we’d all smile. We knew we were going to be all right.”
The S-56 shook off her pursuer and surfaced, but the destroyer came at her again.
“That Jap skipper was a bloodhound. He kept at us day and night. No matter what we did, he always knew where we were and stayed on top of us. By the third day, we were in trouble. The battery was almost flat. We were out of air. We were going to have to go up and fight it out. Our tubes were dry. All we had was the four-inch deck gun and machine guns.”
They fought in darkness. Tracer rounds flashed between the two vessels. The S-56 scored a hit on the bridge, which disoriented the destroyer, but the ship’s 120-mm guns kept the fire hot. Hills of water rose up around the boat. After a long running battle, a salvo struck her engine room, ejecting flaming debris and bodies across the water.
The S-56 stopped dead. Another shell punched a hole in her motor room below the water line. Smoke billowed from the engine room. Water sprayed high above the stern. The boat groaned and shifted as water gushed inside, drowning the men in the sealed aft compartments.
“The captain tried to surrender. Men jumped up and down on the deck shouting their heads off and waving sheets. The destroyer kept firing. Another salvo blew the deck gun clear into the water. Scully gave orders to abandon ship. Twelve hands made it off the boat before she sank like a stone. The captain said to me, ‘It’s me they want. God be wit
h you.’ He knew what they’d do to him to get information. He went down with the boat.”
The sailors found themselves in a seething sea that was alive with snakes.
“They were everywhere. Thousands. The locals call them cigarette snakes.”
Wide-eyed, Charlie asked, “Are they poisonous?”
“They’re called cigarette snakes because, after you get bit, you have time to enjoy one last smoke before you die.”
The sailors screamed and thrashed at the snakes. Two men were bitten. Wearing life jackets, they stayed afloat, their dead faces bobbing in the water. The rest fought to stay calm as the snakes, normally not aggressive, writhed curiously around their warm bodies.
“The destroyer steamed past nice and slow. The Japs lined the gunwales in their clean white uniforms and pointed down at us. Many appeared sickened by the sight of us wrapped in an endless floating carpet of snakes. Others laughed. An officer had a rifle and did some target practice shooting at our heads. That’s when I saw the Jap skipper. He was short and had a flat face that looked down at us without any expression. Like his face was carved of wood. Like we weren’t human beings he was looking at, but ants that were being stepped on. The officer took a shot at me. Moore’s skull popped like a grape in the corner of my eye. Something warm struck my ear. While the Japs cheered, I thought, ‘I’ve never truly known hate until now.’”
The destroyer left them to die in the sea. The sailors clung to each other, floating on the cold current while hundreds of snakes crawled over them. One man fell into shock and went under, never to emerge. Another simply gave up and let himself die.
The next day, the scorching tropical sun beat down on seven survivors. Unrelenting heat and thirst. Their only relief was that they floated away from the snakes. That night, the sharks came.
“Big hammerheads. I know they were hammerheads because I saw one rear out of the water and rip one of the manifoldmen in half with a single bite.”
The survivors shouted to each other in the dark, trying to maintain contact. One by one, the men screamed and sank out of sight. The next morning, only Reynolds and Heller, the soundman, remained alive.
They started jury rigging a raft from some debris floating on the water.
“We drifted along while it got dark again. I saw some drifting planks of wood and swam off to get them. When I looked back, Heller was gone. I called out to him and got no answer. I was alone. After another day of that unending hell, I knew I was going to die. Drifting in the dark, I saw my wife and children, my mom and dad. I voiced all my regrets and gratitude and said goodbye to them. I grew up in Kansas all over again, saw the odd turns of life that led me to the Naval Academy and a life on the boats. I saw flashes in the dark as the destroyer punched holes in the 56 and blew her guts into the sea. I saw Scully say, ‘God be with you,’ as he disappeared down the hatch to die with his boat. I heard the terrified screams of the men—men I’d served with, men I loved and called my friends—as they died in the water.”
The moon emerged from the clouds, and he saw the dead faces of the entire crew bobbing in the water. For the rest of the night, he heard them screaming.
Some locals rowed out in a sampan and pulled him out of the water raving. They handed him over to some Dutch missionaries passing by on a refugee ship. An American patrol boat stopped the ship near the Australian coastal city of Cairns and took Reynolds aboard.
At a hospital in Cairns, he healed his ravaged body and faked his way through repeated psychiatric evaluations. He returned to duty and reported as exec to the S-55. He would have taken any job the Navy offered him, as long as he got to kill Japs, but he particularly enjoyed being executive officer. As exec on a sugar boat, he got to push the firing button.
“I’d like to stand here and say my faith in God pulled me through, my love for my family, an indestructible will to live, but that part of me died in the Banda Sea when I said goodbye to everything I ever loved. The only thing that got me through was my hate for that Jap ship and its heartless skipper who looked down at us like we weren’t even there.”
The exec turned to wipe tears from his face. Of rage or loss, Charlie didn’t know. He looked away, stunned by what he’d heard.
Reynolds said, “Now you know how bad I want to kill Japs, Harrison. And that I’m going to sink the Mizukaze no matter how long it takes, no matter what the cost.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
RABAUL
Fortress Rabaul. The lion’s den. A hub of merchant shipping that was the lifeblood of an empire that controlled one-tenth of the world. Home of the IJN’s Eighth Fleet.
Located on the northeastern tip of New Britain, the town had been built in a sunken caldera along the natural anchorage of Simpson Harbor. Forested mountains loomed beyond the town. Vulcan Volcano smoked in the western jungle.
Before the Japanese came, the island had been an Australian territory. Australian units had been sent to fight in North Africa, leaving the garrison depleted. The Japanese landed in January 1942, swept aside the defenders, and hunted them down in the jungle. Then they turned the town into an impregnable land, air, and naval base ringed by artillery and anti-aircraft guns.
The captain studied the harbor defenses through the periscope and whistled at the view. His officers eyed him anxiously.
“All ahead one-third,” he said. “Steady as she goes.”
The S-55 crept as close to the harbor mouth as Kane dared take her.
“I see a lot of ships tied up,” he observed. “What do you think, Reynolds? They’re all lined up in a row, like sitting ducks. Maybe we should go in there and take them out.”
“I was thinking, we could skirt around—”
“I was joking, Reynolds.”
Entering the harbor would be suicide. Assuming the S-55 could navigate the minefields without being blown out of the water, she’d have to stay out of contact of roaming patrol boats. Then she’d be in shallow waters—clearly visible and with nowhere to dive deep to escape.
They’d just have to wait until some ships came out.
The problem was they only had enough fuel and provisions for four days before they had to turn back for Brisbane. They had no idea when a ship might emerge from the harbor mouth. It might be hours, it might be days, maybe even weeks.
“It’s too bad,” Kane said. “I can see the meatballs on their sides.” Japanese naval insignia, a blood-red sun on a white field. “Makes a nice target.”
Sound waves thudded against the hull. Distant booms.
The men glanced at each other.
“MacArthur’s bombers,” the captain said. “It’s raining hell up there. The B-17s are stirring up the hornets’ nest. I see Zeros flying everywhere. Down scope. Helm, right full rudder.”
“Right full rudder, aye, Captain,” answered the helmsman. He turned the wheel.
“I wonder how they like having bombs dropped on their heads,” Rusty said.
“Come to east,” Kane ordered. “Maintain speed. All compartments, stand by to dive.”
He was turning the boat around. The S-55 was visible from the air, and although the Zeros were preoccupied with the bombers overhead, Kane was wisely avoiding any risk of detection. He didn’t want the enemy to know he was there until his first torpedo hit.
More than that, he wanted to get as far away from the bombing as possible. The B-17 “flying fortresses” weren’t precision weapons; they dropped big sledgehammers from 18,000 feet. It would be in keeping with Frankie’s luck to have come all this way to the lion’s den only to be sunk by an errant 500-pound bomb made in the U.S.A.
“Dive. Eighty feet. Battery, how much juice do we have in the can?”
The hull vibrated with booms thudding in rapid succession.
The telephone talker relayed the battery room’s answer. The captain nodded, satisfied.
“All ahead flank.”
The submarine glided across Blanche Bay to safer waters.
The captain clapped Charlie on the shoulder. �
�Wait and hurry up, Harrison.”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie said with a smile.
He felt the same excitement that infected the rest of the crew, who imagined returning to base with a broom tied to the shears and several meatballs painted on the hull.
The broom signified a “clean sweep,” a patrol in which all torpedoes were fired. The meatball insignia were brags of ships sunk.
He didn’t think they’d have to wait much longer. The bombing was likely to get the Japanese thinking about accelerating departure schedules. Ships might be on the move soon.
The S-55 would reach Duke of York Island by nightfall. There, her engines would recharge the battery. Then the old sea wolf would become a hunter. And return to Simpson Harbor.
“Why don’t you get some rest?” Kane suggested.
When the captain made a suggestion, it was best to consider it an order. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“You too, Rusty. Don’t worry, you won’t miss anything.”
The officers retired to their stateroom and collapsed on their bunks. Charlie stared at the bulkhead, thinking of everything and nothing at the same time, his mind racing but unable to fix on a specific point. Rusty appeared to be in the same condition. He picked up his thick book and tried to read, but he put it away. Then he started a letter but crumpled up the page minutes later.
“It’s funny how you bring a book on a patrol, and you don’t think it might be the last book you ever read,” he said. “You write a letter to home, and you never think, ‘This is it. This is the last thing I’ll ever say to them.’ But when you do think it, it becomes impossible to read or write. Then it becomes impossible to think at all. All you know is you don’t want to die.”
Crash Dive: a novel of the Pacific War Page 9
