Getting Walrus ready now took on a new meaning. The war had come home in a particularly personal way. I fretted under the delays and redoubled our efforts at training and preparation. March drew to a close; April came and went and our commissioning date grew nearer. I was wrapped up all day long with Walrus, all night studying her plans and specifications and the way we had to fit ourselves into them.
The weeks passed on winged feet.
Jim still made his week-end pilgrimages to New Haven, and once in a while probably had Laura with him at the Club at the submarine base or elsewhere in New London.
With the ship under construction there were no watches to stand or to prevent his having every week end to himself if he could arrange his work and responsibilities accordingly.
Hugh Adams and Dave Freeman reported fresh out of the submarine school the first week in April. Adams was tall and gangling, nearly as tall as Jim, with an unruly thatch of red- dish hair and a heavy crop of freckles. He could have passed for a high-school senior anywhere. Freeman, a small, intense youth, contrasted violently with Adams in appearance and personality. It was bard to conceive of these two having been roommates and best friends in Quarters "D" at the submarine school or even having anything at all in common. I felt immediately drawn to Hugh Adams. Freeman, with his reserved, less colorful personality, would take more developing, but seemed to have a certain seriousness of purpose about him.
The meticulously careful handling required for codes, ciphers, and classified documents would be his dish, I thought, as I made the assignments designating him Communications Officer. Adams could be understudy to Daddy Schultz as Assistant Engineer.
We got Walrus to sea for the first time the last week in April, or rather Electric Boat did. By the terms of their contract the boat company's trial crew had to take all newly constructed submarines out in the Sound for proof dives and operation of equipment before turning them over to the Navy.
It felt odd to be a guest in my own ship, and stranger yet to see a submarine being expertly operated by a bunch of Yard workmen clad in various assorted pieces of civilian work clothes.
The ship was mechanically complete, though hardly a thing of beauty. Yellow chromate paint was everywhere in- side. Her steel decks were covered with heavy cardboard rather than the prescribed linoleum. Discarded pieces of cable were lying about and large chunks of cork, rags, dirt of all kinds were in the corners and underfoot. She presented an unkempt appearance, but I had to admire the way the trial crew went about their business. There were only fifteen of them, just enough to operate the ship-no more.
Half our crew had to remain ashore to make room for official observers, and the resulting ship's company, if you could term it that for this first trip-was a strange one, with divergent interests all over the place. The Trial Captain, Captain Morgan, rode serenely above it all. He was at least sixty years old, had been with submarines, all his life, and his handling of Walrus was finesse itself. Disdaining the proffered assistance of two tugs standing by off the end of the pier, he backed her smartly out into the Thames River, turned her on her keel with one propeller going ahead, the other backing, and headed her swiftly downstream. The unused tugs followed to act as safety observers when we submerged.
Our first dive was in great contrast to the first dive of the Poles in S-16. Captain Morgan's objective was to test Walrus for the tightness of her welded seams. First came a thorough air pressure test; satisfied, he eased her down gently, testing her balance as he did so and letting water into her variable water tanks a little at a time until finally he had both sub- merged and obtained a perfect initial trim. "None of these slide-rule calculations for me!" he told us. Then two more dives, a few rapid surface tests including hard-over rudder with the ship going full speed astern, and he was satisfied for the first day.
"We used to try a boat for a week before turning her over to the Navy," he told me, "but they are rolling so many off the lines these days, all exactly alike, that all we need to do now is test the hull for tightness and the systems to see if they work. You've got a good ship here, boy."
I could not object to his calling me "boy," for he had retired from the Navy before I had even entered the First Grade. Most of his crew likewise were retired Navy personnel, nearly all Chief Petty Officers, each an expert in his-own line or trade.
Twice more the trial crew took Walrus out in the Sound, until the inspectors and supervisors were satisfied. A few more days of cleaning her up, laying the linoleum, scraping off excess paint, and then Captain Morgan delivered her to one of the piers at the submarine base, upriver. I read my orders to the assembled crew in the presence of a small group of visitors and we all stood rigidly at salute as the United States flag was hoisted on her stern. Walrus was ours, the newest unit of the fleet.
Our work had just started. Now it was drilling the crew aboard ship, over and over again going through the myriads of details necessary to the effective operation of a fleet-type submarine. We were assigned an area in Long Island Sound and every day, Sunday included, we took Walrus out and went through our paces. The only days we stayed in port were when we had to provision ship, take on fuel, or make some small repair.
At first there was simply the matter of being able to dive.
Time after time we went through the motions. Time after time we dived, got the boat trimmed to a hair of submerged balance, made a few simple submerged maneuvers, and surfaced again. Each of the three sections into which the crew was divided was required to be able to dive, get a trim, and operate the ship independently. Each of the officers, Hugh Adams and Dave Freeman as Well as the rest, had to take his turn handling a dive, handling the main engines, working out on the levers in the maneuvering room, firing torpedoes, getting under way, and making landings.
There was no denying that it was a tough grind, and it gradually became tougher as the tempo of our days' operations speeded up. We were not weighted With a class of trainees from the submarine school, required to do the same thing with a different group time after time, and we progressed steadily to high-speed maneuvers, quick dives, in which the diving alarm is sounded without warning of any kind, and simulated casualties of all sorts. The section on watch got so they could man their posts with instant alertness, ready at any second to send Walrus below into the sheltering depths, or to handle any emergency, submerged or on the surface.
A lot of our work was on attack procedures. First we went to Newport, Rhode Island, took on a load of exercise fish, and-fired them in Narragansett Bay, one after the other, to determine that the torpedo tubes were properly bore-sighted and that the torpedoes would go where aimed. Then we began to carry out approaches using the Falcon, Vixen, or some- times another submarine, — anything that came handy. Every time we could get more than two targets at once we pretended some were escort vessels. Torpedo after torpedo we shot in the safe waters of Long Island Sound, learning the fundamentals of our new fire-control equipment.
Keith, the TDC operator, was a very real help during an approach. He had never seen a TDC before but its functions were obvious and well laid out, and he showed himself, as usual, quick to learn.
Jim, so burdened with work that he seemed by this time to have forgotten his original bad feeling, was also a tower of strength as Assistant Approach Officer.
Tom Schultz, of course, was back at his old stand, either in the engine rooms or handling the dive during battle stations submerged.
After a month of practice we were ready for our final operational inspection at the hands of Captain Blunt. We were assigned the deepest area in Long Island Sound, not very deep at that for a boat like Walrus. To the westward the Falcon, Vixen, and Semmes formed the "convoy" we were to attack. Blunt, Jim, and I, and Hugh Adams as Officer of the Deck, were on the bridge; above us on the upper level of the periscope supports stood four lookouts with binoculars; on the "cigarette deck" Rubinoffski, Quar- termaster of the Watch, also simulated aircraft watch with binoculars.
The Vixen, playing the p
art of a Jap troop transport, had not yet turned around to head for us. I was watching her idly, my binoculars scanning the horizon, when suddenly I heard a stentorian bellow: "Plane on the starboard quarter!" Captain Blunt was shouting at the top of his lungs and pointing off our stern.
Involuntarily I swung my binoculars to see it. The Squadron Commander shouted again, pointed violently. "Plane coming in on our starboard quarter!" He pointed again.
Hugh looked back uncertainly, then made up his mind and reached for the diving alarm. "Clear the bridge!" he shouted as he pressed the, diving alarm twice. There was a pop from forward as Number One main ballast tank vent went open. Then another pop as Number Two did likewise. Three and Five had fuel in them, but within less than a second, Four, Six, and Seven popped in their turn and little geysers of spray blew up through our slotted deck. The lookouts came tumbling down from their upper platform, protecting their binoculars with their arms across their chests, diving for the hatch. Back aft I could see the wake of water thrown astern by the suddenly speeded-up propellers, and up forward the bow commenced to settle in the water. Captain Blunt was grinning at me and he had a stop watch in his hand. It had already traveled a quarter of the way around the dial.
"Didn't you see the plane, Rich?" he chuckled.
There was no time to engage in conversation, even if Captain Blunt would, have liked to, for Walrus was already on her way down. Jim, the Squadron Commander, and I ran to the hatch. I motioned Jim down ahead of me and then Blunt. Hugh Adams was right behind us, as Officer of the Deck he would be last man below on a dive. I jumped down the hatch, stood clear for Hugh. He came down, slammed the hatch shut, and leaned back on the wire toggle holding it in place. Rubinoffski, having preceded us, was standing by, the helmsman; now he jumped up on the ladder rungs, grasped the hatch wheel and locked it firmly. Adams released the wire lanyard and dashed below.
Walrus' deck tilted forward a little more, and I could hear water gurgling up the sides of the conning tower. The needle on the conning-tower depth gauge wavered off its peg, commenced to climb.
"Depth, Captain?" came floating up the hatch from Hugh.
"One hundred feet," I called in return. I turned to Captain Blunt. "If it were a plane we should go deeper but we'd better not here; the sound is too shallow for a big boat like this."
He nodded.
"Sixty feet," said Rubinoffski, as the depth gauge reached that point.
The Squadron Commander looked at his stop watch. "Sixty- one seconds. That's only fair. Won't she dive any faster?"
"I think you caught Adams a little by surprise, sir."
"Walrus has got to stay on her toes, Rich. You'd be Surprised how many boats don't even think of diving out from under attacking planes until they get to Pearl Harbor and talk to some of their buddies."
We could hear the bustle below, the slamming of water tight doors, the securing of ventilation pipe bulkhead valves.
The conning tower commenced to warm up rapidly with the air supply cut off.
"One hundred feet, Captain! The ship is rigged for depth charge!" Hugh Adams' voice came easily up the open hatch- way from the control room below.
"Very well," I answered. I leaned over the hatch, raised my voice to, make sure of being heard: "Secure from depth charge! Sixty feet!" Walrus inclined upward. Again the banging of bulkhead doors and ventilation valves as they were opened. The depth gauge at my elbow slowly recorded the decrease in depth. When it touched seventy feet I started the periscope on its way up. Rubinoffski leaped forward and relieved me of the pickle control button.
I was looking through the periscope when it broke the surface, spun it around three times swiftly.
"Down scope!" The sheaves creaked and the periscope bottom disappeared. "Three ships in sight, Commodore.
Looks like our target group with a large angle on the bow."
"Ya don't say!"
I waited. Old Blunt was giving me that shaggy-eyebrow look and suddenly the light dawned. "Enemy in sight!" I rapped out. "Sound the general alarm!"
Walrus' general alarm sounded like a musical doorbell, except that it kept going for eleven seconds after you let go the knob. The musical "Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong" reverberated through the ship, and I heard men dashing about below. Jim, Keith, Hugh Adams, Quin, and several others climbed swiftly up the nearly vertical ladder and joined us in the conning tower.
"Conning tower manned and ready, skipper!" reported Jim.
Within a few moments, — less than a minute-Quin had received the telephone reports: "The ship is at battle stations, sir," he said.
Keith was spinning the dials of his TDC. It gave forth a low-pitched siren-like whine as the motors came up to speed.
"Initial bearing of target?" he said to me.
Rubinoffski sang out the answer: "Two-six-six!"
"Angle on the bow?"
This was mine. "About port forty." Keith gave a low whistle.
"Give them an initial range of ten thousand, — that puts us nearly seven thousands yards off the track!"
This meant that unless the target group zigged toward us we would have to go three and a half miles to reach a firing position, and during the time this would take a submarine the target would have to travel only about a mile farther.
Barring unusually slow enemy speed or a radical zig toward, this meant there could be no hope whatsoever of our catching up.
"Up periscope," I ordered. Maybe another look would give us more specific information, show the situation less unfavorable. The scope slithered up. Rubinoffski swung it to the bearing on which I had seen the targets.
In Walrus we had decided that Rubinoffski, instead of Jim, would be "periscope jockey," thus leaving Jim free to ride herd on Keith and the other conning-tower personnel insure that things progressed as they ought, and back me up as Assistant Approach Officer.
"Bearing-Mark!" as I laid the vertical cross hair on Vixen's mast. "Range-" my right hand fell to the range crank. I only saw the tops of Vixen, — the ends of her masts and a broad structure that was probably her bridge. Two other masts, other ships-one to left and one to right. They would be Falcon and Semmes. Vixen had two masts about equal in height; that was how I knew it was she.
"Use masthead height thirty feet," I snapped, then repeated, "Range-Mark." At the word "Mark" I had cranked the range knob around so that the target divided itself in two, and I laid the tip of the mast in one image alongside the squat structure which I took to be Vixen's bridge in the other. The total height from the tip of the mast to the water- line would be about sixty feet. Thirty feet would be a good guess for the height of the mast above the bridge.
Rubinoffski was studying the range dial on his side of the periscope. As I gave the — Mark' he swiftly read off the range opposite the thirty-foot masthead height marker.
"Eight-eight-double-oh," he said.
"Down periscope." I turned to the rear of the conning tower where Keith was still twisting dials on the TDC, inserting the latest bearing and range information.
Jim, on the other side of the compartment, somewhat closer to me, was setting up the Is-Was.
"Angle on the bow port forty," I said.
Jim twisted the Is-Was dials. Keith gave one last turn lo the range knob of the TDC, adjusted the "Target Course knob, leaned back a few inches. Jim and I crowded in to look at it.
"Not so good, skipper," said Jim. "We'll have to run like a rabbit to get over there."
Keith nodded. "Distance to the track is five thousand yards."
"What's the normal approach course?" I asked. The normal approach courser steers the submarine toward an imaginary point ahead of the target such that the submarine will have the shortest possible distance to run-and the target the longest.
Jim spun the dials of the Is-Was, looked at it searchingly.
"One-seven-zero, " he said.
"One-seven-zero, sir!" Keith corroborated from the TDC.
"Left to one-seven-zero," I called to the helmsman at the ot
her end Of the conning tower. "All ahead full."
The clink of the annunciators. "Left to one-seven-zero.
Answered all ahead full, sir!" The battle-stations helmsman was a new man, a Quartermaster third by the name of Oregon who had been added to the old S-16 complement to build Walrus up to the seventy men required for her crew.
I waited half a minute, until the ship was swinging nicely.
"All ahead one third!" I ordered. We should not get too much way on the ship quite yet.
Another half-minute. "Steady on one-seven-oh!" Oregon's nasal twang.
It was what I had been waiting for. "Up periscope!" I swung it to the bearing. "Bearing-Mark!"
"Zero-eight-two!" There was hardly a pause between my "Mark" and Rubinoffski's reading of the azimuth circle, "Range-Mark!'
"Eight-four-double-oh!"
"Down scope! All ahead full-control, one hundred feet!"
I turned to Jim and Keith. "No zig yet. Angle on the bow about forty-five port."
Crossing to the hatch leading below, I looked down on the top of Tom Schultz' balding head. "We'll try her this way for another minute, Tom," I told him. "He's got to zig sometime!"
Tom looked up and nodded. "One hundred feet, aye, aye!"
We could sense the increased throb of Walrus' propellers, and her deck inclined down by the bow.
Walrus could make nearly nine knots at full speed-though not for long, of course, because even her huge battery could only last about an hour at the high discharge rate required.
The question was how long to run before taking another look; and every look required slowing down, planing back up to periscope depth.
At nine knots the periscope would throw up a spray visible for miles. If we slowed down to make a periscope observation we would lose ground in our race to catch the Vixen. If we didn't look, a big zig might leave us in an even worse position.
Run Silent, Run Deep Page 10
