Run Silent, Run Deep

by Edward L. Beach

  I leaned over Keith's shoulder, watched the dials going around on the face of the TDC. One of the two biggest dials indicated our own ship's course, the other that of the target.

  The six-inch line between their centers represented the line of sight down which I looked every time we used the periscope.

  Other smaller dials placed symmetrically, showed target speed, our own speed, gyro angles, time elapsed, and various other bits of pertinent information. Beneath the face of the instrument were two rows, of cranks by which data could be inserted or changed.

  One minute since the last observation. Perhaps a zig toward will have taken place since we last looked.

  "Control, six-oh feet!"

  "All ahead one third!" Almost a minute to wait, while Tom planed up and the ship slowed down. Finally…

  "Up periscope!" The handles gently rose into my waiting hands. "Bearing-Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope!"

  "He's zigged, all right!" I spoke with feeling. "Zigged away, that's what. Angle on the bow is port seventy!"

  Keith spun the new data into the TDC. Jim, with a single twist, of his right hand, reoriented the Is-Was.

  "Control! One hundred feet! All ahead full!" We felt the ship dip once again, and the communicated throb of our screws Jim stood behind me, studying the face of the TDC and occasionally glancing at his Is-Was. Captain Blunt, in deference to the crowded conditions in the conning tower, was making himself as small as possible in a comer of space between the two periscope hoist motors. Crowded in behind us, Hugh Adams bent over the track chart he had started on a tiny table top nestled into the after part of the conning tower.

  Time moved with lead shoes while I looked at the slowly creeping "own ship" and 'target' dials, and the speedometer- type distance counter ticking off the reduction in range as target and submarine ran for the same imaginary point.

  "Dammit!" I muttered, under my breath. "Where does he think he's going anyway!"

  The timer on the TDC indicated two minutes since I had last looked through the periscope. We could hear a throbbing, almost a musical note, as Walrus tore through the water. A lifeline perhaps, or some excessive vibration in a stanchion or hand rail. I made a mental note to look into it and see if we could stop the noise. Jap sonar, so the first reports had commented, was better than we had anticipated, and it would be well not to make any avoidable noise.

  Two and a half minutes. Jim broke the silence. "Captain, do you think he knows where we are? He never got a chance to shine the light on us…"

  It was true, and I had been thinking along the same lines.

  The procedure for practice approaches specified that the target's initial base course should be the direction of the sub- marine from the target at the time the searchlight was extinguished. If Vixen had not happened to see us dive or had failed to make note of our true bearing during the moments just before we dived, it was quite possible that her skipper was actually in doubt as to what his base course ought to be.

  "Dammit, anyway!" I said again. Three minutes came up.

  We could not wait any longer. "All ahead one third!" I ordered the helmsman.

  Answered "One third, sir" from Oregon after the annunciators clinked.

  Quin was watching me gravely.

  "Control-six-two feet," I told him.

  Quin relayed the word and in a moment I heard Tom acknowledge by calling up through the open batch.

  It would take us a minute to slow down and there was nothing to do but chew our fingernails until Tom got us near enough to the surface and our speed had reduced that we could use the periscope.

  Captain Blunt was looking at me as if about to say some- thing. "Anything wrong up there, Rich?" The drawl in his voice was out of character for him.

  "Yes, there is, sir," I snapped, somehow irritated by his lack of concern. "I don't know where this fool is going. Maybe he is running target for another submarine somewhere else."

  Blunt's drawl was even deeper. "What d'ya expect? Are the Japs going to run right at you and make it easy?" Suddenly the familiar incisive note was back in his voice. "Listen, Richardson, that is one of the things wrong around here. The big problem is to get in front of the target. Anybody ought to be able to hit him with a torpedo after that. Getting into attack position is ninety per cent of the job. Too many of our people seem to think the Japs are going to shine a search- light at them and zigzag happily down to where the submarine has been waiting." Again that sardonic glitter.

  "Nuts!" he said.

  There was no contesting his point.

  The ship's speed indicator located on the bulkhead near Oregon's steering wheel showed three and a fraction knots; giving me an opportunity to break away gracefully from Captain Blunt. The depth gauge showed sixty-two feet keel depth.

  "Up periscope," I ordered. A quick one this time: "Bearing- Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope!" I turned back to the TDC where Keith was inserting the information as relayed by Rubinoffski.

  "Target's angle on the bow, port ninety," I said sarcastically.

  "He zigged away again."

  Keith changed the target course by the requisite amount.

  Jim did likewise with the Is-Was, then both turned to me.

  "This is no good, skipper," Jim said. "He's not playing the same game we are."

  I wavered in indecision. Maybe we ought to abandon the approach and surface, signaling Vixen to start over again. It had been done before…

  "Don't forget this fellow's a Jap," I found myself saying.

  Then to Oregon at the other end of the conning tower, "All ahead, flank!" and to Tom, "One hundred feet!"

  At flank speed the Electrician's Mates poured everything the battery could give into the motors and the whole frame of the ship trembled with the added power. You could feel her accelerate like a living thing as she drove forward. She couldn't last long, not over a half-hour more at this speed.

  This was all we could do-our maximum effort. But in- decision still gripped me. What if Vixen zigged. even farther away? What if we used up the whole battery in a fruitless chase? We might very well do this, all to no purpose. The dials on the TDC gave no comfort, either, for they now showed Walrus and Vixen running on parallel courses about five thou- sand yards apart. This could go on indefinitely, or until our battery gave out. If we turned toward the "enemy," Vixen would swiftly pass ahead, never once having come close to torpedo range, and we would be left with a hopeless stern chase. The only thing to do was to keep going and hope the next zig of the target would be in our direction.

  The timer ticked off another minute and I bent over Hugh Adams' plotting sheet, shooting a fleeting look at old Blunt is I did so, hardly hoping for a suggestion and finding none in his customarily grim visage. Hugh's chart contained a paucity of information; merely the location of the two ships and lines showing their respective movements. I studied it carefully.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind a forgotten idea was stirring.

  I tried to wrest it from Hugh's plot without success. A look at the TDC, nearly blocked by Jim and Keith's shoulders.

  Nothing unusual there. Back to the chart.

  "What was the initial bearing of the target when we dived?"

  I asked Hugh.

  He silently indicated a lightly penciled line near the right- hand edge of the paper. "This is about what it was, sir. I had to work backward a little after we figured out which way he was going "Is this north?" I indicated the head of the paper.

  Adams nodded.

  Still the idea wouldn't come, and then suddenly it there, full grown. I looked for the Squadron Commander;- he was studying the dials and instruments alongside Oregon; our helmsman.

  "Rubinoffski," I muttered under my breath, "where's the area chart?"

  The Quartermaster reached under Adams' desk and pulled out a rolled up navigational chart of Long Island Sound.

  "Didn't I see something about net-testing operations?" I asked him.

  "Yes sir." Rubinoffski's tapering forefinger indicated a
freshly inked line about one inch long on the chart.

  Another observation was due. "All ahead, one third." The singing note changed as the boat began to slow down.

  "Hugh!" I said, pointing to the net-testing area on Rubinoffski's chart, "transfer this line to your plotting sheet.

  Also draw in the location of Little Gull Island, the mid-channel Whistle buoy, and that danger buoy we received notice of last week."

  I went back to the TDC and drew Jim aside to give him a few last-minute instructions. Jim was, among other things, in charge of our firing check-off list pasted in the overhead of the conning tower. We had so far accomplished only two of the half-dozen or so items listed thereon.

  Walrus slowed and at the same time neared the newly ordered depth for the next periscope look. I had told Tom to bring her only to sixty-three feet-a foot deeper than the previous observation. This meant that with the periscope fully extended, only three and a half feet of it would project above the surface of the water. It was desirable to have less and less periscope visible, of course, during the latter stages of an approach.

  The speed was just on three knots as the periscope came up.

  I grasped the handles, started going around with it before it had stopped its upward motion, completed a full circle before it was fully raised.

  "Down scope," and the periscope dropped away. I turned to the TDC. "Angle on the bow, point one hundred. Stand by for an observation.'

  Keith pursed his lips, turned the target course knob slightly.

  Jim, fiddling with the Is-Was, looked unhappy.

  Hugh Adams in his corner was still busy, and Captain Blunt was watching gravely.

  I motioned with my thumbs for the periscope. It slithered up into my hands.

  "Bearing-Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope.

  Jim held up a stop watch with a sidelong approving look for me to see as I turned toward him. It indicated seven and a half seconds-the time the periscope had been out of water.

  As soon as Keith had finished setting in Rubinoffski's readings I gave him the angle on the bow. "No change," I said.

  Adams stepped back from his table and I crowded over be- side him.

  My hunch had been correct. The danger buoy, the whistle buoy, the net emplacement, and Little Gull Island all lay approximately in a row athwart our target's course. He had to come toward us. He could not go through them, and there was no other way for him to turn.

  "We'll be shooting in a few minutes. Make the tubes ready forward, Jim," I said.

  Jim motioned to Quin. "Tubes forward, flood tubes. Set depth thirty feet. Speed high." He reached up with the pencil marked off an item on big check-off list.

  "Right full rudder," I told Oregon.

  I could see the Squadron Commander lean forward taking it all in with a confused frown. This time he was going to get some of big own medicine.

  Keith looked up at me puzzled. "Did you say angle on the bow was port one hundred?"

  "A little more if anything. Give him one-oh-five, port."

  With a look of disbelief Keith made the adjustment.

  "What's the course to head for him?" I asked.

  Keith reached up with his finger to aid in measuring the angle. Jim beat him to it from the Is-Wag. "Two-two-six!"

  "Two-two-eight." Keith's answer differed slightly from Jim's.

  I raised my voice for Oregon to hear. "Steady on course one-nine-zero!" This would lead the target by a few degrees as he came toward us.

  Nearly a minute passed. I was aware of a worried frown on the Commodore's face from where he stood between the periscope hoist motors.

  "Steady on one-nine-zero, sir!" from Oregon.

  I motioned for the periscope, took another look. Range and bearing were fed into the TDC. "No change on angle on the bow," I said. I caught Captain Blunt's increasingly puzzled expression; Keith also glanced at me uneasily. I would have informed Jim and Keith but could not; catching old Joe Blunt by surprise just once was too good to risk losing. I could see him itching to question me, and finally it was too much for hint to stand.

  "Good God, Rich! What in hell are you trying to do?"

  "Nothing special, sir." A look of bland innocence. "We are getting near the firing point and I'm getting ready to fire our salvo."

  "Tubes forward flooded. Depth set thirty feet. Speed high," from Quin.

  Jim made another check on the overhead, as I nodded to him.

  "Open the outer doors forward," he said.

  Quin repeated the command over the telephone.

  Captain Blunt seemed about to leap out from between the periscope motors.

  "What did you say the angle on the bow was?" he growled.

  "Port one-one-five, sir."

  "Range?"

  "About four thousand."

  "Richardson, if you're playing games with me."

  "No, sir," I said as blandly as I could, "we will probably be shooting in around three minutes on this course."

  The puzzled look increased on Blunt's face. He was famed for his uncanny ability to retain the picture of a submarine approach and do practically all the calculations in his head without mechanical assistance. He had, of course, missed my low-voiced interchange with Hugh.

  "Observation!" I rapped out, motioning with my thumbs to Rubinoffski to start the scope up as I squatted before it.

  "Be ready to stop it short," I told him. He nodded. The periscope handles hit my outstretched hands. I snapped them down. Rubinoffski put the scope on the target bearing, different now because of our course change.

  "… Mark!"

  "Zero-five-eight!"

  "Range-Mark!"

  "Three-oh-five-oh!"

  I spun the periscope in a complete circle before letting it dart back into its well, lingered for barely an instant on the other two ships. We were well clear of both, and neither, so far as I could see, had seen us.

  "Angle on the how, port thirty."

  Keith leaped at the handles of the TDC, commenced cranking them energetically with both hands.

  Jim was hurriedly twisting the dials of his Is-Was. I Waited, shot the periscope up and down once more. "Zero-two- five… one-eight-five-oh!" said Rubinoffski.

  "Port sixty… stand by forward," I barked.

  Jim followed me up. "Stand by forward."

  Quin picked up the phone. "Stand by forward."

  "This is a shooting observation." I tried to make my voice dry and unemotional. "We will shoot three exercise torpedoes, set to pass beneath the target's keel. We are inside the screen.

  Semmes will pass astern of us immediately after we shoot.

  Falcon is on the far side and will be no trouble. Up scope!"

  I had studiously avoided the use of the word "Fire." The handles of the periscope came into my palms. I went up with it, setting it on the target.

  "Rubinoffski was watching the azimuth just as Keith had done for Jim several months earlier. The situation, in many respects, was very similar. A lot depended on Walrus being found ready.

  "Mark!"

  "Zero-one-two!"

  "Set!"

  This was Keith, indicating that the bearing from the periscope had been set into the TDC.

  "Shoot!" I said.

  Jim was watching the angle-solver part of the TDC where a red "F" was plainly to be seen.

  "Fire!" he shouted.

  Quin had turned around, was now facing the firing panel, an elongated metal box with a series of glass windows in its cover through three of which red lights glowed, and below the lights a group of switches. Beneath the firing panel was the firing key, a plunger topped with a round brass plate curved to fit the palm of one's hand. At the word "Fire" Quin reached up to the firing panel, turned the first of the line of switches with his left hand, pressed the firing key with his right.

  "Fire One!" he said into the phone. He held the firing key down for a perceptible instant, then released it, flipped the first switch upright, and turned the second switch to the hori- zontal position. He w
aited another instant and then pressed the firing key once more.

  "Fire Two!" he announced into the phone. "Fire Three!"

  The same process was repeated.

  We could feel three solid jolts as our three torpedoes went their way.

  I motioned for the periscope, swung it around. Semmes was still clear. Three torpedo tracks diverging slightly were fanning out toward Vixen's bow. It looked as though they would pass ahead.

  "Down scope!" I turned to Jim. "Have we fired the flare?"

  "Yessir!" Tom Schultz shot the flare as soon as Quin fired the first torpedo.

  Our instructions were to fire a submarine flare from the signal ejector in the control room at the instant of firing torpedoes. This would aid in marking the original point of release and assist in their recovery.

  I kept Captain Blunt in his niche a little longer by motioning for the periscope again and taking another sweep around.

  I had Rubinoffski stop a bit short of full extension and because of my bent-over position Blunt had to suck in his breath to allow my posterior to pass clear. I swung around twice an then fixed on the Vixen just in time to see our torpedo spread intersect her hull.

  "A hit," I announced calmly, collecting myself in time to avoid shouting. "I think all three torpedoes passed under the target…. Range-Mark!"

  "One-three-five-oh!" from Rubinoffski.

  "That checks TDC!" from Keith.

  I felt myself rudely shouldered aside. "Let me see, damn you!"

  Captain Blunt had pushed his cap on the back of his head so that its bill would not get in the way of the periscope eye- piece. He planted himself firmly in front of it, stared through it.

  "This is the first time I have ever seen this kind of an approach, but there he is all right. Did you pull this one out of your hat?" His eyes remained at the scope.

  "It was nothing at all, Commodore," I said at his side. "I just did what you said a while ago, pretended we were patrolling off the coast of Japan."

  Blunt gave forth with an unintelligible grunt.

  "And of course," I went on, "I naturally took a good look at the chart of the Jap coast."

  The Squadron Commander jerked away from the periscope, glaring.