Run Silent, Run Deep

by Edward L. Beach

  We had two day of training, "refresher training" it was called-and then for two days- more we loaded, fueled, and, — provisioned the ship. On the eighteenth day after arriving at Midway from our second war patrol Walrus got under way for her third, bound this time for Palau and the area between R and New Guinea. As a matter of curiosity I had looked into the situation off the Bungo Suido, partly to see what Stocker' had rtm into while there, and had — found ample evidence Bungo Pete's continuing effectiveness. The Nerka, somehow, had not met with him at all. Perhaps he had been otherwise occupied or under overhaul. But the next submarine in AREA SEVEN had been horribly knocked about and had to return to Midway for emergency repairs. And Turbot, the next one after that, had not been heard from for a long time and became one day overdue from patrol at the time of our own departure from Midway.

  After the Aleutians, Palau was a pleasure cruise, warm an balmy, most of the nights star-lighted, the sea smooth.

  Except for one thing: where our Aleutian patrol had been notable for lack of activity, Palau gave us all we could handle, and then some, nor did it wait for our arrival.

  We ran all the way to Palau on the surface, except for one day spent submerged in the vicinity of Guam so as not to be detected by planes flying patrol from there. We crossed our area boundary at midnight, were speeding southwest in hopes of getting in sight of the main island, Babelthuap, before submerging for the day, when Jim called me to the bridge.

  I was up there within seconds. He had slowed down and we were swinging to the northward.

  "There's a ship, Captain!" He pointed to the southern horizon. I had taken the precaution of keeping red goggles on whenever I went below at night, even when lying down for a few minutes' doze on my bunk. Hence I could see the object he was pointing out almost right away. It was a small vessel, short and stubby, with a lot of top hamper and a single tall thin stack. A small freighter, alone and unprotected "Call the crew to battle stations torpedo, Jim," I ordered.

  He dashed below eagerly. A second later the musical chimes of the general alarm rang forth, and the scurrying of feet told me that Walrus was girding her loins for action. Tom came to the bridge, relieved Keith of the deck; the latter ran below to his TDC. On night surface action Tom had nothing to do unless we dived, hence we had decided that he would relieve whoever happened to have deck at the time, and back me up on the bridge as QOD.

  This indeed seemed a good opportunity to try the night surface attack technique. Our SJ radar had been worked over and much improved during our last refit, and a talk-back circuit had been rigged up between the conning tower and the bridge so that I no longer had the nuisance of trying to shout down through the open hatch or of relaying orders and in- formation by messenger or through the bridge speaker. Word would come up from Jim via the general announcing speaker, as before. In a moment it blared: "Bridge, conn testing!" I picked up my mike: "Loud and clear, conn; how me?"

  Jim's steady voice came back in reply: "I hear you the same!"

  A few seconds later Jim again: "Bridge, the ship is at battle stations. No range yet to the target."

  We were still too far for radar to get a return echo from the target. "Give him eight thousand yards," I called back.

  "Angle on the bow looks like starboard, about broadside, give him starboard ninety! Stand by for a TBT bearing." So saying, I jammed my binoculars into their socket on top of the instrument, twisted it around until the other ship loomed in the center of their field, and pressed the button. In the conning tower the relative bearing would appear on a dial repeater near the TDC, could be set into it exactly as a periscope bearing might. Similarly, Jerry Cohen would set it up on his plotting sheet.

  Without radar ranges, a few bearings alone would give us an idea of the enemy's course and speed. If two of them could be paralleled by accurate ranges, we would have a definite solution, the essential information necessary for accurately angling our torpedoes.

  The objective, of course, was to get the enemy's course and speed quickly, run in close and finish him off before I spotted the submarine or had other opportunity for escape.

  We were still making slow progress on our new course, to the north. To get a radar range it would be necessary to approach a little closer. "Jim, I'm going to change course toward the target to get within radar range," I called down, and directed.

  Oregon to put the rudder full left, calling for more speed as I did so.

  Snorting from her four aroused diesels, Walrus wheeled in the smooth water toward the enemy ship and began to close the range at an oblique angle.

  "Radar contact!" The speaker blared beside me. Then steady voice. "We have him on the radar, Captain. Range six thousand. Give us a bearing!"

  I went through the business of transmitting a TBT bearing below. Approximately a minute later I did the same thing again. In the conning tower they would get a range at the same instant, and the resulting plot would give us enemy course and speed, which was all we needed to know.

  It was time to sheer out again, run on up ahead, attain our firing position, and get ready to let go our salvo; but this was where the roof caved in on us. I was looking at the target through my binoculars, had him clearly in my field of view, when suddenly his whole side erupted into light. At least four simultaneous flashes-two amidships, one on the bow and one on the stern. Seconds later there came a tearing whistle close overhead' As if by magic, four white blossoms appeared in the water, two alongside to starboard, one just astern, one a few feet ahead and to port. Foaming water deluged our forecastle. We had been trapped, as neatly as you please, and by the oldest trick in the book.

  I fumbled frantically for the bridge diving alarm, pressed it hard, twice. "Clear the bridge!" I yelled. "Take her down!"

  Our vents popped, almost simultaneously. Air whistled out of them, casting thin. geysers of vapor up through our deck slats.

  Our four lookouts tumbled down from their perches up on the shears and scuttled for the hatch, Tom right behind them.

  Our bow planes up forward, normally housed against the side of the ship while on the surface, began to turn out and down- into the "rigged out" position for submerged operation.

  I swung back to the enemy, just in time to catch the sec- ond salvo-a bit more ragged than the first. Four more white blossoms in the black ocean, no closer than before, thank God!

  He had some kind of salvo-fire system, and was no doubt firing as fast as he could reload his guns, in a way a fortunate circumstance for us. Also, I noticed, his length had decreased and he was stubbier than ever. Obviously he had turned toward, was racing for us as fast as his engines would drive him.

  Our deck dipped, went under. I was the last man left on the bridge. Time for one last look-a third. salvo coming- not at all together this time. The night was ripped again, once-twice-three times… "WHRANG!" I saw nothing but stars and bright flashes. A hit! We had been hit!

  There was no other conscious thought. I was knocked against the side of the bridge, felt, rather than saw the open hatch to the conning tower yawning at my feet, Rubinoffski standing in the middle of the bole with the bronze lanyard gripped in his hand, the sea rushing up the side of the conning tower, gurgling and splashing. I lurched to it, sort of half-stumbled into the Quartermaster's arms, felt myself unceremoniously pushed aside and down as, intent upon only one thing, Ru- binoffski jerked the hatch lid down with one hand, spun the dogging hand wheel with the other. Not a drop of water came in, but it could not have been far behind.

  I would have landed head first on the deck at the foot of the ladder had not a couple of pairs of hands gathered me 'm on the way down. "Skipper, are you all right? What happened?" asked a faraway familiar voice, Jim's.

  I felt shaken, though otherwise all right. "We're hit!" I gasped. "Check." That was as far as I got. Jim whirled, dropping me none too gently, shouted down the hatch to Tom.

  "Surface the boat! Blow everything!" He snatched the telephone hand set from its stowage, slammed it to his face.

/>   "Silence all along the line," he rasped. "We've been hit by gunfire! All compartments report!"

  There was silence, too. All you could hear was the sound of the vents going closed again, at least they apparently still worked, and the high-pressure air whistling into the ballast, tanks. In a moment I could feel the down angle begin to sta- bilize. It had been increasing rapidly, now it remained steady, but in a second or two it would start decreasing and we would:, shoot to the surface.

  But what would we do then? We'd stand no chance against the gun power of our adversary. Even if our pressure hull had been pierced, we'd be better off trying to control the flooding and stay submerged, of course, it all depended on how big the hole was. I could feel my wits returning, pulled myself together, stood up. Jim spoke rapidly, covering the mouthpiece of the phone as he did. "Don't worry, skipper.

  Blowing is just precautionary. If the hole is too big to stay down, at least we'll have started the boat on the way back up. If it's just a small one,"

  He broke off, listening. "Make your reports in order, from forward aft, unless you're flooding!" he snarled into the phone.

  He listened another second or two. It could not have been more than-thirty seconds all told since the hatch was shut be- hind me. With our emergency dive, however, Walrus had built up a terrific downward momentum. She was already well past periscope depth, with the down angle barely start- ing to come off.

  "Tom! Open your vents and resume the dive!" Jim bellowed the order down the hatch. "Take her on down, there's no water coming in!"

  Tom was quick to countermand his instructions of less than half a minute before. The vents banged open once more, and the high-pressure blowing stopped. Now I could hear the roar of the erstwhile trapped air streaming out of the sud- denly vented ballast tanks, and the bow and stern plane motors groaned as they reversed the planes once more.

  "Conn!" It was Tom's voice, up the hatch. "Conn, aye aye!"

  Jim answered him.

  "Conn, I blew both safety and negative! Permission to vent them!"

  "Granted!" shouted Jim. You couldn't tell that safety tank vent had been added to the others releasing air, but you certainly could tell negative, because it could only be vented into the ship, not overboard like the others. Having been blown dry at a deeper than usual depth, it had much higher air pressure than usual in it, and the resulting instantaneous in- crease in internal atmospheric pressure within the ship was distinctly unpleasant. Not that we minded it.

  Our momentum problem was now in the other direction.

  We had actually started Walrus on the way back up, even though the down angle of the dive had never come to the horizontal. All of our initial downward momentum, upon which the ship depended to get into the depths rapidly, had been lost. Now we would have to drive her forcibly down again, and in the meantime our friend with the surprise broad- side battery would be coming with a bone in his teeth. He would have a beautiful marker as to where we were and the direction we were going-in the huge froth of air bubbles he would find.

  One way to fix. that. "Left full rudder!" I said to Oregon.

  At least we could turn toward Mm, perhaps surprise him by get- ting under him and away. before he looked for us, certainly make his job a little harder.

  O'Brien pursed his lips and shook his head. No chance for him with the uproar going on. I slung the extra pair of sonar earphones around my neck, leaned over for a look at the depth gauge. Eighty feet, just beginning to increase slowly!

  The inclinometer mounted below it showed twelve degrees down angle. Maybe that would be enough.

  I felt a hand reaching for me. O'Brien. He pointed to his sound receiver. Red flashes. I put the phones over my ears, heard the singing. No doubt this chap carried depth charges and knew how to use them.

  One hundred feet. We were going down faster but I could hear screws now, fairly high-speed ones, not slow, chunking merchant propellers. Jim was silent, looking at me. I nodded gravely. "We're in for a depth-charge session. Better get set for it!"

  As Jim gave the necessary orders I concentrated on listen- ing. We slowed down to creeping speed as we approached our depth, got there in plenty of time after all, and, sat there cursing the very name of this Jap who had so messed up our entry into his area. Of all things to fall for, a "Q-ship I winced at the thought.

  He was pretty good, too, with his depth charges. Wham. wham!… WHAM!… wham! Four good ones, shaking up our guts, malting the insides of the ship ring. I felt a little weak in the knees. wham, wham, Wham, WHAM.

  WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM.

  He was good. Wiping the moist palms of my hands frequently on my trouser thighs, I tried to figure out his maneuvers, outguess him as he criss- crossed overhead. He was nearly as good as Bungo Pete, might well qualify as his little brother. He had not been able to catch us quite so near to the surface as Bungo had, but he was doing well nevertheless. And, of course, it takes only one depth charge to finish you, if it's close enough.

  For hours Walrus crept along at deep submergence, while our enemy battered at her tough hide with depth charges.

  Hours during which we twisted and turned, listened to his. propellers-a destroyer's high-pitched "Thum, thum, thum, thum, thum," twin screws, rather than the slower and more sedate chugging of the single merchant propeller this type of ship should have — had. Try as we would we could not shake him. His horrible resounding pings came steadily through our earphones, kept the dial of the sonar receiver flickering with red Hashes. First he would come along one side, pinging coldly and steadily, evaluating; then he would cross over, either ahead or astern, do the same thing from the other side. When finally satisfied he would pass overhead- or nearly so-and drop. just a few at a time, not many, aimed as accurately as he could. We would listen to the Q-ship's propellers, try to de- termine when he was starting a run for. real, when only to change position. Then, at the proper. psychological moment, we would put our rudder over, speed up, or slow' down a little, try to make him miss. Wham! Wham! Wham! WHAM!

  WHAM! Successively louder, then diminishing again as he straddled us with his patterns. We got so we instinctively knew when the closest charge in any given pattern was due, and would cringe inwardly until we had felt it and survived.

  We were up against a professional and everyone in the ship knew it. We went about our duties with parted lips and staring eyes, and the peculiar parched-skin condition, contrasting strangely with the continual sweating of my palms and the general high humidity inside the ship, was not entirely due to loss of body fluid.

  Give him credit for putting us hors de combat, for it was long after daybreak before we got clear, of him and were able to come back to periscope depth, there to wait until night before surfacing. There might be a plane waiting to pounce on us, we reasoned, or some damage which, having once surfaced, might prevent our diving again upon necessity.

  Before we finally got Walrus to the surface, a match would not stay lighted, nor would a cigarette bum. The slightest exertion brought the sensation of being badly out of breath, and a dull lassitude settled over all of us which took a determined effort to fight off. The first few breaths of cool, fragrant night air fixed that, however, and we turned to with interest to see what our topsides looked like.

  The shell, probably about four inches in size, had struck the after part of the bridge and exploded, tearing off a chunk of the cigarette deck and wrecking the 20-millimeter gun. Several pieces of light plating hung loosely, but the structure beneath, our main induction valve and the associated, piping, was unscathed.

  It was good that we had not surfaced prematurely, however, or been forced to dive before making a thorough inspection and removing the damaged plating. Once we had opened the main induction valve, a jagged section of steel framing hanging loosely nearby in all probability would have jammed it open. It was over an hour before Tom pronoun us ready to submerge again. And we had to prohibit use of the cigarette deck for the remainder of our time on patro.

  Two nights later
it was our turn. We sighted a cloud black smoke against the eastern horizon, shortly before mc rise, and took off after it. A couple of hours later the smoke had turned into two ships proceeding in company, about a mile apart. This time the radar produced a range of four miles as its initial offering, showing that it was working better, or that the ships were bigger, or both. We tracked them for a short time, got their course and speed, twelve knots, due north, zigzagging. There was no escort.

  We chose a position ahead of the two ships and slightly on their starboard bow, waited for the next zig. As soon as it came, our own rudder went over too, and the increased power-song of the diesels back aft sounded choked off as the heel-to-starboard drove two of their mufflers underwater. It was, as usual, clear, calm, and warm. Stars twinkled over- head, millions of them. The moon was now well up, its glow reflecting off the somber black sides of our targets. The horizon to the north was blackest, which was where we were coming from. But visibility all around was entirely too good to take any chances. We had to come in fast and get it over with.

  We kept our bow turned exactly on the leading ship, changing course to keep it so as he came into torpedo range, and we increased our speed to "full" — not everything wide open, but close to it. We would shoot three torpedoes at the first ship, three at the second, and save the four in our stern tubes for whatever might develop during the ensuing confusion while we retired.

  Swiftly the three ships approached each other. We, the hunter, already carrying a scar where their protectors had drawn first blood; they, the hunted, trapped in their turn.

  Swiftly we drew closer, rapidly they grew larger in my binoculars. I could feel my pulse racing, my nerves tighten- ing up. We were fully committed now-they were as big and broad as a bam, bigger than a barn. I could see them clearly: standard merchant types, not very different from the Q-ship of two nights ago; every detail etched itself in my mind. Just a little closer, get in close, so close you can't miss, here's the leading ship, old-style tall-stack freighter making lots of smoke… he's nearly broadside to, now, surely they can see us "Range!"