I had a good life living on the base in Manila. The food was good, the women were beautiful, but the war was on, the Japanese were attacking, so off on my first patrol. My Exec Wern was excited as I, we were going to pay the enemy back for Pearl. I had long dreamed of being a war hero, coming back from a succesful patrol to the sound of band music and women screaming my name, now I have my chance.
We left on Dec. 11, passed Cavite, out to sea. Wern had the bridge, I was getting some rest. Wern spotted a plane, thinking it was American, started waving at it. It moved closer, turned out to be a Jap. Wern ordered crash dive, but didn't react fast enough to get our lil S boat under. I was awakened by a blast, the enemy plane scored a good hit.
Wern came down, he was still complaining about an old arm injury, said it had kept him up all night, so he was tired. I looked at him, head down in shame, holding his arm in what appeared agony for him. "What a baby" I thought to myself.
We're not getting off to a good start to be heros, our engines destroyed, flooding, we could do nothing, but start repairing damage. Our mechanic thought he could get the engines running in a day, then try to get back to Manila for some repairs and get back out and earn some medals.
Later that afternoon I noticed a plane circling way over head, was he toying with us? We couldn't move, so we watched him. Finally he came down, sucker dropped a torp about 1500 yards away, all we could do is watch, then BAM, direct hit.
Several men were killed, boat about ruined, we slowly started sinking from the surface......
"We're going under, every man for himself" shouted Wern in a panic as he inflated our only raft, jumped overboard and took off alone for Manila. I went down into the sub with the crew, determined to save my ship or die, but slowly it slipped under. I tried blowing ballast, nothing worked. Slowly it tilted over due to flooding and headed down for the deep.
Oh well, so much for being a hero...