[Harmor]

"Disclaimer: On my last patrol I experienced a weird glitch that wouldn't let me reload torpedoes, but to keep this in character and seeing how it was a rather hilarious incident, I'll consider it to be some kinda mechanical failure.. This is my first attempt at a patrol write up so I hope you'll enjoy it."

We departed from Brisbane, Australia on June 2nd, 1942 in our trusty S-18 class submarine which had seen 6 patrols prior to this, with no seaman harmed and no damage inflicted to her. As we had sunk ~ 120.000 tons worth of ships during those patrols, with a dated S-18 no less, we were very confident in our abilities and in the ship. Our main objective was simple enough - we were to patrol the Solomon Islands and sink any hostile ship we could get a hold of. As we headed north for the Coral Sea, we received Comsubpac news that New Guineea was the target of a main strike of combined air, land and naval forces, forcing the Japanese aggressor to withdraw from the island. That meant our travel through the Coral Sea was much saver a task than it used to be in previous patrols, thanks to the fact that Japanese air cover was not as frequent as it had been (Captain's note: my request to install a Flak gun has yet to be answered by Comsubpac .. I doubt it's going to happen anytime soon).

Sure enough, we arrived at our designated patrol area about 5 days after departing from Brisbane about a day's travel south east of the hostile port of Rabaul, staying submerged for most of the day to avoid aircrafts. The first two days passed by rather unspectacular when the Captain decided to have a trip around the Solomon Islands. Sure enough, after about a day and a half going around the northern part of the island group, we pick up a japanese merchant. This meant hunting season and soon afterwards, the unsuspecting merchant was sunk by two torpedoes, never knowing what had hit her. Our Captain just mentioned that one of the survivors on the lifeboat gave him an internationally known gesture of disapproval when we came close to the few men on their little boat as they noticed the periscope. Our celebration was soon struck by concern as word went out that the Captain wanted to cripple the Solomon Islands' life support by raiding the port of Honiara. We didn't know what to expect there, but we were to find out soon enough ...

We stayed submerged for close to 12 hours only about 3 kms out from the port, and the destroyer patrolling the area never picked us up. This was probably one of the most intense experiences in our life on S-18. Depth under keel didn't give us a whole lot of room for evasive maneuvering upon detection, but we trust our Captain enough to let this kind of judgement be his call. At about 2200 hours local time, we were called to battlestations - we raised the periscope to find that the destroyer was only 800 meters away from us at a near perfect angle. 3 fish later it added to our ever increasing number of tonnage sunk. We went closer to the port and waited for our tubes to be reloaded and found it had no coastal installations. We surfaced 1 km out from the harbor because CO2 levels became critical meanwhile, but this was to be as easy as duck hunting - only two small cannon boats were left to guard the port of Honiara. We dispatched off them as well as taking out a 10000 Ton tanker and a 5600 ton merchant when suddenly, there seemed to be a problem in our torpedo room - all four tubes were jammed. Yes, jammed. How can you possibly reload FOUR torpedoes and forget to retract the stop bolts in all four tubes? I will never forget the Captain's desperate cries to fire the torpedoes to no avail, in fact, it haunts me while I am writing this diary. Great .. the torpedoes were now officially jammed in the tubes with no way to fix this problem in hostile waters. The Captain threw seven shades of fit, and on our way out of Horiana you could hear his swearing in Pearl Harbour. No one dared to tell him to keep the noise down either as swimming back to Brisbane wasn't something any of us fancied doing.

We continued our patrol however, going around the Solomon Islands to go back to our initial patrol area. The fact that we had sunk a total of 3 warships, two merchants and one tanker cooled our Captain off as about a day away from our patrol area at around 0425 hours, we met a small convoy consisting of two tankers and one merchant. With the torpedo tubes jammed, all we could do was approach and attack them with the deck gun. We reported the contact and sure enough, Comsubpac told us to take them out with the priority being the tankers. Using the dark of the night to our advantage, we were able to approach the hostile ships unnoticed before we opened up and the peaceful seas turned into a firey hell. One of the tankers took a few potshots at us so she was the first to draw our attention. Luckily for us, the sailors on the japanese vessel were everything but marksmen so when she blew up, S-18 remained unscratched. It left a bit of a bitter taste however because the big 10000 ton tanker didn't drop any lifeboats .. there were no survivors. They might be the enemy, but they are seamen just like us ... but this is a war, and there is little time to mourn when you think about that you could be the next to die 15000 kms from home, never to be found again.

The 3 ships took a lot of ammo to sink but we managed to do so, however, with our torpedoes jammed and running out of deck ammo, all we could do was to make it back to the patrol area and report contacts. Back in our patrol area, we were given permission to return to Brisbane when on our way back we came across three japanese fishers in their little wooden boats. Our Captain didn't seem too interested but reported them none the less, and much to our surprise we were told to sink them. Putting all second thoughts aside about this complete mismatch, we opened up on them with the remaining shells from our deck gun. Two of the fisherboats instantly caught fire while the biggest tried to make a run for it. Then however, we were completely out of ammo. Ok, I thought, we are going to let that one be and return home, but that was not to be. "Orders are clear", the Captain let us know. "Destroy enemy vessels". So we chased after the remaining boat which was using a pattern of board/starboard maneuvers to get away but our diesel engine had no problem at all to keep up with it. Getting closer, the japanese fisher forced their boat into a starboard turn and our Captain ordered to keep the course .. keep it ... I knew what was up. We were going to ram the little boat .. sure, it was solid metal versus wood, but still .. I felt the adrenaline rushing. "Rudder 30 DEGREES STARBOARD! FLANK SPEED!" I thought the Captain had lost his mind. "RUDDER MIDSHIPS!" Seconds passed, and us down in the belly of S-18, being shaken by the wild chase, didn't know what was going to happen as suddenly, a banging noise and awkward scratching echoed through our submarine. I couldn't believe this .. this was surely not your run of the mill standard procedure. I suppose the Captain was a huge fan of "20000 miles under the sea" by Jules Verne. We would call our Captain "Nemo" from that day on whenever he was not around. It worked. The small fisherboat had tipped over from the impact and sank within seconds. The few crewmen made it out alive and I believe, hoping they made it to safety of course, will tell the story of when their ship was sunk by a US submarine at ramming speed for the rest of their lives.

We arrived back in Brisbane on July 5th without further incidents. A lot of promotions were handed to the crew and we were transferred to a new boat, a Salmon Class submarine. 24 torpedoes instead of 12 .. wow. A lot of tubes to jam too .. our next patrol is set to begin shortly, but not before our Captain is comfortable with his torpedo room crews again. Sadly, S-18 was transferred back to the United States where it serves for training purposes now ... but I will forever remember her and secretly refer to the boat that kept us alive on 7 patrols as "USS Nautilus".
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Right, I hope you guys enjoyed this read. I sadly forgot to take screenshots (didn't intend to make a write up of it), but this patrol was surely the most fun so far, despite the fact that a bug prevented me from using my remaining 7 torpedoes. I surely had a blast writing this and may consider doing a few more of these.