Stories and Patrol Logs

[shawnyp420]

My first mission out of Manilla. December 10th 1941. USS Seadragon.

My orders are to carry a group of special forces from Manilla, to the other side of the mainland. "Strange," I thought to myself...."Why don't they just take a land vehicle?" We found out after just a few short hours of traveling up the coast. Radio messages starting flying in about a Japanese invasion of the Philippines. "Sir, multiple Radar contacts!" I thought to myself...This is it. This could be an invasion task force.

Sure enough...A screen of about 8 cruisers and destroyers was escorting 6 troop transports from the Chinese mainland to partake the invasion of the Philippines. DAMN...Only 4 fish up front on this pig...It'l have to do. I lay into those troop transports with all 4 fish...
Nothing but fire and twisting bulkheads.
I know those escorts will be on top of me in just seconds. I turn 180 and loose 4 more fish. HITS. Thousands of Jap soldiers hit the seabed before they can fire a single shot. Diving deep, we slip away from the chaos of the frantic searching and depth charging....

The lieutenant leading the special forces is getting restless...Better drop him off soon and return to the fight....

[WFGood]

I just finished my first complete patrol in SH4. In defense of the Philipines, USS Sculpin, was ordered to patrol the Celebes Sea (oddly enough, the same area where my grandfather was shot down and beheaded in 1944.) After a week without contacts, I moved farther south and into a terrible storm. Just as we were about to submerge, I noticed some lights through the storm. At about the same time an Akizuki came out of the mist aft of us. A snapshot blew her in half, and she promptly rolled over and sank. Thinking that I had encountered a convoy, we charged ahead at flank looking for merchants. Instead we ended up with 72,50o tons of warships, 1 Hiryu class fleet carrier, 1 Shokaku class fleet carrier, 2 Mogami class heavy cruisers, and 2 DD's. Not bad for a first patrol. (On a side note I will have to hand it to Ubi. The graphics are fantastic, and I for one am really enjoying this one despite the problems. I will still keep SH III on the drive, but I will be playing Wolves of the Pacific more.)

[Dane]

Your grandfather was a hero

[shivath]

Not much of a storyteller myself but I'll give it a try

So after my 3rd trip out I got offered a new sub. I accepted commanding my new home, the USS Drum. It was a upgrade to a Gato. My mission seemed to be stuck on repeat as for many others. I was to ship an agent somewhere north in China or close to China at least.

Before this trip I haven't really been getting much action. Just done my mission and maybe taken out some randoms in enemy harbors. Maybe taken out a few things on the way there and back.

This time I get to my destination as the other times. I toss the poor guy off the sub, and as always his little raft rubs against my sub which makes the sound of a battleship trying to get inside. I pull out as the sun set. Just before the sun is gone I get a report of a convoy pretty close. I rarely manage to get to these in time. I rush south to intercept. Slow down to 2/3 and go to periscope depth. I head straight towards them but make sure I approach my targets at least in an angle. I go through the convoy smoothly taking out 2 x Small, 1 x Medium and 1 Large freighter. I add a Mutsuki Destroyer to the list as I head for home.

...now what, another convoy is heading straight for me before the last destroyer hits the bottom of the ocean. It's perfect..just the way I'm heading to get back home. I know I won't have enough torpedos left for much but I can't just let this chance go without trying. I go straight in like the last time. I start going after the large freighters. This time I end up with 1 x Small, 1 Medium and 2 x Large freighters. The medium freighter was the last one and didn't go down so easily. Thought I'd finish it with my deck gun after the destroyers left. After they were some good distance I surfaced only to see they speed up and came right for me. I went down to periscope depth again. I was only 50 meters or so from the heavily damaged freighter at this time. Figured they would go away again...but oh was I wrong. They kept circling me throwing out depth charges all over the place, but seeing I was so close to their freighter they couldn't hit me. At this point I was out of torpedos and they wouldn't do anything else then that. I had to try to run for it...and I did...without going deeper. Of course they came after me but it didn't end the way any of us thought. Both of them died from running me over. I didn't get any damage... Apperantly the sub is razorsharp..maybe even coated with explosives because it makes things explode for no reason.

After that my crew finally got some rest and looking forward to getting home for some new shiny medals. USS Drum will soon be back on new adventures. Lets just hope I don't get the same d**n mission.

[Biggs[CV]]

1943 in the USS Lapon outa Pearl. Objectives were to partol off Honshu and sink merchants. I made it to the partol area safe and souns when my lookouts spot a large old passenger liner. 3 fish later she was visiting Davey Jones locker as she was blown in half. Evading aircraft like crazy by now, when lookouts spotted a warship to the North.........Coming along big, fat and happy was a Shokaku class CV. Ye'Gads a Flattop!!!!! Dive to periscope depth.. holy cow she's alone, no escorts? :hmm: Dang what kinda luck is that? Set my course to come within 1500 yrds and go to 1/3 speed. She's coming in slow 9 kts. Fired tubes 1-5 at a range of 1000 yds (saving #6 just in case she evades.) A few seconds later 5 solid hits, planes exploding off the fkight deck........huge explosion amidships.......flight deck awash within 30 seconds and down she goes. Set course to the north to find some more merchants to complete the goals. Found an old tanker, a large freighter. Tough buggers to sink, 3 fish each and then the deck gun. Found a few more merchants and finally got the goals complete, headed back to Pearl. Total for the patrol - 6 merchants and 1 nice big CV, tonnage = 47,000.

[Lost@Sea]

Ahoy Mates,

I've been lurking and patrolling these waters undetected since I first launched my VII on the Atlantic brine. Now that the powers that be have turned me loose in the Pacific, I thought I'd launch my first fish into these waters.

It's 1941 and I've been given command of a nice new Gar class sub and re assigned to Pearl Harbour. I was very impressed with the efficiency of this fine navy I am proud to serve with. Only 2 days since the devastating attack and this place is as clean and operational as ever. Way to go boys! You are a credit to your country.

I would have liked to stayed in port and looked around more, but alas, my orders came quickly. Patrol and engage merchant shipping in the Marshall Islands. "All right crew, cast off! Ahead 2/3rds. Follow plotted course."

Well it's days later and boy not much happening west of the Marshalls. Took a look at the map and there's a nice chain of islands just up north. The Mariachis, Martinis or something like that. Set course!!!

I was off the west coast of Guam and it was very exciting. I'd splashed 5 planes sporting red polka dots. Silly of the Japanese to paint a bulls eye on their craft if you ask me. Unfortunately my flak gunner seemed to be tiring out for when I looked at him, he had a orange hue to him so I sent him off duty. His near sighted replacement couldn't hit a brick wall at 2 feet or even find the trigger most of the time, so when 2 planes came in at once I ordered "CRASH DIVE!" Well as it turns out, it was more like a "Scratch paint in fender bender dive." But we got down relatively unscathed.

A few hours of submerged running and I felt it safe to surface. Not really, but we needed fresh air. I'm gonna have some harsh words for that supply officer who stocked our galley with all those cans of beans!

Running a northern route, I was fortunate to encounter 5 large cargo vessels. Both Old Split and Modern Composite. I would have thought a modern stealth carbon composite ship harder to spot on air search radar???????? Each of these vessels where unescorted and I was able to allow Boomer my deck gunner to handle 4.5 of these. In the end, I fired a single fish at number 5.

After clearing these waters out, we set off on a north western tack on a hunch that a shipping lane was in this area. Little did I realize it was a military shipping lane and I just about rammed 2 enemy destroyers while napping at my post. Passing between them, I decided I was the meat in a death sandwich so I again ordered the highly effective "CRASH DIVE!" I think the destroyer captains must have been napping too for they didn't come at me with the might and aggressiveness I would have thought fitting of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

It was this point, I thought I'd go on the offensive. This was unfortunately my demise for my helmsman confused "Level the boat." with "Pull the plug."

So as I sit here in heaven waiting to be reincarnated as a US Navy submarine commander. I'll just make a mental note, key "A" equals "Pull the plug."

Happy Hunting,
Lost@Sea

[Dane]

We've experienced dud torpedos, but I was diving to get away from the destroyers and happened to forget to lower my scope. I don't know my depth but I had a depth charge land on the bow of my sub and didn't go off. It swayed back and forth and finally rolled off! I thought it was so cool, wish I would have taken a screen shot of it. I didn't know where else to post this and wasn't sure if I should start a new topic.

[DeePsix501]

I have been assigned USS Triton (SS-201) out of Pearl Harbor. It is December 9th 1941. After reading the historicals about the SS-201, I became attached to her. She was the first boat to score a kill with her torpedoes and her deck gun in the war. On 19 November, the submarine headed west to conduct a practice war patrol and arrived off Wake Island. On 8 December, she saw columns of smoke rising over the island but assumed that it was caused by construction work being done ashore. She was informed by Radio that Pearl had been attacked. She observed the Japs bombing wake on the 10th of December, and that night when she surfaced to charge batteries, the moon outlined her to a Jap Destroyer and was forced to dive by gunfire. The Triton dived deep and began evasive action. When she came up the Japanese destroyer had slowed astern at about 40m. She fired all four of her rear torpedoes and 58 seconds later, the crew heard a loud explosion - scoring the first sub kill of the war for the US.

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Triton_%28SS-201%29



I decided to stick with this boat. I don't like sailing the most famous or the boat with the most kills, I like sailing one that means somthing to me. She scored the most tonnage of any US Sub operating out of pearl and she was presumed sunk on March 15th 1943 with the loss of all hands. I would like to honor my historcal career that I am going to follow to the crew of the Triton. I found a website with the list of men lost, and went through the config files changing the names of the officers and nco's aboard my virtual Triton to that of the men lost to make it more real for me. It's one thing to just say, oh I took some casualties this patrol, but its another when the crew members have real names and faces. Though I could not find a way to alter the mission objectives in the config files to the historical locations where the Triton actualy patroled I decided to go with what it gave me. Below is my patrol report for December 10th - 30th:
------------------------------

Patrol 1 - 10 December 1941 - 30 December 1941

Orders: Deploy and Patrol West of Volcano Islands at approx 32N 135E and interupt merchant traffic.

December 10th - Set out from pearl harbor at 18:00, set course NNW along midway islands and will turn west at about 32N Lat. Will stop at Midway to top off tanks to and from patrol.



December 15th - Around 20:00 picked up radar contact moving slow parallel to me. Plotted intercept course, arrived and waited. Small old merchant appeared on horizon and and traveled perpendicular to my heading. Waiting paid off. At about 1500m fired 3 fish, all three hit, sunk. Replotted and Continued on Course.



December 18th - After dodging air patrols for the past few days, finnaly arrived in patrol sector. Begin running patrol patterns. All anaysis of convoys and taskforces show that I will not make intercept courses. I find two small fishing boats near the japanese coast. Sneak up to the small slow boats and surface ahead of them and give my gunners some target practice while myself and XO John Eichmann watch. Sunk 2 small fishing boats. Continue on patrol.



December 20th - Late 19th, around 23:00, get convoy message, plot intercept and rush to get in a lead position. I get in position and wait for radar to make contact, reposition so I have perfect 90 degree shooting solution. Submerge and wait. Convoy comes along as predicted. I fire 3 fish each at two Large Modern Composite Freighters and wait for impacts. Timing indictates that one fish aimed at the rear freighter prematurely detonates. Two explosions on freighter at 340 degrees, one frieghter sunk, third fish assumed dud. Two more explosions on frieghter at about 10 degrees, both fish made target and sunk frieghter. Dive deep and silent and slip under convoy. Escorts do not dedtect me. Mission objectives acomplished.



December 21st- Continued one last day of patroling, spent most of it dodging search planes looking for sub that attacked convoy. Fuel level requires that I leave for port, patroling proves uneventful and plot course back to Pearl.

December 22nd- Constant aircraft overhead keep me submerged and slow progress home. Running slow as possible to conserve what little fuel I have so I can make it back to Midway. Manilla would have been nice if the base hadn't been overrun while I was out at sea.

December 25th- Comsubpac wishes me merry christmas, crew and officers have a little celebration.

Late December 29th- Arrive at Pearl just in time for new years celebrations. Moon low in sky greets us as we arrive. Crew morale improved greatly by bottle of wine shared with all for a great first patrol.



Hope everyone enjoyed the read. I encourage you to look up the history behind your boat, some of these boats and men had a great history behind them and make some interesting reads. The USS Triton will leave for her next patrol on Jan 25th.

~DeePsix

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Dane

We've experienced dud torpedos, but I was diving to get away from the destroyers and happened to forget to lower my scope. I don't know my depth but I had a depth charge land on the bow of my sub and didn't go off. It swayed back and forth and finally rolled off! I thought it was so cool, wish I would have taken a screen shot of it. I didn't know where else to post this and wasn't sure if I should start a new topic.

If the game is realistic enough, you might just have been lucky; it may have been set to go off much deeper, and it did - after you were well out of range.

[E.Hartmann]

Some of these stories are fun to read but a reaccouring theme is the lame actions of escorts. Here is mine?

I jsut dropped off an agent, and was heading out for some merchant destruction when, I recieved a FOX telling me to head for the China Sea. In route, a horrible Typhoon began to bow with 30' swells and my boat was bouncing all over, so I initiated a dive drill. General quarters was sounded and the crew quickly went to work and after a great deal of effort (stupid game), our boat was cruising at 100'. I released the General Quarters and went to 2/3. About 20 minutes later, Sonar indicated it had merchant and warship traffic heading straight for us. Sounding General Quarters Again, Sonar began tracking. At exactly 400yds, we went to periscope depth and between the giants swells, a large passenger liner was at a perfect 90deg. I could not get bearing or accurate yardage so I fired a spread of all 6 fix with 3deg difference left and right of zero (manual is so much fun!) and dove down and went to standard to loop around and get another shot with rear tubes. After tracking for several minutes explosions were heard and then sounds of the ship breaking up. Of my 6 fired, three hit and it was a perfect bow, stern, and mid spread. The ship broke into three pieces and exploded as well sending sailors and passengers flying in all directions. The ship must have been loaded with troops and weapons as the explosions were the largest I had ever seen.

Soon the ship was on its way to the bottom of the ocean floor and Sonar started reporting over 15 "merchants" suddenly. Apparenlty many made it to boats but I would have hated to be in a boat with those waves.

(side note: I turned on external views for this mission and one of the fish that hit the middle of the big ole vessle was riding a wave swell and hit on the gangway. Funny watching the people get blown away)

[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".
__

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.

[Qazza]

So there I was, my first mission as almost full realism. No auto-aiming, external views or map contacts.

The beginning of the trip went nicely, I dodged few enemy warpatrols as I didn't want too much attention to mysel on this recon mission. When I got near to tokyo I realized that I have to go through a narrow strait. Ofc I thought that night would be the best time as there wouldn't be any convoys with escorts and their nasty sonars.
So I waited the night to fall and started to head to Tokyo, when I got about 10 clicks away from the strait I dived all the way to..... 37 meters, I was about ½ or 1 meter above the seafloor and I decided to trust that it won't get anymore shallow than it is already. After inspecting the map few times I noticed that there starts a deeper area of water about 12 clicks away, so I decided to go to standard speed and started active sonar listening.
first 7 clicks we're really easy, few gunboats going from north and south from me, but they we're so far away that I decided not to slow down, after all I was so close to deeper waters and a freeway to Tokyo. Then it happened, slow propeller sound coming from bearing 040, then it moved to 033. I realized soon that it would pass my designated line of entry. I went to periscope depth and raised my periscope, it was really dark and took a while to find the enemy but then I noticed him at about 022, a medium cruiser, I recognized the ship(can't remember it atm >.<) and took the distance and made a shooting solution.
After few minutes of stalking I decided that I would just wait for it to go past me and then continue my way, after all it was still a recon mission. So I waited, and waited, and waited until the ship was at 265 at about 1,2 clicks away and started moving 1/3 silent mode towards my waypoint.
Everything was going nicely and I went back to 37 meters. When I was 4,5 clicks away from the deep end the worst thing happened. First of all, the cruiser that I let go past me was coming after me, really fast. I hadn't noticed that it made an U turn and was about 600-700 meters behind me. Ofc I didn't hear this because of my own propeller noice, only reason why I did notice it was because my "own" propeller noise was getting louder.
If that wasn't enough there was a subchaser at bearing 62 which had sneaked right next to me, about 300 meters away. Well I thought to turn hard starboard and hope they would miss me. Well they sure as hell didn't. Cat and mouse play was ready to start.
I was about 3 clicks away from deeper waters and I decided to try to play dead. Everytime I thought I had lost them they found me again, and again aaaaand again. Finally about 600 meters away from the deeper area I decided to go all or nothing, I waited for the cruiser to drop his depth charges and dodged them barely, my ship got a sidehit and the forward torpedorooms we're filling fast. Well I finally got to the deeper waters and dived so they couldn't be able to find me so easily...
And they didn't, too bad that my repair team couldn't fix the leak soon enough which lead to the fact that I was going deeper, and deeper, and deeper... And there I was, first patrol at "realistic" settings, sunken deep to my watery grave.


(Mods that I used was the flavored to taste which made the enemy radars a lot better. It was really impossible to shake that cruiser on such an shallow water. I even tried to just lay still on the ocean floor but it didn't help)

[Bert68]

We were stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hi and most of the time on daily ops training missions. We were in port at the time for 2 weeks up keep and we got some news from Bu Ships to try and enlongate our service time before having to go into the shipyard for our 18 month updates on equipment as this was to save money. I was a second class Engineman at the time transfered to the Auxilary gang for which we were in charge of the hydraulic systems, scopes, high pressure air systems and refrigeration plus all of the super structure valves.

The chief engineer and I were to inspect the main vent valves, and under the main deck piping that extended from the main induction valve to the engine rooms. The main induction was a huge 3' valve 9' tall with these 3 lines going to the engine rooms. One each in diameter of 22" to each engine room and one 18" line to the forward engine room for the ventilation system. Total weight filled with water would equal 55,000 lbs of water. We had at mid ships a 55,000 lb capacity safety tank just in case this system ever collapsed. This tank was modified to hold fresh water at the time. The valves at the bottom of the tank had been welded shut and the main vent valves disconnected to prevent them from being opened. The old subs had really bad capacity for making fresh water and most of the water that was made had to be used for the batteries as this was almost a daily chore for the electricians to top these batteries off because of charging them all of the time.

So the Chief and I opened all of the deck hatchs to look and crawl into the super structure with a 4 lb. hammer and try and beat the hell out of the pipes to see if any of them collapsed. Needless to say there sure as hell was no room to even get at 30% of them to see what we could do with the hammering and visable inspection. All of the pipes looked to be in good shape, no visable rust or dings or signs of collapsing as these pipes were always full of air. The pipes were 1/4" thick and of course circluar and bracketed in place and very close to the main hull.
So you can see our position of trying to inspect them.

Monday morning we left port for daily ops and motored out to our designated area and submerged. We were suppose to do some shallow running until the ASW teams found us then do some different levels of diving to see if the spotters could pick us up from the plane. They would then drop these 25lb. explosives on us for simulated bombs. Some were close, some missed and of course we were taking manuvering actions to prevent them from finding us. They also had these sona bouys they would drop to pickup our position, these were like a minature sonar with a radio transmission to the plane.

At around 11:30 we dove on down to our test depth of 412'. This subs main hull was only 15/16" thick metal, welded plates and with the interior support beams made of I-beam material, I would say these were 3/8" thick 6x6, not sure about this but close. Also this ship was built in 1944 but did see some action and had a nice battle flag and some shipping sunk and mine laying in harbors. I have no idea what the test depth of those new ships would have been but when I talked to some of the WW2 guys they said they took these ships down to 700' many times for evasion. The ship was 309' 6" long, weight around 1700 tons, widest part was mid ships with 17' inside diameter and with a crew of around 90 people.

I was on the 8 to 12 watch and my duty station was the high pressure air manifold for blowing the ship to surface. I got relieved at 12, went and had my lunch then went to the forward torpedo room to lay down at around 12:30. The spotters must have had a good bearing on us as they were dropping those mini bombs and getting pretty good contact even at that depth. They had just dropped a pair of them when I heard this God Awful KABOOM. I heard the Captain yell to send up a red flare to the forward torpedo room so I knew something bad had happened. They also ordered rig for collapse so I jumped out and headed for the control room as I had to go thru the forward battery compartment to the control room they had started to dog the passage way hatchs shut. I had just made it to the bulk head door and pushed it open to get into the control room.

As there were orders flying like crazy, ahead flank, full rise on bow and stern planes, blow the bow tank, blow all main ballast. I looked at the guy who had relieved me and he was in a stage of wholly fear and had frozen, he had not opened one damn valve. I looked at the depth gauge and we were passing 550' so I promtly knocked his ass out of the way and started cranking open all of the valves. Normally when blowing the main ballest and bow tanks you only opened the high pressure valves about a 1/2 turn for the 3000 psi to enter the tanks. You can believe me I cranked those damn valves as wide open as I could get them. Couse like I said the safety tank was full of fresh water and that could not be blown. I looked again we were passing 600', no response from blowing then one hellish crack from the hull around the scope area, KAPOW, I thought that was the end of us, also the water depth was 2 miles deep. The radio room was also in the after part of the control room and out run the radioman when this happened. Where was he going I asked him as we were in the same compartment. Anyway I looked again we were passing 650', a few more seconds we were passing 700', looked again and we hit 750' and the ship started shuttering and then we hit about 775' and finally started some up bubble and depth rise. This old boat was groaning and moaning but we were headed up finally. Whew, but not out of danger yet, then the ship started really gaining up rise and quickly passed the 400' mark and we began to breath a sigh of relief. At 200' we secured blowing of the tanks, at 100' we flooded negative tank to help stop the fast uprise, slowed to 1/3 head and we surfaced as normal, I started the low pressure blowing system to stablize the port and starboard tanks and put us on a even keel. We went top side to see what happened, and the deck was ripped open from the collapse of those lines running to the engine rooms about 100' long. Needless to say we ended up in the shipyards for repairs and Bu Ships cancelled any long delays for repairs to other subs.
I can only say this, If I had not went to the control room more than likely I would not be typing this adventure here.
Jim Gilbert, EN1(SS)

[MikeDixonUK]

Scratch one Flattop!

2 Weeks out of Java in the USS S-34, 3rd War Patrol, 1942.

We'd heard in late January that the Japanese we're massing around the Solomon Islands on their way to Australia, After afew days of little action in our Patrol Grid I decided to go have a look to see what all the fuss was about.

There's not much else to tell after that, up until the 15th of Febuary that is...

We were steaming at full speed between the Palau group and New Guineea in the early hours of the 15th, heading towards the Solomons, there'd been a lot of Japanese Air activity during the day so we wanted to get the hell out of Dodge, ASAP...

"Ship's spotted, Medium Range!"

Petty Officer Hogan was pointing at the Horizon, mouth wide open as if it was his first contact on his first Patrol. I had a look and that's when I realised what the commotion was...

Two Genuine Imperial Japanese Navy Fleet Carriers, dead ahead!

"Send an Emergency Message back to HQ! Two Jap' Carriers, full Escort, heading South West!"

I had to tell someone about what we'd seen, we couldn't let a Japanese Carrier group slip through the net, not this close to Australia...

The reply was quick, maybe too quick...

X GOOD FIND. X DO NOT ENGAGE. LEAVE AREA AND RETURN TO BASE. X

Return to base? Two weeks without any action and here I am with a main enemy Carrier group off my Port Bow and they want me to return to Base! Those are the kind of orders that were losing this war for us, and we'd had it...

"Dive, Dive, Dive! We're going in!"

The Boat slipped beneath the waves, ready to pounce.

"Up Periscope!"

I guided us towards the lead Carrier and got set up for an attack.

"Heading... 352."
"Angle on the Bow... 77."
"Range... 900 Yards."
"Speed... 16 Knots"

We let rip a Salvo of all Four Torpedoes... and then the wait...

...

"Hit!"

I heard that word three times, all well spaced hits along her Starboard side, but the Giant was still speeding along as if nothing had happened!

Then finaly the fourth Torpedo arrived on target, a hit to her aft!

She started to slow, a hit in the Engine compartment? Or maybe the screws!

She was dead in the water! The Silver Bullet!

By this time the Escorts were frantically searching the area for me, they didn't have a clue where I was but I dove deeper, the Carrier wasn't going anywhere and I needed to reload my Torpedoes. It would be risky but I wasn't going to let this one slip... I dove as deep as I thought was possible, and there we waited...

What seemed like a lifetime passed as my crew was just finishing tube four, I took her up to Periscope Depth on her port side to see what was happening, She looked as dead as when I left her, but then... 1 Knot... 2 Knots... all the way to 8 Knots!

"Damn it they've started her up again! They can't get away now! Not after all of this!"

I went to Flank Speed and Spun her around full rudder to Starboard, anything just to get one more shot at that beast!

We were nearly in position when the Carrier's Search light hit our Periscope, we'd been spotted...

All of a sudden every Escort in the group turned towards us guns blazing, but none of that mattered anymore.

This was our last chance, we'd either take her down or die trying, and then...

As suddenly as they'd started the Carrier's Engines failed!

"My God! Now! Fire them all, Now!"

I screamed to my crew as we let go our 3 loaded tubes and dove once more out of sight...

"Hit!"

Too soon... a miss-fire? Or an enemy ship screening the Carrier?

Then afew seconds later...

Two more hits!

We heard a ship groaning as it headed towards the Sea bed, but our Celebrations were cut short by the Depth Charges of the Escorts, now out for revenge.

Afew hours passed of loud, but ineffective Depth Charge attacks before I had the courage to surface again.

It was daylight by then and the sea was calm, for once I decided to follow my orders, leave the area and return to Base!

I'm not sure if the ship we sunk was the Carrier, or if it was a Screening unit...

All I do know is that this is the last time I, and indeed anyone, has seen the IJN Hiryū...

[Dizoak]

December 14th, 1941

Four days into our patrol of the Luzon Straight, the USS Saury picks up high-speed screws heading right across our path, plotting the intercept tells us that they will pass only 1.5 km away from our bow tubes.

Perfect. The sub sits at periscope depth, skulking, when we spot smoke on the horizon and soon enough, what must have been a surface support group steams into view, 8 destroyers in a wedge formation in front and sides, and forming the center division, two Kongo class battleships and two Takao class heavy cruisers.

Replotting their course, I now found that they would pass away, just out of optimum range at about 2.5 km, so in order to lessen my chances for a dud or prematature explosion, i set a new course....and then my crew kicks the sub into ahead-standard. OH CR*P! all stop! all stop! rig for silent running!

at this point, the three nearest destroyers (apparently not all THAT stupid) kick it into high gear and start pinging me like crazy, as they're closing i line up a shot on the nearest one, open tube 1 and shoot. as soon as tube 1 fires, im lining up shots on the center division, two fish for the Kongo and one for the Takao.

that destroyer cant be more than 800 meters at this point
CRASH DIVE! CRASH DIVE!
as we're sinking rapidly into the black, we hear the first explosion.
then, slightly later as we're leveling off at 60 meters, we hear three more.

i can only say i wish i had taken screenies...cuz you'll never believe any of it.

all my torps hit home. the first destroyer snapped in two and went down in about 30 seconds after impact. the Kongo took two torps aft of the bridge, one of which hit the prop shaft right where it exits the hull tearing a huge freakin hole in engineering, she immediately heeled over to about 20 degrees and went dead in the water, a thick black pall of smoke billowing from her aft gun deck.

i didnt even see the Takao get hit, when i saw the Kongo, i noticed another ship rolling over and heading down, quickly pausing the game for a second i zoomed in and there she was, a huge hole right beneath the bridge.

as i snuck away, the destroyers were trying to DC me to death but i was too deep.

so net total: one of each (DD,CA,BB)