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First Patrol Part 2 - Changing Fortunes
Key Personnel
June 23, 1943
A remarkable day. Had our first real close call with airpower, for a start. Naturally we have been dodging the occasional SD contact throughout our time on and around station but its hardly newsworthy to jot down every encounter. Today was a different story. We had been returning to our search pattern down the Honshu coast when SD reported a contact, at the edge of the range of detection. I opted to risk keeping us on the surface as it looked like it would skirt past us, when suddenly it turned East, towards us, and began closing. We had to order an emergency dive and were shaken up by depth charges.
We likely would've been kept down for the rest of the day as well by other antisubmarine patrols going beserk on our last known heading, if it wasn't for a storm front rolling in. Along with the storm came a very interesting encounter, indeed.
It was well into the afternoon, at 1742, when the roll and pitch of the submarine was getting so bad I was going to order us down to 200 feet just to give the Watch a rest when sonar picked up a faint contact. It was thready and fading in and out in ambience of a booming ocean, but the operator was adamant he heard screws. SJ continued to report a clear scope, though. I was skeptical but knew the importance of trusting my sensory crew's first instincts, so I went aloft to the Bridge -making the mistake of not putting on any storm gear - to direct their attention and have a scan myself. Who knows, in this weather sound couldn't carry far, I had thought, so perhaps it's already in visual range, if "it" was anything at all.
One of the enlisted men, Ensign Bryant and I all appeared to spot the contact at the same time. I unwisely leaned over the bridge fairwater to try and get a better look at the contact and was quietly thankful when a rating discreetly pulled me back, just as a wave broke over the side of the hull. In that brief moment however, I got a decent enough look: small, narrow, black with green, rust-proof paint beneath the water-line. It was a submarine - and not one of ours. General Quarters!
There was nothing more we could do to better our approach in the 15m/s wind except to put our bow on the ship and hope the crenulations and valleys caused by the waves would mask our approach. She was crossing port to starboard. There was no question of using the TBT, the weather precluded that. At any rate the intelligence recognition manual we were provided had nothing on Japanese submarines. We'd have to do it kentucy windage style. A brief conference through the speaking tube to the Conning tower:
'I'm thinking Angle of Bearing, 75, speed 8 knots.'
'Let's call it 7 sir, this swell is on his bow with that angle, he'd be bleeding speed in every trough.' Came Ryan's voice back through the tube.
'Very well, 7 knots. Set the bearing to 0 and wait for my mark.'
'Aye sir. I recommend a 3 torpedo spread. Flooding Tubes 4-6.'
We crept in slowly, adjusting our bow to keep it ahead of the Japanese sub, which was definitely struggling as much as we in the stormy weather. Ultimately, it took until 1942 before we were in a position to fire. We fired a full three spread, as Ryan suggested and were greeted with a single, violent explosion a minute later. The Japanese submarine appeared to have ceased to exist, it had sunk so fast. The sonar operator did report after the attack that he had heard two impacts, but only the second had detonated - a dud.
June 25, 1943
Our time on station has ended and we have new orders to to proceed further southwest. That would keep us within Area 4 but put us just south of Tokyo bay. We were expected to remain on station for a further 5 days.
Merton plotted a series of 'hour-glass' search patterns and we immediately set out.
June 26 1943
We hadn't even been on station 6 hours when sonar reported a contact. Time was 0819; single contact, merchant-like screws. Not long after SJ began to get echoes off the contact. We soon had a plot and intercept: 137(T) course, speed estimated 7 knots, we could be in an attack position in one hour, ten minutes. We stood to General Quarters and made preparations.
Unlike our first lone merchant, this one was far more co-operative. At 0953 we crept into an attack position, at periscope depth, having identified the ship as a Haito-type freighter. We gave it 3 Mark 18s at point-blank range, all three hit, but only one appeared to explode. She settled but refused to sink; that took a Mark 14 from the stern tube.
June 27-28 1943
Busy night but we've finally come into our own. We had just surfaced and the time was 2320. The SJ operator began to report multiple contacts. Sonar soon followed, reporting a confused mass of rapidly turning screws. My immediate thought at the time was that it was a Task Force steaming into Tokyo Bay. Once we realized the main contacts' speed was lower than the revolutions suggested I knew we were dealing with a merchant convoy of some kind. I rang up General Quarters and soon Zabriskie and I had pencilled in an intercept plot based on available data, Ryan had the conn.
The group's course was reading more or less 200(T) at 13 knots. We were close enough and they were on a reciprocal course - we could be in attack position in less than 30 minutes. There was a 6m/s wind and it was a partially cloudy night: perfect for a surface attack. I took to the bridge.
Visual contact followed at 2357. It was a single column of what was obviously passenger carriers. What truly caught my attention was the middle ship. She was a grand, open ocean-going liner. A hurried flip through the recognition manual confirmed it was a
Conte Verde Liner. The adrenaline immediately began to flow. Merton identified the trail ship as a Kitutin-type passenger cargo but it went in one ear and right out the other. The blinders were already in place: we were taking that Euro-liner. Everything else could wait.
It was a minute past midnight when I ordered the look-outs below and Irvin up to the bridge. We trimmed so the decks were awash. The tubes were flooded, everything had to go exactly as planned. I steadied my hands by gripping the edge of the bridge fairwater, while Ryan placed a pair of binoculars on the TBT. Ten minutes passed and it appeared we had slipped past the nearest escort, which was to our rear. We had a brief window to rake the convoy with a comb of torpedoes before it would be near us. Irvin and I had just settled on a solution which we were both equally confident in....spotlights! A momentarily dazzling flash burst in my eyes as the conning tower was swept over by one of the concentrated beams. Then came the sharp 'krump-krump' of cannon fire off the port side. The destroyer!
'She's screamin' towards us Skip!' Irvin dashed to the portside of the fairwater to get a clearer look.
Shells had impacted well short of us; she was steaming towards us, a white, fluorescent bow wake evident in the darkness. There was no more time! I screamed down the speaking tube, in rapid succession, 'fire Tubes 4-6, 3 degree spread, and then take us emergency deep!'
We threw ourselves into the conning tower as the dive klaxon screamed. I snapped the hatch shut behind us, my breaths coming in heavy and ragged. We could hear cannon fire, duller this time, hearing what sounded like pebbles being thrown against the conning tower and hull - shrapnel. They must've almost had us.
The next few minutes were a blur - 0016 hours, 40 feet and screaming down, sonar reporting a series of massive explosions, breaking up sounds - no time to celebrate. Course altered to 088(T), foolishly trying to set up another attack even as a destroyer bulldogs towards us. Then the dreaded, screechy '
eeeeeeeeee' of active sonar. Just two pings before we course corrected and adjusted depth - was it enough? Did they have a fix?
Then...nothing. Sonar estimated the destroyer opening distance to port. She had wrongly anticipated our next move, expecting us to try and break away, rather than towards the convoy. Now was our chance: we drifted back up to periscope depth as the escort made its first, get-nothing, turn. Then at 0025 we fired off two Mk18s, in an eye-balled snapshot, I guessed we were no closer than 900 yards. The ship was heeling away in a sharp turn and I reckoned it was trying to pick up a bit of steam still after such a radical manoeuvre, so I had adjusted accordingly. Once the eels were in the water we crash dived yet again, finding a thermocline at 300 feet. By the time we had slowed down and rigged for silent running sonar reported, to my quiet satisfaction, the distinctive sound of
two contacts breaking up.
This time we drew the attention from no more than 3 escorts, based on sonar. We had to come off silent running a few times, using rapid depth changes and manoeuvring bow- or stern-on to the tin cans, before suddenly heeling to starboard or port as we passed into their baffles. Eventually the manoeuvres worked, and we were able to slip them, settling back at 300 feet and rigged once more for silent running. We got a pounding, nevertheless. By my count, between 0031 and 0146 they dropped 31 ash cans around our ears.
By 0330 the sonar reported 'all clear' and a brief, hasty periscope sweep showed no destroyers parked on the surface waiting. Finally, we stood down and surfaced. A brief survey of the deck with red-light flashlights revealed no obvious heavy damage to the outer hull. A lucky break.
June 28-29, 1943
The action continued. After a day of relative calm sonar reported, again, a confused mass of sound, all fast revolutions. SJ had trouble getting the contacts at first, for reasons I am still not sure. We will have to have a hard look at it back in Pearl. After a few course corrections and bearing plots we were able to trace a rough course for the contact: yet again steaming generally towards Tokyo bay. Mercifully, a few minutes past midnight, whatever gremlins were toying with the radar departed and we began to get faint returns. A 'stalking party' was formed by Digby as I went up top to the bridge to aid the watch crew. Eventually, the report came in: Course 40(T), speed estimated at a brisk 23 knots.
I knew we wouldn't be able to catch them if they held course but we had the fuel and the darkness. If they were heading towards Tokyo bay, they would have to adjust their course, which would give us a brief window to intercept. By 0025, however, it was clear we were losing the race and the enemy were overtaking us. They did, eventually, change course as suspected, to come across our bow but we couldn't get into an attack position regardless. Powerless to do a thing, we watched the murky silhouettes of two carriers slip by us just outside of effective torpedo range.
We reversed course and slipped away. The night wasn't done with us, however. A scant two hours later we detected and intercepted a pair of freighters which appeared to have come from the west, along the coast. They were identified as an Akita-type and a Kasagisan-type cargoes. We managed to get into position, decks awash, for a stern shot. The fatigue was beginning to become apparent though, as the weapons officer failed to set the latter two torpedoes to a fast setting when we fired our spread. The lead Mark 14 passed just fore and the merchantmen, her spotlights sweeping and signal lamp flashing, managed to slow and heel hard to port. The rest of the spread also passed fore.
We were never spotted ourselves and now, after this last failed attack, were out of torpedoes and put to open waters and home.
July 7, 1943
We've just finished re-fuelling at Midway before our final stretch home. We're truly looking ragged now, a badge of honor after a first patrol: we look (and smell) every bit the veteran submariner crew. The trip back was relatively unremarkable but I had failed to note that we had yet more contact just before dawn on the 29th of June. A large tug was spotted by the watch and sank by gunfire, some small consolation after the missed opportunities.
July 10, 1943
Mr. Reed conned us down the channel expertly, carefully avoiding coming too close to our escort - a Fletcher on final work up.
We've just now finished mooring and being greeted by the SUBRON and SUBDIV commanders. We've made a good first impression, it seems. For now however, the Skate is the relief crew's problem. We have some much needed R & R at the Royal Hawaiian. I have some administrative matters to attend to first, however. I'd rather not do that hungover.
To be continued...