Osaka Surprise

[Keelbuster]

My first patrol commanding USS Albacore (SS-218) was a great success, sinking ~20k tons in the Bungo Strait and successfully evading a depth-charge attack by two destroyers. Subpac must have had a lot of faith in my command, because my second patrol order was indeed a tall one; I was ordered to photograph Osaka harbour. Orders are orders, so I set out in earnest in March ’43 to get it done.

After an uneventful crossing from Midway, I approached the Kii strait. It was daytime, and I was running surfaced, trying to get as close to the shallows as possible before the inevitable air patrol forced me under. I was just crossing into the shallows when SD radar detected incoming aircraft, so I dove and began to enter the strait at 165ft, 1kt. As I dove I watched from the external cam, to admire the sleek Gato as it cut into the water and down to crash depth. That’s when I noticed a mine just off the starboard bow. Apparently I had entered a minefield. With no choice but to press on, I raised the night scope to watch for mines ahead, and moved into the strait at 1kt. It took the entire day, and I saw no other mines. The gods of submarine warfare were on side.


As night fell, I found myself about halfway to the first narrows in the strait. I came up to periscope depth and looked around. All clear, so I went to radar depth and did a sweep. I picked up a contact at 320, and after a closer look with the periscope, I saw masts. Merchant masts. I surfaced and aired out the boat, taking a few more radar readings over the next 10 minutes or so. The merchant was on a course that would almost perfectly cross my bow. Passing across her course, I set up a text-book 90 degree AoB stern attack, and took stad readings as she approached. I fired 3 stern torps and two hit, and one had a premature det. I fired the fourth stern, which hit but bounced off, a dud. The merchant was dead in the water, burning, and sank in about 20 minutes or so with the help of a few deck gun round. A nice 6000 ton bounty. I returned to course, heading at flank speed towards the narrows that mark the entry to Osaka bay.


As I approached I made multiple radar contacts and when I ranged them I decided that they were all in and about the harbour at Sumoto. Except one. I didn’t see it at first, but it was much closer, probably 5000 yards or so. Somehow my deck watch hadn’t seen it yet. I jumped to the bridge to take a look. She was a tug boat, headed out of the bay and into the strait. Headed straight for me. I ordered a dive to PD, watching the tug through the periscope as I dove. Having submerged almost completely, to my dismay I saw the tug suddenly turn, apparently having spotted me. Damn. In a reflex decision, I resurfaced to try to sink it quickly with the deck gun. I had fired three rounds at it, all going long, when I heard the nasty sound of a shell whipping over the boat and crashing into the water beside me. I saw no flash at the tug, and she couldn’t be armed so... As more shells began to land, I scanned the horizon and realized the shore emplacements on either side of the narrows were firing at me, probably having seen my muzzle flash. So I dove again to PD – no choice, but now in ~80ft of water. The hull just about scraping the bottom, I made dead ahead and tried to reach the ‘depths’ of the inner bay before Osaka. The tug passed on astern, and when I confirmed by periscope that the shore emplacements no longer had an angle on me, I surfaced at flank to make some distance between me and my last known position.




I was heading straight down the bay towards Osaka at flank, in pitch dark with calm sea, 1am. After about 5-10 minutes or so, I started getting radar contacts ahead of me. I thought to myself, well here we go, docked ships at Osaka. I’m finally there. I take a look at the PPI display and see a cluster of contacts straight ahead. I jump to the bridge and look through the glasses. I see masts. Lots of masts. Big masts. But no harbour lights... I think for a second – looks like there’s a lot in port. I guess I’ll be taking more than photographs. But then something doesn’t sit right. I scratch my chin a couple of times. Look back through the glasses. If I can see masts, I should be able to see harbour lights. Maybe there are none? Hmmm. Back to the PPI scope. By now the contact blips had faded some in the tail of the radar sweep. That’s when I notice that the contacts on the PPI scope are fairly tight together. Kinda orderly actually. Like in columns. I start to get this sinking feeling and I take a range of the a-scope and realize that these contacts are nowhere near Osaka, which is more like 10-15 nm behind them. Back to the bridge and through the glasses: warships – in columns – battleship masts in the center column – it’s a task force putting to sea!





I realize that I’ve fallen into a deadly trap. Here I am, heading up Osaka bay at 20 kts, staring straight down 3 columns of massive IJN firepower. And the bay is just over 100 ft deep. Panicked, I order knuckle to starboard, to try to get as far out of their way as possible. About one minute later the bridge watch spots a warship. I dive to PD. Looking through the scope, I can see clearly now what is about to happen. I’m situated almost dead center along the course of an IJN task force. In the middle column, which will pass just to my left, sails two IJN battleships (later IDed as Fuso and Ise). In the columns right and left of the center column sail assorted cruisers and what appear to be some support ships in the rear. Far off to the right and left I spot a couple destroyers. Amazingly, there is no lead destroyer screen. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m about to be run over by a TF. The other bad news is that they must have been bothered by all the radar I was throwing around because the columns are swerving evasively.





With no other options, I turn directly into their course and start thinking about firing solutions. My two obvious targets are Fuso and Ise. My sonar man tells me they’re travelling at medium speed. I have trouble imagining a BB traveling medium speed, and I know they will accelerate when attacked, so I set the TDC speed to 14. I open all my tubes (6 bow and 3 aft – one cutie in an aft tube for emergencies). I’m in a lucky position – despite her evasive swerving, Fuso is set to pass me at about 500 yards, and I fire three forward torps when she’s at about 45 AoB. As she passes by 270, two torps hit her under the front turret; the explosions cause the third torp to det prematurely.





I don’t see any obvious evidence of fatal damage, so I send one of the stern torpedoes at her. Thanks to the PK, the stern torp hits Fuso dead center, and she catches fire. I turn my attention to Ise, which by now is about 30 AoB. I launch the other 3 forward torpedoes. Unfortunately, Ise has accelerated and they all miss. I update the TDC speed settings and fire the two remaining aft torpedoes in a tight spread. They both hit Ise and detonate, close to her center. Now that I’m out of torps, I order ahead slow and dive by 30 feet, which sadly is all that Osaka bay will afford me. As I start to descend I do a last sweep with the periscope and notice two destroyers at about 45 degrees, 1500 yards. They have their lights on, and appear to be searching.




Minutes later, I hear the first sonar pings. Then I am detected. In desperation I fire the cutie off in a guess trajectory, but it is never heard from again. Without delay, a destroyer launches a severe DC run over top of me, dropping maybe 10 or more DCs. A close detonation severely damages the bulkheads in the engine room, control room, and sonar room, destroying and damaging a long list of equipment both internal and external to the boat. Flooding quickly pulls me to the bottom, where I order all-stop and with grim thoughts, order my damage control team to start working on the bulkheads. They are making slow progress – this kind of damage could take hours or days to fix...


Meanwhile, Fuso burns and lists heavily to port. Shortly after she rolls over to port and her bow and masts grind into the muddy bottom of Osaka bay. Ise continues slowly, with a slight list and a lowered draft, apparently taking on water.







Whether or not Ise suffered fatal damage I will never know. A destroyer passed right over top of me, dropping the fatal DCs. They exploded almost in contact with the aft section of the boat, inflicting sudden and catastrophic damage. USS Albacore was destroyed, all hands lost.








P.S. Sorry for the dark images - my night settings are very dark. Also, pardon the presence of the console overlay ( I need to figure out how to remap the HUD off key as my laptop numpad delete doesn't do it ), and also the cropping (I play in 1920x1080)