Jud Bland and Lawrence Gainor could hardly believe it. In all their years in the submarine navy as career brown-baggers, whose wives and children followed them from yard to yard, trying to keep up with the men and their boats, neither had witnessed the launch of an underseas warship—let alone ride it down the ways.
But now, at 1525 on September 14, 1938, the two stood together on the deck of a black metallic whale, hidden from the outside world beneath the cavernous roof of Building 13 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. Below them, U.S. Navy submarine hull SS-192—310 feet long with a beam of 27 feet, and 11 months and 2 million man-hours in the making—was held aloft by a massive wooden cradle on a pair of heavily greased iron skids that trailed downhill toward the open end of the building and the Piscataqua River that divides Maine from New Hampshire. Hundreds of VIPs and yardworkers crowded around the 1,450-ton behemoth, gazing up at Gainor, Bland, and a handful of others standing at quarters in dress uniform, the nucleus of the boat’s first crew. Colorful pennants fluttered overhead on an antenna wire strung from the bow to the stern, passing over the conning tower with a large “S 11” painted in white on each side.
The boat was one of only two submarines to be launched in Kittery in 1938. Thus, the area was alive with anticipation. On the New Hampshire side of the river, opposite the ways, thousands packed the shore of Pierce Island. Spectators wedged onto the narrow, two-lane Memorial Bridge, linking Portsmouth with Kittery and the navy yard, jockeying for the best view. And on the base, yard workers and visitors, some of whom had come great distances to witness the christening of every sub since the first in 1917, crammed the waterfront.
The Frank E. Booma Post American Legion band from Portsmouth played with patriotic fervor inside the ways as a covey of dignitaries arrived and climbed to the bunting-clad launch stand beneath the sharp bow of the vessel. Among them were Rear Adm. C. W. Cole, commandant of the yard, and the sponsor of the new submarine, Caroline Brownson Hart, the wife of Adm. Thomas C. Hart, president of the Navy’s General Board. Cole addressed the throng, praising the work that went into the boat, after which a yard representative presented Mrs. Hart with a silver platter engraved with the submarine’s design. The shipyard chaplain then offered a prayer, followed by the raising of a warning flag at 1540.
As the moment of launch neared, Bland pondered the irony of his reunion with Gainor. “We trained together for submarine duty but lost touch for eight years until we were called to Portsmouth,” he recalled. “But now, here we were about to ride a submarine down the ways, by God!”
Both men were seasoned electricians who had served in all types of surface vessels, including the battleship New Mexico. They were among the Navy’s best rates, or specialized enlisted men, chosen from throughout the fleet to man the new submarine. Bland (EMlc) and Gainor (CE) and a handful of others like them would be counted on to provide leadership and training to younger rates, such as McLees and Bryson, soon to arrive from New London. But for now the two shared in the spectacle of the launch.
The long blast of a Klaxon echoed loudly at 1543. On the launch stand, Mrs. Hart grasped the cord to a ceremonial bottle of champagne as workers began removing wedges that held the vessel in place on the skids. The submarine shivered as her great weight tugged at the loosening grip. Two bells sounded, alerting the sponsor to be ready. Then a single bell. A screech rose as the boat began to move. “Now, Mrs. Hart!” yelled the building superintendent. With both hands, she swung the champagne against the hull. “I christen thee Squalus!” When the bottle didn’t break, she swung again quickly and it shattered, sending a cascade of foam down the bow.
Now officially named for a snub-nosed, cold-water shark, the USS Squalus backed away slowly from the platform as the Legion band struck up “Anchors Aweigh.” Yard whistles and boats in the harbor joined the cheering multitude as the submarine, propelled by gravity, slid majestically down the ways with a large American flag undulating from her stern. Gathering speed while the band broke into the opening strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” the Squalus splashed heavily into the river, her cradle falling behind while she bobbed forward with a side-to-side waddle. Tugboats moved alongside to secure lines and then towed her to a fitting-out pier near her identical sister ship, the USS Sculpin, launched just three weeks earlier from the same ways. Work began immediately to install diesel engines, electric motors, and all the other mechanical and electrical components it would take to give both submarines life before the year was out.
With the launch, high hopes also came down the ways. The Squalus and the Sculpin were the forerunners of a new type of underseas boat named for fighting fish with enough surface speed and cruising range to accompany the U.S. fleet anywhere in the world. These “fleet submarines” could dive deeper, stay down longer, travel farther, and carry more firepower than any sub yet built. They also were air conditioned, a revolution in underseas habitability. For those gathered in Portsmouth-Kittery on September 14, the ancient quest for an ultimate naval weapon seemed at last to be realized.
So it was that the Squalus and the Sculpin of the Sargo class sat quietly on the Piscataqua in the fall of 1938 as prospective officers and crews began to arrive.
The area was quintessential New England, backdropped by the 5,000-foot-high White Mountains to the west. From the center of Portsmouth, cobblestone streets tumbled down Strawberry Bank to the river that separated the city from the village of Kittery and the navy yard where the nation’s first government-built submarine (the L-8) was launched in 1917.
In Portsmouth, citizens shared in the mystique of the submarine service. The remarkable boats were something to be proud of, thus the town took to the sailors chosen for them. The crews of the Squalus and Sculpin lived together on base—the Sculpin rates on the top floor of an old World War I barracks, and the Squalus men on the bottom. Naturally, competition was inevitable. “There was a friendly rivalry between the Sculpin and the Squalus crews,” said Bland. “Unfortunately, the Sculpin regularly beat the Squalus in softball. And the Sculpin crew always seemed to get all the girls.”
The selection of crews was a deliberate process, spanning several months under Oliver Francis Naquin and Warren Dudley Wilkin, the new skippers of the Squalus and Sculpin, respectively.
Naquin, born in New Orleans in 1905 and known as the hottest jazz trumpet player in Annapolis, originally had been recruited by the famed Paul Whiteman band. But the young midshipman chose instead the stability of a naval career in consideration of his wife and family. After graduation, he served aboard the USS New York and later the USS Osborne. Wilkin, born in Kent, Ohio, in 1900, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1924, one year ahead of Naquin. As an ensign, he saw duty aboard the USS Arkansas and USS Billingsley for the next four years.
For both men, ascending the long chain of command in the regular line surface ships posed a difficult task because of the postwar scale-back of the fleet and subsequent abundance of fleet officers. But submarine duty was an alternative for them. The Navy made it a practice to send its fleet submarines to Annapolis to impress the cadets. “The contrast between the new submarines and the old ones that we trained on during summer classes was not only great but dramatic and made us all bug-eyed,” said Capt. Frank Wheeler (Ret.), who attended the Academy in the early 1930s. “The smaller ships like submarines also gave you opportunity for important jobs earlier, like command.”
In addition, officers who went into submarines received hazardous duty pay. “That was about 25 percent more, something that looked very good in those [Depression] days to all of us,” said Wheeler, who added, “The Navy required more submariners than they did line officers at the time, so there was a subtle pressure on us.”
It is for these reasons that officers such as Naquin and Wilkin found themselves drawn to submarine training at New London after several years in the surface fleet. By 1930, both men had qualified for command of the “pig-boats,” as the older subs were called. They were dangerous and very cramped. The smell of leaking engine oil in the bilge, rotting food, sweaty bodies, and human waste mingled in a trapped environment. After days and weeks at sea, officers and rates alike emerged with rumpled, grease-stained clothing and bruises from being banged around by the boats, which rolled and pitched on the surface. Even to those unfamiliar with submarine sailors, there was no mistaking them in a crowd. “Diesel exhaust would be sucked below decks and we’d all reek of it,” recalled Naquin of those early years. “My wife wouldn’t let me in the house unless I’d head straight for the shower.”
Naquin served in R-14, S-47, and S-46, where he assumed command in 1935. Likewise, Wilkin served aboard R-11, the R-18, and the USS Narwhal, one of the large V-class cruiser submarines. Both men distinguished themselves in technical and tactical ability, as well as the tight discipline with which they handled their men. The Navy was looking for such qualities, particularly men who acted with extreme caution, mindful of the saying, “There is room for everything aboard a submarine except a mistake.”
In 1938, the Navy was confident that Naquin and Wilkin fit the profile and gave them command of the two new boats in Kittery. There, each captain and four subordinate officers assembled their crews.
Soon classes began for the rates. For weeks, under the tutelage of Bland, Gainer, and a few others, the men studied the trim and drainage systems; the hydraulic, steering, and fuel oil systems; the ballast blow systems and diving and anchor gears; and the refrigeration, air conditioning, fresh water, sanitary, and ventilation systems. They traced each—from one end of the ship to the other—in notebooks and were tested on them.
The enlisted men had trained on much smaller submarines. Some had seen a fleet boat. But few, if any, had ever been inside one. These were no pig-boats, but roomy, brightly lit vessels, paneled in satin-finish stainless steel to give them a sleek, futuristic look. Although old-timers disparaged the flush toilets, cold storage, and air conditioning, calling them “hotel accommodations,” the new crews liked what they saw.
These boats were wondrous monsters, nearly twice the size of the old S- and R-boats. From topside, the Squalus’s deck was a narrow strip of steel, slatted with teakwood, which dried quickly and provided a firm foothold at sea. The hull ballooned outward to surround a pressurized, welded inner hull—really a ship within a ship. Between the two hulls were ballast and fuel storage tanks that girdled the craft’s midsection. These could be flooded with water or blown clear with compressed air to dive, surface, or trim the ship.
On the surface near the bow, large wing-like structures were folded against the outer hull. These bow planes were deployed horizontally underwater to control dives. Rising from the deck slightly forward of midships was a steel island, known as the bridge fairwater, a rounded sheet-metal structure some 20 feet high that encircled an interior bullet-and pressure-proof conning tower, as well as the ship’s ventilation duct and a 35-inch main air induction valve that provided air to the boat’s diesel engines. An array of periscope shears and radio antenna jutted up above the bridge, where lookouts could scan the horizon with binoculars for signs of danger while on patrol. Midway between the fairwater and the stern was a 3-inch waterproof deck gun for surface action. Otherwise, the submarine’s topside was unbroken, tapering at the stern to smaller stern planes and twin propellers.
Beyond a watertight door in the bridge fairwater was the conning tower, a large compartment filled with instruments that gave the time, the speed of the vessel, and the depth; from here, orders were transmitted throughout the ship. A large navigation wheel fronted the instruments. Here, during battle, the helmsman would navigate while others next to him operated torpedo firing panels and a torpedo data computer. A small plotting table sat near the after bulkhead, where the executive officer would read the range and bearing of targets as the skipper observed them from the periscope.
Below the conning tower was the heart of the Squalus—the control room—reached by a short vertical ladder. A bank of red and green lights—the boat’s so-called Christmas Tree—indicated whether hull openings were sealed from the ocean. A long bank of manifold levers that emptied or filled the ship’s ballast tanks lined the bulkhead nearby. Here, too, was a set of wheels where operators controlled the bow and stern planes. A tiny compartment with the boat’s radio equipment was tucked into the after-end of the control room. Below the compartment was a machine shop and various pumps.
The control room was separated from the rest of the vessel by heavy steel watertight doors set into oval bulkhead openings. One had to stoop low while stepping high to pass through, continuing along a two-foot-wide central passageway the length of the boat. A plumber’s delight of pipes, hand wheels, and flapper valves covered the overhead in every compartment.
Forward from the control room were the staterooms of the officers and the CPOs, plus the skipper’s cabin, which was about six feet square, with a bed, a telephone to the conning tower, and a bank of instruments that tracked the boat’s depth and course. A small pantry and a ship’s office rounded out “officers’ country.” Below the staterooms in the keel rested half of the boat’s 126 lead-acid storage cells, each weighing 1,650 pounds. The cells gave the compartment its name, the forward battery.
Through another watertight door was one of the largest compartments of the boat, the forward torpedo room. At the far end, under the bow, were the bright bronze doors to four torpedo tubes, arranged in two vertical tiers. Racks holding several 21-foot-long torpedoes lined the sides of the long, narrow room, with bunks for the men provided over and under the missiles.
Returning to the control room and now moving aft was the after battery room, which contained the crew’s quarters, an area of folding bunks, a toilet, washroom, and showers. Further astern was the mess, with tables to seat as many as ten at a time, and a small but efficient galley, the social hub of the boat. Below deck was the other half of the boat’s storage cells, plus cold- and deep-freeze storage for perishable food.
Next came the forward engine room, containing two 1,600-horse-power diesel engines, separated by the narrow passageway. Just astern, in the after engine room, was a similar arrangement of two more diesels. Unlike all other compartments, there was no bulkhead or watertight door separating the two engine rooms.
Continuing astern, the maneuvering room was really just an extension of the after engine room. The propulsion controls were located here, linked to the helmsman in the conning tower by a telegraph system of tinkling bells. Below deck were four motors for silent, battery-powered underseas propulsion.
Through the last of the watertight doors was the after torpedo room, located in the stern of the craft. Here, four more loaded torpedo tubes exited the vessel with additional missiles stored in racks leading to the firing tubes. Again, bunks were located above and below these “fish.”
During critical maneuvers and in battle, an enlisted man who served as a “talker” was posted in each of the submarine’s seven below-decks compartments—the control room, the forward and after batteries, the two engine rooms, and the two torpedo rooms, plus the bridge and conning tower when the boat was on the surface. Wearing headphones plugged into a ship-wide telephone line, talkers provided instantaneous communications throughout the boat at all times.
In addition to the extreme length and upgraded features of the fleet boats, they also were noted for many safety features stemming from a series of embarrassing disasters for the Navy. In 1925, the S-51 was rammed by a steamship off Rhode Island and sank. Although the boat’s oscillator continued to emit distress signals, there was no way to reach the vessel. Two years later, the S-4 was struck by a Coast Guard vessel off Cape Cod and sank, trapping her forty-man crew at a depth of 100 feet. For three days, the survivors hammered messages to rescuers on the surface, asking, “How long will you be?” But bad weather and no means to get to the crew doomed the men. The American public was appalled, and newspapers complained that twenty U.S. subs had sunk with a loss of more than 750 men in peacetime accidents since 1904. Each disaster emphasized the Navy’s inability to save trapped sailors in vessels the public considered “coffins for heroes.”
Suffering under this barrage, the Navy by the early 1930s made major improvements to its new boats: watertight bulkheads between compartments; backup onboard systems; hull-stop valves in every compartment to plug leaks; marker buoys with telephones that could be deployed to the surface; Momsen breathing lungs for individual ascents from stranded vessels; and, perhaps most important, specialized escape hatches that could accommodate the Navy’s new experimental rescue bell. The eight-man chamber could be lowered from a surface ship to the deck of a submerged boat and link up to the escape hatch to bring crewmen back alive. Although the Navy was confident the McCann Rescue Chamber would work, it had never actually been used in an emergency.
With the commissioning of the Sculpin on January 16, 1939, and the Squalus on March 1, 1939, trials were soon under way on the Piscataqua River. The crews practiced cohesive teamwork, and the boats themselves were checked for design flaws and equipment failures.
Navigating the three-mile stretch of the river to the Atlantic was tricky. With seven-foot tides daily, draining some 100 miles of inland waterways, the Piscataqua is the second fastest at half-tide in the United States. Such landmarks as Pull-and-be-damned Point, the Horse Races, and Bloody Point underscored the task for sailors in maneuvering and docking. “We would make turns at 15 to 18 knots at a time in the river,” said Carl Bryson, who was a bridge talker on the Squalus. “At full ebb when the tide is going out, the current is running at 12 knots. It’s not like any other place, very tricky in bringing the boat alongside the dock. It’s why they have such good seamen in Portsmouth.”
After passing the initial tests, the two boats began a series of practice dives in the Atlantic off the rocky coast of New Hampshire where huge mansions loomed as misty sentinels. The boats proceeded six miles out to an area off the Isles of Shoals, a string of rocky islands once used by pirates. There the confluence of the ocean’s cold Labrador Current and warm Gulf Stream produced awesome fogs, often with rainbows dappling their edges as they moved toward shore. It was an area of fickle weather, where storms could arise without warning.
On the trial dives, civilian observers accompanied the crews, including inspectors from General Motors, which built the diesel engines. They studied the crews and the equipment, looking for deficiencies.
By May 22, 1939, the Sculpin had passed her trial runs and was certified to join the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. As the crew prepared to depart the next morning, the Squalus anchored in a cove of the Piscataqua after a successful eighteenth dive. Rather than return to base, Naquin wanted the crew well rested for the next day’s crucial running dive in which the boat would accelerate to flank speed and then make a crash dive in hopes of being underwater in 60 seconds, the benchmark set by the Sculpin. The men were confident they could do it, unaware of the tragedy ahead of them, one foretold in the Atlantic off South America a few months earlier.
While on a shakedown cruise, the USS Snapper (SS-185) prepared to dive in very deep water. At the start of the descent, the 35-inch diameter main air induction valve failed to close at the top of the bridge fair-water. The diving officer, aware of the malfunction, immediately ordered all ballast tanks blown to put the Snapper in a hard rise back to the surface from 50 feet deep. The boat barely made it as water swamped the submarine’s network of ventilation lines. By the time the Snapper surfaced, water was ankle-deep in some compartments. What saved the boat was the routine in the engine rooms of closing off the inboard stop valves below the induction line during a dive.
But on the Squalus, there was no such procedure as the sun set on May 22.