Somberly the crew of the Sailfish turned south along the Borneo coast, making the lonely return trek across the Indian Ocean as Australia’s winter closed in. After five months at war, there was little to cheer about. Japan’s well-rehearsed war machine had met nearly all objectives and now threatened the subcontinent. In Perth and Fremantle, residents expected a strike by carrier-based enemy bombers at any time. But the attack never came. “It was fortunate for us since western Australia was the only convenient place left for our submarines,” said Bayles. “It was important we had a place where we could rest, relax, pull alongside the tender to get refitted and get ready for the next patrol. That the Japanese overlooked that little area, thank goodness.”
Rear Adm. Charles Andrew Lockwood had taken the reins at Perth. At age 52, he was energetic, brisk, and tenacious, known to fly in the face of naval rule-books. He was the submariners’ submariner—“Uncle Charlie” to them. He also was no stranger to the men of the Sailfish and the Sculpin, for it was he who got the Squalus distress call at the War Department in 1939, putting into motion the heroic rescue.
In Perth, the admiral was appalled at conditions on returning boats. “All hands look tired and thin,” he wrote in his diary, noting in particular how drawn Chappell seemed when the Sculpin arrived on April 27. The men looked like refugees, having lost weight from the intense heat aboard. Several sported what Lockwood termed “beautiful apostolic beards.” He worried about the stress of nonstop patrols and the inability of the men to get enough sleep on the noisy sub tenders. Resolving to do something about it, he borrowed an idea from Adm. Chester Nimitz, the new commander of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor who had leased the posh Royal Hawaiian Hotel as R&R facilities for aviators and submariners. Lockwood did the same in Perth, renting four hotels—two in town, two at the beach—for the sub crews arriving from war patrols. The residents of Perth also pitched in. Every courtesy was extended the men who were likened to saviors of the continent.
To the crews, the city of 400,000 was unique, endearing, and beautiful, a place where black swans graced the central river and laughing kookaburra birds soared over terracotta roofs. Here, at the western portal to the vast deserts that isolate Perth, the Americans spent carefree hours hunting, playing tennis, sightseeing, and partying while spending money with abandon. “We never cared about money. You never knew if you would come back from a patrol run anyway,” said the Sculpin’s Rocek who made three liberties in Perth. “Whatever money you had, you spent. At that time, most of us believed that, if you made four successful patrol runs, you were pressing your luck. You would never make a fifth. Your chances were nil. So we felt, ‘Hey, go for broke. Live it up. Enjoy yourself while you can.’” That they did, being drawn to an abundance of unattached women in a city where young local males were serving the British overseas. “There were girls everywhere. We had no problem with girls, nice girls,” the Sailfish’s Braun reminisced. “All the taxis were driven by girls, very beautiful girls.” So infatuated were the submariners that many proposed marriage, including three on the Sculpin.
Despite the pleasures of Perth, the dread of beginning a new war patrol was ever-present. Lockwood did what he could to lift spirits. He was there to see each submarine off, and he made a point of leaping aboard on the return before the lines were even secured. He engaged the crewmen in conversation and, with a cup of coffee in hand, settled into the skipper’s cabin to discuss the just-completed patrol with each captain. He arranged for bands to herald all arrivals and departures. In keeping with the American Old West ambiance of western Australia, the bands played the Gene Autry tunes “Empty Saddles in the Bunkhouse” when the boats departed and “Back in the Saddle Again” when they returned. All of this was Lockwood’s way of showing appreciation and keeping up morale.
Still, the task of sinking enemy ships was indomitable. Only nineteen fleet submarines were available to patrol the vast Southwest Pacific and only one-third actually could be on patrol at a time. All others were either undergoing refit, or making the long voyage to and from the war zone. Furthermore, Fremantle was at the extreme end of a long, slow resupply line from the United States. Thus limited torpedoes and spare parts were available, forcing most boats to set out with insufficient supplies of each.
It was a schizophrenic period for submariners. The horror of combat alternated with the joy of Aussie life every six to eight weeks. One month, the men were barely escaping a devastating depth charge attack, and the next they were placing bets at an Outback racetrack. One week they were sinking an oil tanker and fleeing enemy destroyers, and the next they were sitting on a dock in the Fremantle sunshine with apples stuffed in their pockets, chewing on stalks of celery while reading letters from home. One day, they were cursing submarine service while trapped at great depth in stifling heat, waiting out an enemy overhead. Days later, they were doing the “Hokey Pokey” in Perth. And they all knew it could end quickly in some nameless patch of the ocean. Indeed, the troubles with the Mark XIV torpedoes ensured that every patrol was hazardous to the extreme.
Lockwood was convinced the weapon was flawed; he had read too many reports not to believe the skippers. He was particularly drawn to the Sculpin’s Kendari patrol in which Chappell had hoped to intercept the Japanese fleet believed massing for the attack on Australia. Although the armada turned west and left the scene, the boat intercepted a 5,000-ton merchant ship on March 31 and fired three torpedoes at close range. “It seemed impossible that they could miss, yet no explosions were heard, no hits were observed and the target was heard to continue to run without pause,” the skipper, who was furious, wrote in his patrol log. “If the truth be told, the Commanding Officer was so completely demoralized and disheartened by repeated misses that he had little stomach for further action until an analysis could be made, the finger put on the deficiency or deficiencies responsible, and corrective action taken.”
Intent on rooting out the cause, Lockwood convened a meeting of sub captains, including Chappell, in Albany, an old whaling station and sub base around the southwest corner of Australia, two days’ sailing time from Perth. The admiral arranged for the Skipjack to test the torpedoes by firing them at a fishing net suspended vertically from the ocean bottom outside Albany’s harbor. The tests proved the torpedoes were running too deep and corrections were made. It was an immediate boost to morale. Yet erratic guidance, premature explosions, and duds continued to haunt the force. In fact, it would be another year before all the ills were worked out.
Through the Aussie winter, the subs operated out of Albany where nothing stood between them and the South Pole but the Antarctic Ocean. When the Sculpin arrived in May, wintry cold had settled over the town of 5,000 overlooking Princess Royal Harbor, a small bay protected on three sides by barren limestone cliffs and low hills. “It reminded me of a town in the Old West,” said Rocek. “A boardwalk ran in front of the stores which had overhangs. It was quaint and neat. You would feel that you were in another time.”
As in Perth, the townspeople laid out the welcome mat. “The crews from all submarines and the USS Holland were loved by all Albany people,” said Clarrie Smith who was a 14-year-old school boy at the time. “I would obtain the home addresses of those from Sailfish and Sculpin and write letters to their mums or wives. It certainly beat the censor and let the families know the location of their son’s or husband’s ship and his health.”
The crews were invited into homes all over town, and the sailors reciprocated by giving tours of the boats. The Sailfish, in particular, drew gawks because of her checkered history as the infamous Squalus. The big-spending strangers enthralled the town. “Never had I seen so much money in my life,” said Smith, who earned tips by preparing sandwiches during poker games at hotels where the sub vets stayed. “The bigger their win, the bigger my tip. After the first week, all the pubs were cleaned out of anything that came out of a bottle. I remember how before the submarines arrived, I would walk down the streets past the hotels and notice the stocks of Scotch, brandy, rum, and vodka all covered in dust. No one could afford it. It was beer, beer, and more beer.”
In the piano lounge at the Freemason Hotel, officers and crewmen wiled away the hours, singing a gusty version of the popular Aussie tune, “Bless ’Em All”: “Sink ’em all, sink ’em all, Tojo and Hitler and all; Sink all their cruisers and carriers too; Sink all their tin cans and their stinking crews.”
Meanwhile, the Sailfish and Sculpin underwent major modifications. The conning tower superstructures were cut down to reduce their visibility to enemy ships. And newly developed SD radar was installed, which would allow the boats to detect incoming enemy aircraft and thus avoid attack. By June, both boats were ready and embarked for the South China Sea, where neither was particularly effective. In the course of two months, they damaged four small cargo ships and a tanker but no sinkings could be confirmed.
In early August, both returned to Albany where townspeople celebrated encouraging news. The Battle of the Coral Sea north of Australia had resulted in a stalemate, forcing Japan to abandon thoughts of invading Australia. And on August 7, as the Sculpin moored alongside the Sailfish in Princess Royal Harbor, U.S. Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands east of New Guinea to begin one of the bloodiest battles of the war. In Albany, the crews of the two boats were swept up in the enthusiasm of what seemed a turning point in the war. But within two weeks, both boats were ready to head back to war.
The Sculpin got under way first, sailing for Fremantle, with the Sailfish to follow. Plans changed abruptly en route. “The beachhead at Guadalcanal was in jeopardy,” explained Tucker. “Our surface forces had been clobbered and we were fresh out of carriers. At one time, every sub in the [South] Pacific was directed to head toward the Solomons.” Thus, the Sailfish and Sculpin reversed course to make a 3,000-mile voyage around the southern coast of the continent.
They arrived in Brisbane after an 11-day journey. As brief “voyage repairs” got under way, the crews spread out in the gritty seaport known as the New Orleans of Australia. At the same time, there was a change in command aboard the Sailfish. Voge was ordered back to Pearl Harbor to become submarine combat operations officer for the fleet. The new skipper was 37-year-old Lt. Cdr. John Raymond “Dinty” Moore, a Tennessee native who had distinguished himself as commander of the S-44 by sinking two merchant ships and an enemy cruiser, earning him the Navy Cross.
The Sailfish and the Sculpin, with Chappell still at the helm, cast off within a week of each other, heading for the Solomons in what would become a harrowing ordeal for both boats.
On September 28, off the Bismarck Archipelago, the Sculpin torpedoed a cargo ship. For three hours, two destroyers counterattacked, one coaching the other as they tracked the submarine. Bombs straddled the boat, causing her to briefly lose power and spring numerous leaks. The crew worked furiously to stop the flooding while maintaining silent running. Lt. (jg) Corwin Mendenhall discovered a powerful stream of water shooting from the officers’ head into the forward battery compartment. Desperately, he used his hands to hold back the flow while yelling for help from crewmen who arrived with plugs and turnbuckles to stem the high-pressure leak. It took a bucket-brigade more than an hour to collect the water taken in, thus preventing it from flooding battery cells on the keel, which would have produced deadly chlorine gas. The black gang did the same in the engine rooms, where numerous leaks threatened to short-circuit the electric motors, then turning at two-thirds speed to keep the boat from sinking to crush depth.
The men were taxed to the limit doing what was necessary to save the Sculpin. The attack had loosened rubber bearings in tubes housing the propeller shafts, causing them to emit a high-pitched scream at great depth. Nevertheless, the boat slipped away, with Chappell determined to strike back.
On October 7, the boat sank a 4,731-ton transport off New Ireland. A week later, she dodged a destroyer to sink a smaller cargo ship. And on October 18, she inflicted damage on the light cruiser Yura before being driven off by gunfire. The boat then headed back to Brisbane for repairs.
In the Sailfish’s patrol to the north off Guadalcanal, the boat was unable to attack a fast-moving Japanese cruiser screened by eight destroyers that passed over the boat. Two days later, the submarine attacked a minelayer. When all three torpedoes missed, the boat dove. The enemy countered by dropping eleven depth charges over the Sailfish, causing extensive minor damage. Bad weather and overwhelming odds due to heavy concentrations of enemy warships thwarted the rest of the patrol, forcing the boat to return to Brisbane. She arrived on November 1, five days behind the Sculpin.
By then, both boats were in sad shape. They had been at sea for nearly three years, long past the time they should have returned to the States for repairs. Ralph W. Christie, captain of the sub squadron in Brisbane, viewed both as in “poor condition and in urgent need of major overhaul back in the U.S.” That view was shared by Voge before he left the Sailfish: “The ship is beginning to show the strain of spending seventy-four percent of the time under way and steaming 26,400 miles in the past six months.”
By mid-November, the two were ready to make the long journey home through enemy territory. On November 18, the Sculpin embarked for Truk Islands, Japan’s Central Pacific fortress. Six days later, the Sailfish followed. For both boats, the journey would prove to be a near disaster.