In mid-December, the Sculpin arrived off Truk, a foreboding group of fifty volcanic peaks bristling like ragged teeth raised above the horizon. Chappell moved in carefully, skirting dangerous coral reefs. Numerous inlets allowed enemy ships to come and go, the Japanese frequently changing routes to foil submarines laying in wait. But on the night of December 18, the Sculpin finally sighted an aircraft carrier led by three destroyers. At 0040, with the boat closing rapidly on the surface, she was detected. Two escorts pealed off in pursuit. The submarine turned away, trying to outrun the destroyers. For a moment, it seemed to Chappell she might make it.
But suddenly a searchlight fully illuminated the boat. Both destroyers opened fire from 6,000 yards. Shells fell in great geysers around the boat as she dove. The destroyers pinpointed her on sonar and raced over, lobbing depth charges intended to finish her.
The Sculpin slid downward in an elevator plunge to 300 feet. Anxious crewmen stopped in their tracks. Clattering diesels were stilled, as were all ventilation fans, the air conditioning, and any other mechanical devices. There was only the nearly noiseless hum of the boat’s electric motor in the keel, powering the getaway. The crewmen stood in stony silence, listening intently for the thresher-like sounds of the oncoming destroyers. The men moved about only when necessary, and then very deliberately. The officers issued few commands, passed in a hush over the boat’s telephone line to the talkers, who repeated them in a whisper to the men.
The commotion of one destroyer dropping depth charges and the two others dashing about played into Chappell’s favor, masking the Sculpin’s movements below. The enemy lost contact as the submarine proceeded away “at creeping speed,” the captain later reported. He kept the boat deep for the next three hours, moving up gradually to periscope depth where no vessels at all were detected. At 0400, the submarine burst to the surface, the crewmen throwing open the deck hatches. Simultaneously, the powerful diesels came to life, sucking cool night air through the boat in a huge torrent that practically lifted the men off the deck.
After a few hours, the boat submerged for the day and then resurfaced at sunset to resume prowling the southwest shipping lanes to and from Truk for the next several nights, sinking an oil tanker as it rendezvoused with a destroyer. A few days later, Chappell and the lookouts watched as a Japanese hospital ship passed, all lit up like a floating jewel so submarines would not attack.
On New Year’s Eve, as the boat prepared to begin the open ocean run back to Pearl, the joy of homecoming was duly noted in the Sculpin logbook: “G’bye Australia and all you diggers, Too hard there to rill your jiggers. We’ll navigate by sight and sound, We can’t get lost when we’re homeward bound.”
Meanwhile, 800 miles to the south, the Sailfish passed New Britain in the Solomons as the Japanese retreated. “The Japanese were having their own little Dunkirk at Lae and Salamaua where Australian and U.S. forces were forcing the Japanese into the sea,” said Tucker. “Sailfish was put specifically on the Rabaul-Lae-Salamaua route to intercept these ships.” On Christmas Eve at midnight, the boat sank a Japanese submarine, silhouetted in bright moonlight and completely unaware of the Sailfish’s presence. A few days later, two other attacks on a convoy and a destroyer misfired. For the next week, the boat journeyed north uneventfully until January 8, when radar picked up a fast-closing airplane. The boat made an emergency dive but heavy seas pounded the vessel, slowing her descent. As she passed the 90-foot mark, a 500-pound bomb exploded, staggering the submarine. The concussion shattered lightbulbs and knocked paint chips loose from the overhead. But once again, the Sailfish escaped. She later surfaced and, like the Sculpin, headed for Pearl.
After a year at war, the crewmen of both boats needed extended R&R. On the Sculpin, Chappell feared the Navy might transfer his men to newly constructed submarines, thus putting them right back on the firing line, before they could take extended leave. Most of the crew, he noted in his patrol report, had been together from the first day of the war and “are approaching physical and nervous exhaustion.” They needed time to relax, to return on leave to their families in the United States. He estimated that out of 397 days at war, fully 300 were spent at sea, much of the time submerged.
The two sister boats traveled the surface by day and night. Four lookouts manned the bridge, binoculars draped around their necks while supporting themselves against the pitch and roll of the boat by wrapping their legs around the railing. They held the glasses to their eyes, making a steady sweep to take in the sky, the horizon, and the sea in four quadrants all around the boat, each quadrant slightly overlapping the other. They had to be on guard for airplanes of any sort; more than once an unmarked sub had been bombed accidentally by friendly forces. The vigil went on day and night, with nothing to be seen but mile after mile of endless ocean. And in the twilight, thousands of stars pinpointed the sky all the way down to the horizon.
For the men below, such breathtaking sights were seldom seen. Most preferred to stay inside through the entire patrol. Except for the captain, every officer and crewman stood one eight-hour watch daily. The shifts were useful in managing the cramped space. Sharing bunks was the only way to provide enough sleeping quarters for the crews. As one man woke up to begin his shift, another was coming off and climbed into the just vacated bunk—thus the term “hot bunking.”
Another nuance was the practice of “reversa,” the deliberate reversal of normal daily routines after arriving in enemy waters. During daylight hours, the boats stayed submerged, allowing most of the crews to sleep. At night, as the vessels rose from the depths to begin searching for targets, they came alive with lookouts posted and men at stations, ready to attack or prepare for counterattack at a moment’s notice. This nightly routine affected many old habits. Thus, breakfast on the Sculpin would be served in the evening, around 1800, and dinner would be at dawn of the next day. After many weeks of this, crewmen began to lose any sense of time. “You never went topside. Just the lookouts,” said engine-man Rocek. “So, sooner or later you would wonder what the hell day it was. Was it morning or was it night? And when you woke up, you would wonder if you just ate or are you going to eat.”
Although reversa was practiced on the Sailfish, there was a difference: “We had two meals a day, both submerged, breakfast after diving in the morning and dinner before surfacing in the evening. In that way bad weather didn’t affect our meals,” explained Lieutenant Tucker.
There was plenty of time for relaxation on patrol, as much as five hours of free time daily. Inevitably, poker games for high stakes got under way in the after battery compartment. There, the mess hall was the social center of each boat. Submarine crews in effect ate their way through a war patrol. There was little room at the beginning of a voyage because of huge stores of food. But toward the end, space opened up all over the boat. The forward torpedo room became a second social hub because of newfound space, a place where 16mm movies could be shown. Submarines often sidled up to one another at sea to exchange as many as fifteen reels. The crews regularly tuned in Tokyo Rose—for laughs. What astonished them most about radio from Tokyo and Manila was the enemy’s preference for American military music, particularly the oft-played “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Both the Sculpin and the Sailfish had libraries in their mess halls, where dog-eared magazines and well-read novels accumulated. Each of the rates was assigned a locker the size of a medicine cabinet near his bunk. To break the monotony on patrol, practical jokes abounded, and the victims always extracted good-natured revenge.
After seven days of surface running, the Sculpin arrived off Oahu on January 8, a week ahead of her sister ship. The boat was met by the USS Litchfield (DD-336), which escorted her past bristling coastal defenses. On her way up the twisting channel leading to Pearl Harbor, the boat motored solemnly past the overturned hull of the battleship Oklahoma and sunken wreckage of the Arizona, then proceeded past the towering navy yard cranes, turned in the channel, and headed for the submarine base dead ahead. A welcoming band played the “Star Spangled Banner” as the submarine heaved to. Scores of dignitaries received the boat, repeating the gala receptions accorded her in Australia. Later, rates who had been promoted to chiefs at the end of the run were ceremonially dunked at dockside by fellow crewmen.
After a three-day layover, the Sculpin embarked for San Francisco, followed nine days later by the Sailfish. On January 18, the Sculpin rendezvoused with a blimp detailed to protect her from being mistaken for an enemy submarine. Chappell and the lookouts watched as the orange magnificence of the Golden Gate Bridge came into view. The boat passed slowly under the span as motorists beeped their horns and waved enthusiastically. The submarine rounded Fisherman’s Wharf, passing between it and the federal penitentiary of Alcatraz before putting in at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s shipbuilding yard in the city. Just over a week later, the Sailfish arrived, mooring at the Mare Island naval shipyard directly across the bay from the Sculpin.
It would take a few months to complete the overhauls. In the meantime, the crews of both boats headed east on passenger trains in a country brimming with vitality. Gone was the hopelessness of the 1930s. In its place was a strong sense of purpose and a booming economy. The United States had become what President Roosevelt termed “the great arsenal of Democracy,” producing munitions at a truly phenomenal rate. In Southern California, one B-24 bomber came off assembly lines every 23 minutes. In Detroit, a trainload of new tanks emerged from the Ford Motor Company every day. And in Philadelphia, a new troop ship slid down the ways every eight hours. Factories large and small produced whatever was needed. Merry-go-round manufacturers made gun mounts. Toymakers built bomb fuses. A third of the nation’s women poured into the factories, joined by their teenaged children. Everyone got into the act. The blind sifted floor sweepings for reusable rivets. The deaf manned production lines in plants where noise levels were intolerable. And little people inspected the insides of airplane wings.
It was all remarkable to George Rocek, eastbound on a troop train for his home in Cicero, Illinois, where his family didn’t know he was coming. He watched from his passenger window as train after train passed in the opposite direction, bound for the West Coast with an endless stream of artillery, tanks, and weapons of every make.
Arriving in Cicero, he caught a cab home. His father, who operated a tailoring shop adjacent to the family home, was at work when his son—tall, bearded, and smiling—stepped through the door. “I said, ‘Hi!’ But he didn’t know who the hell I was. And I said, ‘Pa, it’s me! George!’ The tears came to his eyes. He grabbed me and hugged me. And then he just broke down,” recalled Rocek, his voice cracking at the memory.
Into the wee hours, he and his family talked about the war and their younger days. “Every summer, . . . all the families would go out to the forest reserve about 20 miles away and have a lamb and a pig roast. We did this every two weeks on Sunday. Everybody brought side dishes. There were ball games, singing, hiking, playing cards and dancing. You wouldn’t get home until eight or nine o’clock at night. Then in the winter, they would hire a hall and do the same thing once a month. . . . Those days put an anchor, a concrete foundation in you. Later in the war, I would think about it often and say to myself, ‘Gosh, what a wonderful time for a youngster to go through.’ It shows you how those people really enjoyed life then.”
In the final days of his leave, he posed for a series of newspaper photographs with his younger brother. When the day arrived for Rocek to return to the awaiting Sculpin, it was a tearful farewell. “I wasn’t fearful about going back. But my mother cried. My dad, though, was solid.”
By April, the crews of the Sailfish and the Sculpin had regrouped as the overhauls were coming to an end, marred by tragedy for the Sailfish. Two motormacs, returning from liberty in Sacramento, were killed when their car ran under a truck in heavy fog. Tucker was called on to identify the bodies.
The two boats had undergone significant modernization during the overhaul. Two vapor compression stills were installed to provide an abundance of fresh water while on patrol. The three-inch stainless steel deck canons were moved from aft to forward of the conning tower. And twin 20mm antiaircraft guns were mounted on the bridges of each vessel. But what truly revolutionized them was the addition of SJ radar. Both boats could now track enemy vessels by day and night, precisely locating them under any conditions. Submarine commanders salivated at using the boats’ great speed and maneuverability on the surface under cover of darkness to deliver radar-directed torpedo salvos on target. The SJ units promised to greatly enhance the force’s war records.
There was difficulty putting the Sculpin back together, delaying her departure. The Sailfish, on the other hand, was ready on schedule. After two days of sea trials, she cast off for Pearl Harbor on April 22 with Moore, the boat’s third skipper, still at the helm.
A week later, the Sculpin prepared to follow, confident of another successful patrol under Chappell’s leadership. Earlier, an interview with the skipper made newspapers across the country. The Chicago Herald-American led page 1 with the headline, “Sub Sinks 13 Jap Ships.” Although the Sculpin’s name was purposely left out, Chappell told of the boat’s first six patrols in a story cleared by U.S. censors. It made a national hero out of the captain, and added to his stature among his men. Yeoman Reese evoked the feeling of many. “We’d go to hell and back with him. That’s how we felt about Lucius Chappell.”
As noon on May 1 arrived, wives, children, friends, and relatives waited anxiously on the dock to bid farewell to the Sculpin. A few sobbed openly. Hoses, electrical cords, and mooring lines were cast free. Slowly, the boat backed away from the dock with a long, forlorn blast of her whistle. Then she pulled clear, her battle flag whipping in the afternoon breeze. The renovated diesels powered the boat forward as the crowd cheered. She made the turn around Fisherman’s Wharf and headed due west under the Golden Gate Bridge, where motorists again stepped from their cars to shout encouragement as the submarine passed under.
The boat arrived at Pearl Harbor on May 9, 10 days behind her sister ship. Both went into drydock for inspections while Chappell and Moore huddled with naval intelligence to receive their orders.
By the spring of 1943, enough submarines were available to form a blockade around Japan. All the while, new submarines were riding down the ways at the rate of three a month from shipyards in Portsmouth, New London, Philadelphia, Manitowoc (Wis.), and Mare Island. But for boats on patrol, losses were mounting, partially due to a U.S. blunder. The Allies had learned early on that Japanese depth charges were set to go off too shallow; a sub simply had to dive to 300 feet to escape. Incredibly, Congressman Andrew Jackson May, 68-year-old member of the House Military Affairs Committee, made this known in a press interview in the fall of 1942 to rebut enemy claims of massive submarine losses by the United States. Japan learned of Jackson’s statement through a Honolulu newspaper and, by year’s end, had readjusted depth charges to explode much deeper. Furious, Lockwood wrote a confidant, “I hear Congressman May said the [Japanese] depth charges are not set deep enough. He would be pleased to know [they] set them deeper now.” The weapons not only exploded deeper but they packed twice the power of earlier depth charges and were cited for the loss of six submarines between the time the Sailfish and Sculpin arrived for overhaul in the States and their departures three months later: The Argonaut (SS-166), the Amberjack (SS-219), the Grampus (SS-207), the Triton (SS-201), the Pickerel (SS-177), and the Grenadier (SS-210) had vanished with nearly 500 men.
Now, both the Sailfish and Sculpin risked the same fate, embarking on perilous missions to the coast of Japan itself.