My name is Edward G. Richardson and I am a Commander in the Navy, skipper of the submarine Eel. They said to tell the whole story from the beginning—about the Medal of Honor and what led up to it, I mean—and that’s a big order. The story is as much about Jim Bledsoe and the Walrus as it is about me—but it starts long before the Walrus left New London. It properly begins on the old S-16, one frigid day right after Christmas, 1941, and it includes Laura Elwood, Jim’s fiancée, and Bungo Pete, a Jap destroyer skipper.
We were out in Long Island Sound making practice approaches in the freezing weather for Jim’s qualification for command of submarines. The war had begun nearly three weeks before. When Jim’s qualification came up, the S-16 had just started her first refit since going back in commission the previous summer.
Jim was Executive Officer of the S-16 and I was her skipper. She was a World War I “S-boat”—though not completed until 1919—and had seen only five years’ service until we came along. She had been laid up in “red-lead row” (for the red preservative paint) ever since 1924. Her main trouble had been her engines, which had been copied from German designs but which could never be made to run properly. The Navy had had enough of her and her mechanical troubles by 1924 and gave her up as a bad job, putting her in mothballs and hoping to do better next time.
At the time I’m talking about, I was a senior Lieutenant. S-16 was my first command. Jim was also a full Lieutenant and we had served together since the broiling heat of the Philadelphia Navy Yard the previous summer when, at the urgent request of the Navy, we had dragged the rusted hulk of S-16 from the Navy Yard’s back channel and began to put her back together.
Jim Bledsoe was tall, bronzed, and good-looking; two inches taller than my five-feet-eleven. He was a product of Yale’s NROTC and had been in the Navy two and a half years—practically all of it in the Submarine Service. I had graduated from the Naval Academy six years before and had nearly three years more than Jim in submarines.
Jim was of inestimable help in turning the old rust bucket we found in the Navy Yard back into the submarine she once had been. With Keith Leone, an Ensign just out of the submarine school, and old Tom Schultz, a one-time Machinist’s Mate, USN, now a Lieutenant (jg), the officer complement of the S-16 was complete—and busy. With the accent on “busy,” for the ship, when we took her out of the mud, was a gutted shell. All spring and summer we worked on her madly, sweating all the time, crawling about in the filthy bilges, racing against we knew not what, for the increasing tension in the world had its effect on us, too. There was an unmistakable urgency in the air—every particle of dirt which ground its way into our sweat pores carried its quota of haste and importance with it. There was also a pointed urgency in my orders as “prospective Commanding Officer,” which said, among other things, “Report earliest when ready for sea.” We did our best.
I didn’t meet Laura until later, on reporting to New London, but I don’t want to explain about her yet, although you will have to understand about her to know about Jim and me.
In the spring of 1941, when the Navy Department decided to shake up S-16’s old bones after all, it was with something like despair that I made my first inspection of her innards. She had been labeled “junk” for fifteen years.
Jim and I were the first to arrive at Philadelphia; Keith and Tom came a few weeks later. We were all new at our jobs. Tom, with his sixteen years of enlisted service as a Machinist’s Mate, had just received his commission. We practically lived in the bilges and engines of our old pig of a submarine. Jim took to the job of getting our gradually accumulated crew organized as though he had been an Exec all his life. Keith, fresh from Reserve Midshipman School and submarine school, otherwise a simon-pure product of Northwestern University, became Torpedo Officer. Tom, of course, became Engineer. My last job had been Engineering Officer of the Octopus, the boat I had reported to upon graduation from the submarine school, and so I concentrated my spare time on finding out what the basic design trouble with the engines had been—and, with a little good luck and the assistance of the Engineering Design Department of the Navy Yard, arrived at some sort of an answer. As a result, S-16 ran better after we got her back together than she had ever run before. And she had been on the run ever since, logging more miles, more dives, and more hours submerged in the ensuing six months than in her whole previous five years’ commission. You would have thought she was the only submarine in New London, the way the submarine school, to which we had been assigned, kept us going. We were not even allotted normal upkeep time, on the theory that having just come from a Navy Yard we needed none. So, when the accumulated list of urgently needed repairs began to approach the danger point, I protested to Captain Blunt, our Squadron Commander, with the result that the school at last grudgingly allotted us two weeks of “upkeep”—to our disgust over Christmas and New Year’s. Even this had now been interrupted for Jim’s qualification.
Jim, eager, alert, and ambitious, had earned a reputation as a “natural” submariner. Normally an officer with only two years of total submarine service would not have been considered for a command billet or even for qualification for command, but the war had already changed a lot of things.
It had taken me a full year to complete my submarine notebook and qualify in submarines, and gruff old Joe Blunt, my skipper in Octopus at the time, had pinned his own dolphins on my shirt. Jim had needed no notebook, had put on his dolphins within six months of graduating from the submarine school. Three years I served in Octopus, fourteen months as Engineer, before the man who had relieved Blunt, Jerry Watson, judged me worthy of his recommendation for “Qualification for Command of Submarines.” That had happened only last spring, and I had received my orders to the S-16 within two weeks. The Octopus had sailed for Manila the same day I had taken off in the Pan-American Clipper, bound in the other direction.
And here was Jim going through the same thing after only half the time in subs. This seemed contrary to the conservative submarine instinct—contrary to my reservations, too; and yet the whole thing, in this instance at least, had been my own doing.
An interview with our Squadron Commander, Joe Blunt himself, now older-looking and gruffer than ever, had kicked the whole thing off nearly a week before.
Captain Joseph Blunt was short and spare, and he looked and acted his name. Everyone in the submarine force knew that diesel fuel ran in his veins instead of blood. He was hard-boiled, but his weakness was “the boats”—and he had no use for any man who did not feel the same way. When he sent for me that Tuesday morning, I knew him well enough to climb right out of S-16’s superstructure and run over in my dirty khaki. True to form, he started shouting questions at me the moment I opened the door to his office.
“Richardson,” he barked, “what about your Exec? Do you think he’s ready for command yet?”
The question caught me by surprise. “Why, I haven’t thought much about it, Commodore,” I answered. “He’s an excellent officer, but still very junior———”
“He’s a Lieutenant, too, isn’t he? Anyway, his rank makes no difference if he knows his business. I’ve a particular reason for asking you. He’s your responsibility, you know.”
I could think of nothing more intelligent to say than a noncommittal “Yes, sir!”
The Squadron Commander waited a moment, clamped a well-chewed pipe between his teeth and sucked moistly—and futilely—on it. “Did you know that our submarine production target has been tripled for next year? Does that mean anything to you?”
I waited in my turn. This was the first time I had heard this particular piece of news, though I suppose I should have anticipated something of the sort on account of the war. “We’ll need more qualified submarine personnel,” I ventured.
“Do I have to draw you a diagram, Richardson?” Blunt cracked out. “Just where do you expect we’re going to find the skippers for these new boats?”
“You mean me?” I stuttered, feeling as though a cold blast of air had suddenly blown on the back of my neck.
“Precisely. I’ve received a request from the submarine detail desk—and this is all private information, understand—to nominate officers from my squadron for the new boats under construction at the Electric Boat Company here and in the Navy Yards at Portsmouth and Mare Island.” Old Joe Blunt was looking me right in the eyes, the way he did when he was really putting a man on the spot. “But also I’ve got to keep this training squadron going. Now do you see why I asked you about Bledsoe?”
“You mean,” I said, “if Jim can take over the S-16, I can be nominated for one of the new submarines?”
“That’s about right, Rich. Of course, you’ll get one anyhow eventually—that is, if you want one”—here old Blunt looked suddenly sardonic—“but you’ve been doing well with the S-16, and I think you should have your chance now. There are a number of skippers senior to you, however, who will have to take priority over you for the available replacements; so the way it stacks up, unless Bledsoe can take over the S-16, I’m going to have to hang on to you for a while longer.”
This was the first time since he had left Octopus that Captain Blunt had called me by my nickname, and obviously it was not accidental. He was telling me, as clearly as he knew how, that he would back me up in giving the S-16 to Jim, but that doing so was my responsibility. That was the whole crux of the matter. I was morally sure that Jim, despite his good qualities, was not yet ready for an independent command of his own. There was a certain flippancy—a sort of devil-may-care attitude—almost recklessness, about him. And yet Jim had shown extraordinary aptitude in certain phases of the S-16’s work. He certainly knew the ship, mechanically, as well or better than anyone on board. It was just a hunch, more than anything else on my part, that somehow there was a degree of immaturity about him which needed more seasoning before he was turned loose with the responsibility of a ship and crew on his back. He had been commissioned in the Navy only slightly more than three years. His total submarine service was less than three years. This was reflected in the fact that he was not yet “qualified for command of submarines,” a designation requiring proof of one’s ability before a board of skippers and written certification of acceptance by them, ordinarily earned some time prior to actually getting your first boat. Subconsciously, without giving the subject open thought, I had not yet been ready to recommend him.
“Bledsoe is not yet qualified for command, Commodore,” I began slowly. “As a matter of fact, I had not intended to put him up for a while——”
Captain Blunt slid himself forward on the edge of his chair, hands placed on its arms as though he were about to rise from it. “That’s really up to you, too, isn’t it?” he said. “Why don’t you talk it over with him and think about it for a while. Let me know tomorrow.”
I rose, beating him to it. “Aye, aye, sir,” I answered, and turned to go out.
“By the way, Rich,” Captain Blunt called after me, “keep all this confidential for the moment.”
This was the second time he had cautioned me. I gave him another “Aye, aye, sir” and beat my retreat. There were entirely too many things to think about. Undeniably, the idea of having command of one of the newest and most powerful submarines our Navy could build, one of the new Gato class, even better than the recently completed Tambor and her sisters—and far improved over the old Octopus—was tantalizingly attractive. The new boats carried ten torpedo tubes and a total of twenty-four torpedoes, as compared to only six tubes and sixteen fish in the Octopus. They were bigger, built to dive deeper, and had a considerably longer cruising range. Their fire-control system had been improved and streamlined so that it was both easier to operate and simpler than any I’d been used to. By comparison even to the Octopus, poor old S-16 was nothing but antiquated scrap iron, kept in operation for training duties only so that the fleet boats could be released for other more valuable service.
The skippers of the fleet boats were the elite of the submarine force. When they spoke up in the squadron or division councils, or before the Admiral, their words carried weight and they were listened to. Someday, naturally, I had hoped to join their number. Now, because of the war, the dream of a submariner’s career was suddenly practically at hand—all I had to do was to turn the S-16 over to Jim.
By the time I got back aboard I had gone over all the arguments at least three times. The chance of getting a first-line command early was too much to pass up lightly, even though I could be practically assured of being given one later on. But there was also the fact that I owed something to the S-16 and her crew. It would be unthinkable to leave them in charge of anyone not fully ready and competent to be in command of a submarine.
All the way back to the refit pier alongside which S-16 was moored I wrestled with the pros and cons, and as I felt the wooden planks of the dock under my feet I was no closer to a decision than before. Stepping close to the edge of the dock, I looked over the short, angular profile of the ship to which, until an hour ago, I had felt virtually wedded. Now she looked small, puny, and tired. The only mission she would ever have in the war would be to train submarine-school students. She could never expect to go anywhere nor do anything worthwhile; just spend the war going in and out of port, carrying trainees into Long Island Sound for a day’s operations.
Then the deciding argument flooded my brain. The fleet boats by contrast were going into war and danger. Suppose Captain Blunt were to misunderstand my motives for choosing to stay with the S-16 instead of eagerly taking a far-ranging fleet boat? For that matter, how could I be sure myself: Could that have been the thought prompting the peculiar expression on his face when he said I could get one, eventually, if I really wanted one?
My head was spinning as I climbed down into S-16’s torpedo room and made my way aft to where Jim was working in the wardroom. He was deep in sorting out work requests and job orders; comparing one against the other and making three piles which he had labeled “Will be Done,” “Fight For,” and “Next Time.” No doubt about it, he knew how to be an effective Executive Officer. But at this moment the consideration of what was to be accomplished during our refit, ordinarily of consuming interest to all of us, had suddenly lost all fascination for me. I interrupted Jim, beckoned him into the tiny stateroom which he and I shared.
“Jim,” I said, “have you thought much about qualification for command?”
Jim looked startled. “Of course. You have to be qualified before you can have your own boat.”
I grinned at him, but inside I was in a turmoil. This was casting the die. Jim’s face still held the surprised question as I took the plunge. “Well, I’m recommending you today.”
A succession of emotions crossed his face. “You’re kidding! I thought I was too junior———”
“Not any more.” Jim’s bunk was folded up against the curved side of the ship, leaving room above mine so that a person could sit upright upon it. I sank into it, leaned back.
Jim looked down at the deck, shifted his weight uneasily. “What’s happened?” he asked.
“Nothing, old man. I just thought it was time to put you up——”
“I mean when the Commodore sent for you. Is this what you talked about?”
“Nope.” I forced another smile.
“I’ll bet it was though.” Jim seemed lost in thought. He kicked the side of my bunk impatiently, jackknifed his length into the chair in front of our desk. He reached for a cigarette. “Know what I heard yesterday?” He paused, the lighted match in front of it, then sucked the flame into its tip.
“What did you hear yesterday.” I made it a statement instead of a question.
“That we’re going to start a big submarine campaign against the Japs.” He puffed moodily.
I put both hands behind my head. “What’s so surprising about that? It’s what the submarine force was built for.”
“I mean against the Japanese merchant marine. We’ve been training to fight warships and to act as fleet advance scouts and all like that. That’s why the big boats are even called ‘fleet submarines.’ Now they’re going to send us against the merchant ships, just like the Germans have been doing.”
“Maybe so. What’s that got to do with your qualification?”
More quick puffs. “Don’t you see? We’ll have to build a lot more boats—the dope is that E. B. tripled their order for steel plate already. Everybody who has a training boat now will get one of the new fleet boats. All the fleet-boat skippers who have made a few war patrols will become Division Commanders, and all the Execs of these river boats will move up to skipper!”
I snapped to attention, immediately on guard. “Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, it’s around. All over the base, in fact. They say all the skippers around here will receive orders in a couple of weeks. I’ll bet”—here Jim took a deep drag—“old Blunt told you to qualify me, didn’t he?”
“No such thing, Jim.” I hoped the lie sounded convincing. “A Squadron Commander can’t do that anyway. You know that.”
“Sure, but he can make some pretty strong suggestions. I’ll bet he told you to get me qualified so I could take over somebody’s boat when he leaves—come on now, didn’t he?” Jim’s face lighted with pleasure. He rushed right by my beginning remonstrance. “Say—that would be pretty good! Skipper of my own boat! They’d probably even give me the S-16—you’ll be leaving pretty soon, you know!”
“Listen, Jim,” I began again uneasily. “You can think what you want. It doesn’t make any difference. Maybe you’re right and there will be a lot of moves. Eventually it’s bound to happen, but it can’t all take place in an instant. After all, it takes over a year to build a fleet-type submarine.”
But Jim’s enthusiasm was not to be dampened. He probably didn’t even hear me. “Everybody knows they’re setting up a pool of Execs qualified to take over these river boats when the skippers leave, but I didn’t think I was eligible. If I get the S-16, or some boat like her, they won’t want to send me back to being Exec again; so they’ll just have to leave me here until they get far enough down the list to give me one of the big ones. That will take a long time.” Excitedly he stubbed out his smoke, jumped to his feet.
“What do I have to do?”
“Well,” I hesitated, “I imagine the Squadron Commander will appoint a Qualification Board on you.”
Jim’s face fell. “You mean I’ll have to make a submerged approach with this old tub? Why, she’s so out of date it would be just a waste of time!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jim,” I said, a bit sententiously, startled by his sudden vehemence. “Even if the S-16 is not very modern, for all you know you might have to command this ship or one like it in action. After all, there is a squadron of S-boats out in the Philippines right now. Besides, what about the training exercises for the sub school?”
“They ought to have their heads examined,” said Jim, reaching into the desk for another cigarette. “That’s just plain crazy, keeping those S-boats out there. They ought to be brought back as quickly as they can.”
Jim and I had argued this point before, although he had never expressed himself so directly regarding the fighting prowess of the S-16.
“Easy, old boy, you may be right, but there is nothing you can do about it. The Examining Board will expect to see you make a submerged approach in this boat, using the equipment she’s got—so you may as well figure on it.”
Jim lighted off and took a petulant puff.
“I haven’t had a chance to do any approach work since reporting to Philadelphia.”
As skipper, it was, of course, my responsibility that my officers have adequate opportunity for their own training, and I had to admit the justice of this. The demands of the sub school had taken priority, and I had not insisted on saving adequate time for either Jim or Keith. Keith, of course, would soon be up for his dolphins.
“Look, Jim,” I said, “after we get the S-16 back together and this refit finished, we’ll take time out of our post refit trials to give you a couple of practice runs. That’s all you need. Just enough to get your hand back in.”
Jim’s brow cleared, somewhat indecisively. Then he leaped to his feet, crushing out the hardly tasted cigarette as he rose. “I want to run up the dock and phone Laura. Okay?”
“Sure!” I rose too. “Give her my best.”
“You bet I will!” He turned at the stateroom entrance. “This is a terrific break, you know! This is just what we’ve been waiting for. You’ll be our best man, won’t you?”
He turned and dashed away, leaving me virtually thunderstruck. I had, of course—as we all had—realized that Jim and Laura were as good as engaged. But I didn’t expect their marriage to hinge upon his qualification for command of submarines.
The upshot was another unforeseen complication, too. Upon receipt of my recommendation for Jim’s qualification for command of submarines, Captain Blunt immediately ordered three other skippers in our squadron to form an Examining Board, and he furthermore directed them to meet on Jim at once. With Christmas almost upon us, this was not a popular order. The conversation with Blunt had taken place on Tuesday; Thursday was Christmas; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the Examining Board worked Jim over on his knowledge of Submarine theory, tactics, strategy, logistics, and even history. Furthermore, our two weeks’ refit was summarily cut in half and the following Monday found S-16 getting under way again.
Cutting short our repair and upkeep period was hard on the ship and crew. Jobs which had long wanted doing had to be again postponed; some of the very urgent ones had to be hastily rushed to completion. Our topside paint job had to be foregone, the rust spots merely scraped and daubed with red lead. Nor was this all, for the members of the Examining Board also had to give up what plans they might have made. One, Roy Savage, had already received his orders to the Needlefish, soon to be launched at Mare Island. Carl Miller was awaiting his orders any day. Only the third, Stocker Kane, was like myself apparently fated to stay in his old R-boat a while longer.
After thinking over the prospect of leaving my ship to Jim, I was not too happy either. Against my better instincts I had pushed him into a situation for which I knew he was not yet ready. I had officially signed my name that, in my opinion, he was ready for the examination, when in my bones I felt this not to be the case. True, Jim could handle the ship well, and he had studied—and therefore presumably knew—the submerged-attack doctrine. But now that the question had come to issue I was convinced that, so far as Jim Bledsoe was concerned, it was much too soon. His judgment under pressure or in emergency situations was still an unknown quantity. Somehow I felt unsure of him. Under these circumstances how could I, seeking my own advantage, blithely leave S-16 and her crew of forty men to him? And yet, having started the train of events, I was powerless to stop it.
Qualification for command of a submarine is probably the toughest formal test of a submarine officer’s career, and it is almost equally tough on the Examining Board and his own skipper. Successful qualification usually does not carry with it an immediate command assignment—though in Jim’s case it would, and somehow he had guessed it. No special insignia exists for it like the gold dolphin pin for qualification in submarine duty. A mark is merely placed opposite your name in the submarine force roster—but no man can be ordered to submarine command without that mark.
A submarine is a demanding command in peace or war, probably more so than any other ship. The submarine skipper personally fights his ship, giving all the commands and making all the decisions. During war his is the responsibility for success or failure; his the praise for sinking the enemy, the blame for being sunk himself. In peacetime there are still the hazards of the malevolent sea—ever-ready, with its sequence of inevitable consequences, to pounce mercilessly upon momentary disregard for its laws.
Appearance before a Qualification Board, a serious matter for the candidate, is thus equally serious for the members of the board themselves. On the one hand, they hold the career of a brother officer in their hands, but on the other, and much more important, they must consider the lives and well-being of his future ship’s company as well. And it is serious, also, for the person or persons recommending him, whose own judgment in so doing is under inspection.
On Monday we were—somehow—ready. The disassembled pieces of machinery had been put back together, mostly unrepaired, and great patches of red preservative on our decks and sides betrayed the areas we had been scraping free of rust and loose paint. Prior to the arrival of the Qualification Board, Jim, at their dictum, had made all preparations for getting under way; this was something he normally did every third day anyway, when he had the duty—though not, of course, under quite the same degree of pressure. The engines were warmed up and primed, the batteries fully charged, the crew at stations. All lines to the dock had been “singled up,” which means that the usual three strands of mooring line to each of our four cleats had been reduced to one, ready for immediate release. I waited on the forecastle, swathed in muffler, foul-weather jacket, and sea boots, turning my back to the freezing wind sweeping the river. Jim, of course, was on the bridge.
Three figures suddenly appeared from behind the parked cars at the head of the dock, marched toward us. I recognized them immediately: Carl Miller, skipper of the R-4, Roy Savage of the S-48, and Stocker Kane of the R-12. Savage was the senior in rank, a Lieutenant Commander of several years, and had been designated “Senior Member” of the Qualification Board. He was a stocky, taciturn individual, whose usual imperturbability seemed only intensified by this assignment. Bluff Carl Miller, also a Lieutenant Commander, had gone through submarine school with me several years before. Stocker Kane, junior member of the board, and my closest friend of the three, was another hard-to-know person, though one soon learned to like and respect his careful thinking.
Jim hurriedly climbed down on deck and stood with me to welcome the three other skippers aboard. Gravely we acknowledged their salutes. “Good morning, sir,” I said to Savage. “Morning, Carl. Morning, Stocker.”
Roy Savage didn’t believe in wasting time. “Take her on out as soon as you’re ready,” he said to Jim. “Rich”—turning to me—“Bledsoe is skipper of this ship today. You and I are just passengers. You’re only to take her over to avoid danger of casualty, and you know the consequences, of course, if you do.”
This was customary for the under-way qualification, and Roy Savage knew I knew it. His care to spell it out for me, therefore, somehow tinkled a warning note in my mind. Savage, I had heard, had been indignant at Blunt’s sudden directive to head the board on Jim. He was the senior skipper in our squadron, and had already received his official orders of detachment from the S-48, though there was as yet no sign of his relief. Perhaps he felt that his pending detachment should have absolved him from the duty. Perhaps this was an inkling of the attitude we might expect from him throughout the day.
Stocker Kane now spoke, handing me a typewritten sheet of official stationery. “This will save your Yeoman a little trouble. I’ve got a copy for the Quartermaster, too.” He smiled faintly as I reached for it.
S-16’s Yeoman, Quin, a young, eager-faced lad, stepped forward and took the piece of paper from me, attaching it to another sheet he carried in his hand. The papers constituted our “sailing list”—a list, corrected as of the last possible moment, containing the names, addresses, next-of-kin, and other pertinent information on all persons embarked, which is sent ashore whenever a submarine gets under way. This was an outgrowth of one of the early accidents wherein difficulty was encountered in determining exactly who had been aboard the ill-fated craft and how to reach their relatives.
Rubinoffski, our Quartermaster, who had been loitering near the conning tower, also received a list of our passengers and forthwith disappeared to enter their names in the log. Noticing the unobtrusive efficiency of these two, I felt a glow of pride at the fact that they so obviously knew exactly what they were doing.
Jim had returned to the bridge and was waiting. I could well appreciate how he must have felt, remembering how I had sweated under the eyes of my Qualification Board on Octopus’ bridge. But I had never really given thought until this moment to the feeling my skipper must have experienced.
Despite the qualification gimmick, nothing relieved me of responsibility for S-16. And yet I had to stand idly on her red-lead-spotted deck, too far from the bridge to take corrective action should anything go wrong, while one of my own officers, as a result of my recommendation, held my career as well as his own in his nervous hands.
There was reason for Jim to sweat. There was a strong ebb tide, aided by a north wind, in the Thames River that morning. The signs in the river were obvious—heavy current making around the buoys and a slight chop in the channel. One of the ways to handle this situation is to back out rapidly, getting the whole ship in the body of the current as quickly as possible, thus allowing the vessel to drift bodily downstream while maneuvering to turn. Backing slowly would result in our stern being caught by the current first, thus getting the ship awkwardly backward in the river.
Jim surveyed the situation, then cupped his hands and bellowed to the dock: “Take in the brow!” Quin bounded over the gangway, handed an envelope to the petty officer who had appeared to superintend casting off our lines, sprang light-footedly back. Kohler, our Chief of the Boat who was in charge topside, waved to the same man, and two dungareed sailors on the dock pulled the gangway up and pushed it out of the way. Jim leaned over the hatch on the bridge—“Stand by to answer bells on the battery,” he ordered. Then to the men on deck—“take in Two and Three.” Our two middle lines to the dock were lifted off their cleats by the line handlers on the docks and tossed to us. Our men quickly snaked them aboard and passed them into the stowage bins under the deck.
“Take in Four,” Jim called to the stern.
As Number Four, our stern line, came in, S-16 remained moored only by Number One line from our bow to a corresponding cleat on the dock. We were on the downstream side of the dock, the current tending to push us away. This was a favorable effect, in a light current; one to watch in a heavy ebb on the Thames. Jim, correctly anxious to back away smartly, did not wait for the current to be felt.
“Slack One!” he shouted to the bow detail; then nearly as loudly to the helmsman on the bridge, “All back full!” and a moment later, again to the bow, “Take in One!”
He might have given some additional order to the helmsman standing on the bridge as he turned around to face our direction of motion, but of this I could not be sure. In a moment S-16 commenced to gather sternway and to my horror her stern commenced to move to port, toward the dock. Jim, standing facing the stern beside the periscope standards, saw it, too.
“Left full rudder,” he yelled, with urgency in his voice. If the shear to port did not stop, our port propeller would hit the pilings of the dock, probably necessitating a dry-docking to repair it or replace it. This time I heard the helmsman’s reply as he raised his voice in response to Jim’s, and I thought I detected an unusual note of apprehension.
“Rudder is left full, sir!”
That was enough for me.
I took the first running step toward the bridge, cursing Jim’s confusion with the rudder—facing aft, he must have confused port and starboard—and the traditional requirement which had put me on deck instead of on the bridge at this moment as well. But Jim had realized the error, too. He turned around.
“All stop!” he bellowed. “Starboard ahead full.” The orders came in time. The slant to port was arrested and the ship halted her sternway. In a moment, the danger past, Jim was again in command of the situation.
“All stop!” again. Then, looking over his shoulder, this time, “Rudder amidships—all back full.” The S-16 backed this time straight as an arrow. As her stern cleared the dock Jim put the rudder full left once more, and she neatly curved around, backing smartly upstream against the current and squaring away for the downstream passage. As she did so, three little black notebooks unobtrusively slid back into the hip pockets of the three alien skippers, bearing their quota of newly penciled comments.
By the time we had reached our assigned exercise area, Jim was sweating freely for a different reason. The board had made him turn the deck over to Keith and take all three members through the ship while he laboriously rigged her for dive. Normally, on rigging a submarine for dive—which means lining up all the valves and machinery in readiness for diving as differentiated from the “Rigged for Surface” condition in which she cannot dive at all—the enlisted men in each compartment actually do the work in accordance with a very thorough check-off list, and then all officers not on watch, each taking a couple of compartments, carefully check each item. Rigging a submarine for dive, though obviously of major importance, is considered so basic that it is invariably demanded of a candidate for qualification in submarines, but rarely of a candidate for qualification for command. The members of the board might have been hazing Jim a little, for all I knew, but of course he had to go through with whatever they asked.
The Falcon was right behind us as we proceeded down the Thames River, a little later than usual because a full day of training submarine-school students was not before us. We passed Southwest Ledge in column and then angled slightly to starboard, heading for the area just to the south of New London Light. Having the Examining Board with us at least had given us the pick of the operating areas. With Sarah’s Ledge abeam to starboard we angled more to the right to head for our point to begin the exercises, while Falcon held her original course and commenced to diverge from us as she bore up for her own initial point.
Jim was back on the bridge and had resumed the conn by the time our divergent courses had separated the two vessels by the desired distance. Besides myself, there were only the members of the regular watch—two lookouts—on the bridge with him.
“Take it easy, old man,” I said. “I think they may be hazing you a little, so don’t let it throw you. Everything is okay so far.”
Jim commenced to shiver, the perspiration rapidly congealing on his drawn face. The air on the exposed bridge was biting cold, whirring our antenna wires and sucking the air out of our lungs as it whistled against our unprotected faces. S-16 pitched jerkily in the gray waters of the Sound, water slapping heavily against her superstructure and once in a while splashing on her angular, red-splotched bow. Where it hit our superstructure a film of milky-colored ice began to form, blurring her outlines. In the distance the hazy shape of the Falcon could be distinguished, still heading away from us. In a few moments she would turn and run toward us at an unknown speed using an unknown course and zigzag plan. Jim’s problem, after diving, would be to determine her speed and base course, get in front of her, and then outmaneuver her zigzag so as to shoot a practice torpedo beneath her keel.
It was something we had all done many times on the “attack teacher,” beginning in our earliest submarine-school days. The attack teacher is a device which simulates the submarine periscope station. The trainee can peer through a dummy periscope which goes up through the ceiling to the room above, where he sees a model ship, in the size and perspective of a real one, as though it were an actual target some miles away at sea. He then “maneuvers” his dry-land submarine, makes his approach on the target, and goes through the procedure of firing torpedoes just as he would in actuality. Dozens of approaches can be made, and any number of targets, from aircraft carriers to tugboats, can be sunk—or missed—in one day. If he makes a poor approach, for instance is rammed by the target or an escort, the instructors in great glee drop a cloth over the top of the “periscope,” stamp heavily on the floor above, make banging noises with anything handy, and in general let it be known that the submarine—not to mention the embarrassed approach officer—is having a bad time.
Having learned the technique, the student is permitted to try it with a real submarine on a real target, shooting a real torpedo—with exercise head instead of warhead, set to pass under instead of to hit. Graduation exercise in the submarine school wraps everything up in one bundle; the student is required to make his own torpedo ready for firing, superintend hoisting it into the submarine assigned, load it into the torpedo tube and make the final adjustments himself, then go up into the control room, make the approach, fire the torpedo, and write the report resulting. And woe betide the student whose torpedo fails to run properly, who does not conduct the approach and attack effectively, or whose report does not measure up to Navy standards of thoroughness, accuracy, and brevity!
After graduation every submarine officer is required to make several approaches to the satisfaction of his skipper before being put up for qualification in submarines—and the Examining Board requires here again that he conduct a satisfactory submerged attack. And the same procedure is required for qualification for command. The degree of technical expertness demanded is of course greater as the level of qualification increases, and of Jim, this day, the board expected nothing short of perfection befitting the commanding officer of a U. S. submarine.
In the distance Falcon’s hull lengthened. She had begun to turn around, preparatory to starting her target run.
Jim leaned toward the open hatch, cupped his hands: “Rig out the bow planes!” he ordered between chattering teeth. Immediately the bow planes, heretofore housed flat against the S-16’s bow like elephant’s ears, commenced to rotate and fan out, stopping when they were extended perpendicular to her hull and slanted slightly downward, their forward edges digging deeply into the shallow seas.
This was the final act in the preparation for diving. As I stepped toward the hatch the Falcon’s hull commenced to shorten again, indicating that she had nearly completed her turn, and at that moment a small spot of intensely brilliant light appeared at the base of her foremast.
“There’s the light, Jim,” I said. He had seen it too, and was extracting a stop watch from his pocket. When the searchlight was extinguished, after having been pointed in our direction for several seconds, this would be the official moment of the commencement of the exercise. A stop watch would be started on the Falcon’s bridge, matching the one Jim would start at the same instant. The two watches would be kept running throughout, and the watch time of each maneuver recorded. Stopped by simultaneous signal after the run, they would provide Jim with the essential time comparison he would need when later he had to draw the tracks of target and submarine on the same chart and explain the maneuvers of both.
The light must have lasted only a few seconds. I was only halfway down the ladder into the control room when I heard Jim order, “Clear the bridge,” and a moment later the diving alarm sounded. There was just time to step off the ladder onto the tiny conning tower space to get out of the way of the first lookout scuttling by. Immediately after him came the second one, and then Jim, holding the wire hatch lanyard in his hand. Bowing his back, he pulled the hatch home with a satisfying click as the latch engaged. Then, straightening up, he swiftly whirled the steel wheel in the center of the circular hatch, dogging it tightly on its seat.
The next second he was below in the control room, superintending the operation of diving—something else the qualification committee had insisted on observing.
Up from the control room came the familiar noises. The venting of air, the slight additional pressure on my ears, and the quiet report, usually directed at me: “Pressure in the boat, Green Board, sir!” The noise of the bow and stern planes operating, and the calm voice of the diving officer—Jim—giving instructions to their operators. The blowing of air as regulator tank, which we used as a negative tank or a “Down-Express,” was blown nearly dry and the inboard vent opened to release the pressure in it, thus, incidentally, further increasing the notice my ears were taking of the operation. The tilt of the deck, down by the bow ever so slightly, and the subsequent return to an even keel. The gurgle of water, hurly-burlying up the sides of the bridge and conning tower, the sudden darkness as the tiny glass “eye-ports” went under, and the quietness when fully submerged. Swiftly the graceless surfaced submarine, uneasily breasting the waves, became a poised, confident fish, moving with ease and certitude in her element.
In a moment came another signal: the clanging of the general alarm bell. Most of the crew, anticipating it, had already gone to their stations, but there was a last-minute movement of a few of them below me. Then came a sharp “Klack!” as the electric brake on the periscope hoist motor released, and the whirring of the hoist cable and sheaves as Jim, relieved of the diving duties by Tom Schultz, ordered the periscope raised for his first look at the target.
Quietly I descended the ladder and took station beside the helmsman in the forward part of our crowded, dimly lighted control room. During the maneuvering watches his station was on the bridge, where there was a duplicate set of steering controls, but during surface cruising, and of course when submerged, his station was in the control room. Today there seemed hardly room for him, so crowded was the tiny compartment. The ship’s company were at their stations, ready to execute Jim’s orders upon the multiplicity of equipment located here. The members of the qualification committee were here, too, having taken up positions from which the progress of not only the submerged approach but also of everything else in the control room could be observed. I was only an extra number, an observer. It had been cold topside; here it was already stifling hot, men packed closely together, body against body, breathing each other’s body smells. I could feel every move of the helmsman as I stood, facing the other way, jammed hip to hip against him.
The base of the periscope came up. Jim stooped on the deck of the control room—what extra space there was, naturally, went to him—captured the handles as they came out of the well, extended them as the base of the periscope came clear, applied his right eye to the eye-piece, and rose smoothly with it to a standing position. Once the ’scope was fully elevated, he spun it around twice rapidly, then ordered, “Down periscope!” stepping away slightly as the shiny tube started down into its tubular well in the deck. All three black notebooks came out of their hiding places, received comments, and disappeared.
Jim gave me a bleak look. For three days the little black notebooks had been in and out of sight. They had got on my nerves too; it is never pleasant for a skipper of a ship to have what amounts to an inspection party making notes about his ship. The most serious effect by far, of course, was on Jim, for whom they constituted an unexpected mental hazard.
The Qualification Board was looking expectantly at Jim. Every move of a submarine making an approach is at the sole behest of the Approach Officer; it was up to Jim to make the correct observations and give the right orders.
“Nothing in sight,” Jim said. Out came the notebooks for another moment.
Jim waited nearly a full minute, then “Up periscope!” he ordered. The ’scope slithered out of its well, Jim fixing on the eye-piece, as before, the moment it appeared.
He twirled it around, stopped suddenly slightly on our starboard bow. “Bearing—Mark!” he said.
A disc-shaped celluloid “Is-Was,” used for matching target bearing with target course, was hanging from around Keith’s neck on a string. He was standing on the other side of the periscope from Jim, watching the spot where the vertical cross hair on its barrel matched against the bearing circle on the overhead around it. “Zero-one-six,” he announced.
Jim’s right hand had shifted to a small hand wheel on the side of the periscope. He turned it, first rapidly, then slowly and carefully. “Range—Mark!” he finally said.
“Six-seven-double-oh!” said Keith, who had shifted his attention to a dial at the base of his side of the instrument.
“Down periscope!” barked Jim, and the ’scope slid smoothly down. “Angle on the bow—hard to tell—looks like port thirty.”
“Port thirty,” muttered Keith, spinning two of the concentric celluloid discs carefully with his thumb. As Assistant Approach Officer, or “Yes-Man,” Leone was responsible for keeping the picture of the developing problem up to date on his Is-Was, for informing the Approach Officer—Jim—of the progress of the problem, the condition of readiness of the ship and torpedo battery, and in general anything else he wanted to know. Hence the term “Yes-Man,” as well as the unusual title of the gadget he used to keep track of the relative positions of target and submarine.
“What’s the distance to the track?”
This was an easy one. At the instant the target has a thirty-degree angle on the bow—is thirty degrees away from heading right at you—the distance from the submarine to the target’s projected track is equal to half the range. “Three-four-double-oh!” returned Keith, after a moment’s pause—close enough. Keith was all right.
“Left full rudder!” Jim had taken a little time to make the obvious move, and the three little black notebooks were halfway out of their hiding places before he gave the order. Crowded against the helmsman, I could feel his right fanny muscle harden as he threw his weight into the wheel.
“All ahead three thousand a side!”
S-16 leaped ahead with the suddenly increased thrust of her propellers, curved to the left in obedience to the helm—and three black notebooks leaped also into the hands of their owners.