by Bobette Gugliotta
The world of submarines is dominated by men, but our next excerpt was written by a woman, and contains all of the excitement and danger of anything written by submarine captains and crewmen in the last seventy years. Bobette Gugliotta is the wife of former Navy crewman Guy Gugliotta, who sailed on the practically obsolete submarine S-39 during its combat patrols in 1941, both before and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Back home on Long Island, she also tells of life on the homefront, and of the particular burden of being a submariner’s wife as she joins the women’s volunteer services. She also wrote young adult fiction, a biography of Nolle Smith, and a history of the women of Mexico from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries.
Combat aboard a submarine is often difficult enough, but trying to fight the enemy aboard a leaking sixteen-year-old submarine with obsolete equipment brings new terrors to a crew every day. Despite the hazards of the job, the men aboard the “pigboat” S-39 made do with what they had, and even found time to play practical jokes during their downtime, and explore the Philippines, where they were based. But when they are called to fight, the S-39’s crew is just as dedicated and driven to take the war to the enemy as any other submariners in the U.S. Navy.
Several attempts to better living conditions in port had been made by August of 1941, although there would not be much time left to enjoy the changes. At long last, enlisted men were given a club of their own, where they could have a drink without paying more than it was worth and without having a hostess sent over to double the costs. The club was in a new building on the Manila waterfront, constructed by the Philippine Commonwealth and rented by the U.S. If a man took on a load, or grew belligerent, he was less likely to end up in hot water than if he’d thrown a punch in a bar in town. No officer could use the facility unless invited by an enlisted man.
Submarine officers were allotted quarters in Manila free of charge. Each large, three-man room at the University Apartments came equipped with a bath, refrigerator, writing desk, couch, and Chinese maintenance help. The officers couldn’t believe their luck—which lasted for a couple of months. Then, while the submarines were put to sea, the rooms were taken over by newly arrived reserve officers, and the disgruntled submariners traipsed back to the Canopus. Their quarters ashore were restored just in time for them to deposit their civilian clothes, golf clubs, and other gear and leave it all for the enemy.
Endless practice for warfare without actuality kept nerves on edge. The dives were long and tiring, watch-standing and workload had reached the reversed proportion of 16 hours on and 8 off. The submarines were now going to sea with torpedoes prepared as war shots, making realistic practice patrols with a full load in the torpedo tubes. There had been a few lemons in the crew, but Red Coe got rid of them; he might have far from perfect equipment, but knew he had excellent men. The captain was expecting orders in December but was aware that war might arrive before his orders did.
Larry Bernard, also counting the days, prayed that the conflagration would hold off until after January, which was his time to leave. His ulcers began acting up again. The skipper came down with a case of intestinal flu right after he wrote Rachel not to count on his being home for Christmas, and everybody noticed that his guts improved before his disposition did. Gugliotta had no hope at all of getting out before the explosion. He alternated between the comforting knowledge on the one hand that 39 was the best boat around and that his fitness report stated “would particularly desire to have him on board under war time conditions,” and the dreary realization on the other that his bride could be an old lady before he saw her again. To kick the blues, he went to a Chinese restaurant for fried lapu lapu, which he liked; saw the movie Kitty Foyle with Ginger Rogers, which he didn’t like; then pigged it on candy bars, which he had never liked. Monk Hendrix, as a bachelor recently arrived, was less impatient, although his fitness routine accelerated.
Even the weather, seldom good, was extra capricious. Typhoons rolled in one after another with such fury that S-39 was often forced to stand regular sea watches when in port. At times they had to leave Canopus and anchor separately because the boats banged against each other so hard in the wind that they couldn’t stay moored. But the most obvious display of tension lay in the increase of nitpicking arguments. No statement, no matter how unimportant, went unchallenged. One afternoon in the crew’s mess Bixler was describing the route from Olongapo to Manila. He declared, “The bus turns right as soon as you leave the gate and heads past the rifle range. Then in the valley you go straight until—”
“Oh no you don’t,” Nave, who had just come in, interrupted. “You forget that the goddamn bus makes a complete circle before reaching Subic and—”
“Fujigit, that’s the Manila bus when it’s going to Olongapo. What the hell do you know?” Bixler and Nave were now nose to nose, spit-spray from shouting mouths fogging the atmosphere. Half a dozen other guys joined in until the din reached epic proportions, and Schoenrock, very testy lately, pounded the counter with a soup ladle, yelling, “Shut up, you bastards. I don’t need that flack in the galley.” It worked, they all calmed down.
The cook had been sour on the whole bunch for some time. First, there was the monkey somebody picked up in Tawitawi and brought on board for a pet. His antics amused everybody except Schoenrock. With the seventh sense an animal has when somebody dislikes him, the monkey loved to wrap his tail around the overhead pipes in the galley and dip his bony fingers into Rocky’s most beautiful creations, or carefully put a tooth through each cigarette in a pack the cook left on the counter before pushing them neatly back into the package. Then, when the cook wanted to enjoy a smoke, he couldn’t get one lit no matter how many he tried. When Rocky discovered what was causing it, he went right to Coe with an ultimatum: “Either the monkey goes or I go.” The captain responded by handing the monkey over to the Filipino crew of the laundry banca, but a few hours later the critter returned to his home away from home. He had leaped over the side of the banca and swum back to the 39. It took some doing to remove him permanently.
The antics of the little beast hadn’t helped Schoenrock’s sense of humor. One morning Allyn Christopher noticed Schab tucking one of the cook’s huge, melt-in-your-mouth pancakes inside the front of his shirt. Christopher nudged his friend. “What goes, you saving pancakes for the long cold winter ahead?”
Schab chuckled. “When Rocky’s napping after lunch, come to the galley.”
Christopher wouldn’t have missed it for the world. When Schab sneaked back to the cook’s sacrosanct territory, along with Pennell, Matthews, and electrician’s mate C.I. Peterson, Allyn followed them in.
“Hurry up,” Schab whispered, “we gotta work fast. Sometimes he’s only gone for ten minutes of so.” Pennell hoisted a bucket full of lead weights onto the counter while Peterson climbed up on a chair and secured a strong wire to the overhead. Then Schab held up the stolen pancake, and Peterson carefully ran the wire through it, fastening the bucket of weights to the end. Everybody snickered. It looked as though a heavy-as-lead pancake were supporting the heavy-with-lead bucket.
Matthews, who wasn’t big but had the appetite of a lion, thought of the future: “Rocky’s not gonna like this.” Zeke’s motto was don’t bite the hand that feeds you. The other clowns paid no attention. Tayco, bringing back a tray of dishes from the officer’s mess, took one astounded look at the suspended flapjack and backed out of the galley, muttering, “I no want to be here when he see this.”
Allyn went through the boat rousing up an audience; even the officers got wind of it, so that when Schoenrock walked into the silent galley, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and smoothing his tousled hair, there were many witnesses to his shame. His eyes circled the crowd, then caught the abomination hanging in his galley. Everybody guffawed. Rocky’s mouth trembled, then spewed, “You’re a bunch of goddamn ungrateful bastards. After all I’ve done for you.” People would swear later that he had tears in his eyes as big as crabapples.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, there was the boxing match. Mike Kutscherowski, the 39’s peace-loving pugilist who became a killer only in the ring, had made it all the way to the finals for the middleweight championship, the culmination of the Army-Navy, all-Asiatic boxing meets. It was to be refereed by the former Naval Academy heavyweight champ, Moon Chappie. Betting was heavy, and the excitement had a tonic effect on tempers badly needing diversion. In the crew’s mess, many men were promising Kutscherowski all kinds of treats if he won the title, to all of whom the good-natured fisticuffs expert made the same reply, “I’ll do the best I can.”
Schoenrock, a long-time devotee of the manly art, came up with what he considered the ultimate inducement. “Ski,” he proclaimed, “I promise to cook you a deluxe dinner of your own selection if you win. Y ou—can—have—any—thing—you—want.” He paused between words to hammer into the boxer’s scarred head the full implications of his offer. “Filet mignon, chicken poached in wine, salmon with hollandaise.” Kutscherowski’s eyes bulged with the strain of trying to figure out what the fancy names meant. “I’ll do my best,” he said again earnestly.
The match took place on Canopus at an affair called a smoker. It lived up to its name because everybody smoked like crazy: cigars, cigarettes, pipes, most of which had been handed out free for advertising purposes. A blue pall hung over the ring accentuating the heat and humidity. Kutscherowski won. The 39 people went mad, shouting and screaming, pounding each other on the back, collecting money, and making plans to come through on all promises made to their champion. Schoenrock waited for the tumult to subside; then, with his customary dignity, told the sweating boxer, “Ski, when you’re ready for that victory dinner, let me know what you want and when you want it.”
The champ’s voice was still hoarse from his efforts. “Gee whiz, Rocky, you know what I like best in the world?”
“No matter, I’ll make it for you,” Rocky assured him.
“I dunno why I like’em. It just makes me feel good. I never ate nothing like it back in the States. I think it builds up my muscles.” Ski’s handler was untying the gloves now. “I’d really appreciate a whole box fulla papayas all to myself, but cold, see. I like’em chilled.”
The cook blanched. It was the final insult. How could anyone prefer a plain product of Mother Nature to a consummately contrived dish conceived by a master chef? Pennell tried to soften the blow. Knowing how much Rocky hated defrosting the ship’s refrigerator, a job that came around all too often because of the rapid build-up of ice from tropic heat and humidity, Pennell volunteered to do it for him. (The machinist’s mate had devised a quick method; pumping hot gas through the evaporator coils caused the big accumulations of ice to fall off in minutes. It may have been the forerunner of automatic defrost.) But even Pennell’s offer couldn’t get a smile out of the disconsolate cook.
Rocky and Stowaway Johnson decided to go out anyways, and hang one on in celebration of the victory. During the course of the raucous evening, the cook offered to pay for any tattoo that Johnson wanted to add to his already picturesque collection—that is, if he could find space somewhere on his hide. Johnson located an empty upper arm and promptly had it embellished with three horse’s heads whose nostrils flared realistically when he flexed his biceps. Not to be outdone and drunk enough not to care, the usually more conservative Rocky had a coolie and ricksha tattooed on his thigh. Both men ordered tricolored jobs. Tops in flashy flesh.
A bright spot in the marking-time period was Fabricante’s good luck. One morning he came aboard and said to Gugliotta, the duty officer, “Sair, I need to leave early. If you will say so today.”
Gugliotta looked down at the tiny mess steward who seemed as pleasant, neatly dressed, and unruffled as usual. “I think that can be arranged. Any particular problem?”
“No, sair, no problem. I need only to put 5,000-peso check in bank.” The ensign’s mouth fell open. “Good grief, Fabricante, did you discover a gold mine?”
“No, sair,” the little man was smiling now, “I won fourth place lottery.”
Gugliotta did some rapid calculation. Five thousand pesos translated into $2,500 American, a sum worth having in anybody’s language. “Congratulations, Fabricante, what are you going to do with all that money?”
“Well, sair, first I like for you to have this,” Fabricante held out a 20-peso note, “half for you, other half for Mr. Hendrix.”
Gugliotta stalled as he sought a way to refuse without hurting the generous mess steward’s feelings. “Tell you what, Fabricante, you hang on to that money for now, and sometime soon Mr. Hendrix and I would be real glad to have you buy us a drink.”
Fabricante agreed. When he deposited his check, the Philippine government only took 90 pesos in taxes. Presumably the Japanese government got the rest.
As tension mounted during the month of November 1941, the men of the 39 boat listened constantly to Manila radio station KZRF, which broadcast news in many languages. It did not have much to report that was encouraging, especially with the sinking by U-boat, in October, of the U.S. destroyer Reuben James, further straining relations with Germany. They also read the Manila Daily Bulletin with great care. One of the columnists got a lot of horse laughs when he said it would be ridiculous to expect a German invasion of Russia. But what really pissed them off was such statements from U.S. congressmen as, “Our navy will clean out the Japanese fleet in two weeks and burn up the island of Japan in one night,” when they knew how their engineers sometimes had to work round the clock because the 39’s engines had not been overhauled for a year and a half. There were leaks in the main ballast tanks and she often limped back to port on one engine. Her deepest dive, about 160 feet, always provoked leaks at various hull fittings. To keep everybody on his toes and the boat in readiness, Coe had called weekly inspections since the month of July. But if you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, he certainly couldn’t make a mechanically reliable vessel out of the patchwork pigboat.
At times the skipper became personally involved in the dirty work necessary to keep the prima donna functioning. One day during a torpedo firing run off Corregidor, Pennell, checking the motor room bilge, saw water corning in fast between the main motors, and 39 surfaced immediately for safety’s sake. Before a hull inspection could be made to locate and assess the extent of the leak, equipment removal was necessary to dry out the narrow space. When everything was ready, Coe waved away other candidates and took on the job himself.
The captain kicked off his moulting straw sandals, hitched up his shorts, and motioned to Pennell to remove the metal floor plates. The welded grill-work beneath scarcely allowed a body the size of Coe’s to insert itself into the motor-room bilge. In addition, the area was scummy-crummy with ancient grease and stagnant water that smelled like a dismal swamp. Down on hands and knees now, he asked Pennell to hang on to his ankles. The low pressure pump was at work cleaning the bilges, but noses wrinkled in sympathy as the redhead disappeared through the grillwork to probe for the leak below. Nobody could claim they had a skipper who balked at a dirty job.
On the brighter side, Pennell, who generally got along with machinery better than with people, had so far been successfully nursing the important compressors. There were two in the motor room to jam air into the bank of flasks. This air was used to start the main engines and to blow out the main ballast tanks when surfacing. It was also necessary as a general source of power to operate certain equipment and to move water between the auxiliary ballast tanks. And in an emergency requiring prolonged submergence, such as war time conditions or mechanical difficulties, it would be needed to replenish air for breathing.
The main engines were used to charge the batteries. During this operation the air compressors were run by clutching them onto the propeller shafts. When Pennell first arrived, he noticed that the process dragged on much too long; common sense and basic arithmetic told him the compressors were running at about 30 percent efficiency. He decided to do some overhauling on his own and found the Corliss intake valves way out of tune. His work brought the air compressors up to approximately 75 percent, a most important improvement considering the essential services performed by them. Blessings like these were carefully counted because the possibility of a complete overhaul for 39 matched the prognosis for peace in the Far East.
For many months Admiral Thomas Hart had been viewing with alarm the tendency of certain important U.S. politicians to make well-publicized, threatening speeches against the Japanese. He is on record as having written, “Nothing is ever gained by threatening the Japanese, their psychology being such that threats are likely to wholly prevent their exercise of correct judgment. Furthermore, such threats… tended to put the Japanese too much on guard against the preparations for war which were then being made in the Far East.”
Hart did as much as possible with the limited material at hand to anticipate a surprise attack. Foreseeing the probable loss of Manila Bay, the admiral ordered the tenders to load all the spare ammunition, torpedoes, parts, and provisions they could carry. More torpedoes were stored in the tunnel allotted to the navy on Corregidor. Subic Bay and Manila Bay were mined, and by the end of November the tenders Otus and Holland had arrived, as well as a number of large fleet-type submarines from Pearl Harbor, bringing the total to 29 in the Asiatic Fleet; only the original six S-boats were vintage variety.
By 26 November the admiral had received a Navy Department dispatch indicating very serious developments in American-Japanese relationships. On the 27th an all-night practice blackout was ordered in the city of Manila. On the 29th there was a definite war warning from the Navy Department. This was the day of the Army-Navy game, traditionally a slack-off period for the services both at home and in far-flung places like the China Station. Celebrations had been known to go on and on, and there were some who thought the Japanese might choose this time to launch their offensive. They didn’t.
By Monday, 1 December, S-39 was underway for operations off the southern tip of Luzon near Masbate Island. Three or four men were arguing the merits of various night spots in Manila, Nave’s foghorn voice claiming to have eaten frog legs bigger than chicken legs at the Arcade Cafe. In the officer’s wardroom, Gugliotta and Bernard were involved in a hot game of cribbage. Between rounds, Gugliotta was describing a Saturday night dance in one of the more remote towns on Luzon. When he and some others got back to Aparri from a hike, they were lured by the squeaky sounds of a four-piece band coming out of a shed. Peering in, they were immediately welcomed and led onto the dance floor by local Filipinas.
“The band never stopped playing,” Guy explained, “but the end of a dance was signaled by an old gent ringing a bell. He also chalked up the number of dances each of us had, then charged us ten centavos a dance. But the big event of the evening was eating baluts, unborn chicks in the shell. A soft boiled egg was cracked so that part of the shell could be removed, exposing the ugly and smelly chick. The woman I watched very delicately bit off a black glob, which turned out to be the head, then pulled off a tiny wing covered with feathers and ate it bones and all. She disposed of the remainder in one bite. Meanwhile, naked kids were standing around with big, hopeful eyes, and the woman finally gave one of them the empty half-shell. The kid slurped down the juice, then dug a gob of yellowy green stuff out of the bottom…”
“That’s enough,” Larry Bernard yelled. “You’ll make my ulcers act up again.”
Coe, who had come into the wardroom at the finale, said with a straight face, “Next time we go to Aparri, I’ll challenge all of you to a balut-eating contest.”
When the 39 anchored in Masbate Harbor, the quixotic Philippine weather had decided to be kind in the midst of the rainy season, but a shimmer of stars flung across the sky blinked and often went out as rain clouds scudded by. The topside of the old submarine was covered with canvas cots on which reclining bodies were flaked out. Most were clad only in skivvies to take advantage of cooling breezes on the prickly heat that never cleared completely.
In the wardroom, duty officer Hendrix dreamed of the day he would find the report of his selection for lieutenant junior grade in the official mail or maybe by dispatch. Gugliotta had received his commission just before leaving Manila, so Monk was now the only ensign. Drawing a pad of paper toward him, he decided to write a long overdue letter to his father. “I’m learning a lot of good submarine and am used to it now when the boat flops” (Monk’s term for a dive). He had just finished explaining that the mail clippers had to navigate a latitude right through the center of the typhoon area, and wouldn’t run unless sure of clear weather all the way, when he dozed off. He was awakened by a loud, “Sir, sir, Mr. Hendrix, sir.”
It was 0330, 8 December. Pennell’s urgent tone of voice snapped Monk’s head up. As he read the words of the message, he jumped to his feet, as wide awake as though he were about to hit a home run. “Take this to the captain immediately,” he said.
Pennell had been on watch in the machinery spaces and had just made one tour through the boat when Radioman Bill Harris handed him the message that now sent him scrambling up the hatch with all speed, Hendrix at his heels. Picking his way among the bodies on deck, he spied the red hair of his skipper as the clouds parted; it was the last time for a long time that any man on 39 would welcome a bright night. As soon as Coe read the historic words, “Japan has started hostilities, govern yourselves accordingly,” he told Hendrix, “Make all preparations to get underway.” Pennell was ordered to rouse the sleepers at once and to strip the lifelines, benches, stanchions—items that fell into the unnecessary or personal-convenience class. Their elimination would reduce noise while the boat was submerged, increase speed, and dispose of white elephants that could be blasted loose by depth-charging, float to the surface, and disclose the boat’s position.
By the time the second message came from CINCAF (Commander-in-Chief Asiatic Fleet), about 15 minutes later, “Submarines and aircraft will wage unrestricted warfare,” all personnel and cots were stowed away below. In 11 minutes more, 39 was underway for her patrol area; by 0445 they had rigged ship for dive, which took place at 0700 much to everybody’s relief. Although nobody spelled it out, a submerged submarine in broad daylight was much more reassuring than one on the surface, especially when you were new at the war game and didn’t know when the enemy might pop up. Larry Bernard kept telling himself, It can’t be true, it can’t be true, even though he and all the others had been expecting it for over a year. A feeling of unreality was strong among officers and men.
Their designated patrol area was San Bernardino Strait, about 40 miles from Masbate Harbor. As soon as the ship submerged, the radioman became the sound man. The equipment used was near-obsolete hydrophone (underwater sound) listening equipment. Harris was listening hard as they made their way when he caught the su-woosh, su-woosh of propellers and reported, “Ship noises, possible screws on the port quarter.”
Gugliotta, OOW (officer of the watch), ordered, “Up periscope,” and soon sighted the masts of a small ship about three miles away. He called the captain, and Coe, after taking a look, ordered, “40 feet”; at shallower depth he hoped to make out her type and size.
“It’s a small cargo ship,” he said, “but she’s flying no flag. Take stations for Battle Surface but don’t fire the deck gun right away. I want the signalman to bring up the searchlight and ask the vessel’s identity.”
Battle Surface was made, and as the dripping wet participants catapulted out, it was easy to see by their eager-cautious-fearful expressions that 39 did not have a blasé, hardened crew. The captain gave nothing away except by frequent tugs at his cap, even though the sun was not in his eyes. The signalman blinked “Who are you?” at the merchantman in international code but received no answer. The little vessel went right on going. Coe ordered, “Fire a shot across her bow.”
This brought the desired result. The ship stopped immediately, hoisted her flag, and identified herself by searchlight as the SS Montanez of Philippine registry. Gun and gun crew were secured, and 39 submerged. Were they disappointed? Yes and no. At 1740 they surfaced and started battery charge. That was the first day.
The Japanese saw to it that the 39 quickly got used to being at war. On 11 December the boat picked up enemy masts 12 miles to eastward just prior to darkness. They had been hearing the distant boom of depth charges all day, but now an advance screen of enemy destroyers began heavy, random depth-charging while Japanese cargo and troop ships made their way westward toward Albay Gulf. The explosions came closer and closer, and though 39 was pretty sure she was not being specifically tracked, she knew that a depth charge that found its target accidentally was just as lethal as one that found it on purpose. Pennell, whose Battle Station was in the motor room by himself, had noticed on the chart that the water depth in the area was 666 feet. Not given to flights of fancy, he had a sudden vision of one of the shattering crashes finding its mark and could feel the pigboat dropping, dropping, dropping to the depths, crushed like an eggshell with all hands aboard. When the session ended, those men who had been having trouble believing that a real war was in progress had become convinced.
With no fix since noon, meaning no chance to locate position by taking sights of celestial bodies or bearings of land or other charted objects, they did not know within a few miles where they were when they surfaced that night. The weather didn’t help. Hendrix, OOD, was looking through his binoculars when he said to Quartermaster Rollins, “Take a look over there to the east.”
“I see what you mean, sir, it looks like a submarine,” the quartermaster said tersely, then turning to the lookouts asked, “What do you guys think?”
The two lookouts, training their binoculars on the same spot, said simultaneously, “I agree with that,” becoming twins in the stress of the moment. “Okay,” Hendrix said, “call the captain.”
Coe was topside lickety-split, binoculars focused on the same location while rain beat down heavily. He didn’t hesitate long. “Make ready number one and two torpedo tubes!” he said.
The two fish were fired, and everybody waited for the detonation. There was none. In the dark, and without navigational aids, they might have fired upon an object far beyond the limited range of the torpedoes, or a much larger mass whose distant outlines made it resemble a submarine close by. Charging batteries and running on the surface, Coe went close enough to discover, with the help of charts, that he had wasted two torpedoes by firing at Cajogan Island off the north coast of Samar. The novitiate had not yet ended.
By this time Japanese merchantmen as well as a considerable naval force were coming into Albay Gulf. Enemy transports and cargo vessels had no naval escorts until they were some ten miles northeast of Ungay Point, where destroyers out of Albay rendezvoused with them at dawn. The war was only five days old, but the men of the 39 felt as though they’d been seeing enemy masts for months without being able to do anything about them. At 0413, 13 December, S-39 was surfaced when she sighted an enemy submarine close aboard. This time it was real. The 39 dove immediately, but dark and rain resulted in zero visibility; she was unable to attack. Frustration was still the order of the day. And then came a little game of hide-and-seek as the Japanese sub began tracking by active sonar, which S-boats did not have. Sound waves sent by oscillator pinged against the old pigboat and echoed back; by calculating the amount of time it took to send and receive the signal, the enemy sonar could ascertain the range.
Then suddenly, at 0550, Hendrix, on the periscope in the control room, said excitedly to the messenger, “Call the captain. I’ve got a target out here on the port bow,” and to Quartermaster Rollins, “Mark the bearing, range about 12,000 yards; down periscope.”
Rollins responded, “Bearing 345 relative. I’m starting a plot.”
Hendrix said, “Left full rudder, steady on course 005.” At this point Coe walked in wearing only skivvy pants and the disintegrating sandals. He had been trying to grab a few minutes’ rest. His blue eyes blinked away sleep rapidly as he said, “What’s up?” Hendrix briefed him fast and told him he was heading for the target. Coe’s face, bristling with blond stubble, lost its tired look. Larry Bernard had come in to take control of the dive.
“Pass the word Battle Stations Submerged,” Coe said, then to Larry, “Come up a little bit more.”
Quartermaster Rollins, scratching hard at the prickly heat on his rump that always flared up in moments of tension, passed the word on the public address system, while the telephone talker, Yeoman Smith, relayed orders to those concerned. Chief of the Boat Nave reported to the skipper, “All stations report manned at Battle Stations.”
Coe, thoroughly awake now, asked Larry, “How’s your trim?”
“Good, but I’d like to pump a couple of minutes.” Coe nodded, and Larry said to Pennell on the trim manifold, “Pump 600 pounds from auxiliary to forward trim.”
Pennell repeated the order, and when the action was complete Larry reported to the captain, “I have a good trim.” Coe replied, “Stand by for a setup.”
This would be Coe’s first look at the ship he hoped to hit. As the only one seeing the target, he had to give as much information as he could to the approach party in the control room so they could determine the range, course, and speed. Accuracy was necessary to put the submarine in the best position for firing. The scene was reminiscent of the craze for seeing how many people could fit into a phone booth. The control room, 161?2 feet fore and aft and 20 feet port to starboard, bristled with machinery, and a good chunk of it was taken up by the radio room. Battle Stations Submerged required that the approach officer, diving officer, assistant approach officer, plotting officer, chief of the boat, bow planesman, stern planesman, helmsman, quartermaster, trim manifold man, blow manifold man, telephone talker, messenger, and controllerman be present—14 in all, one-third of those aboard. Any quick movement dug elbows into nearby flesh. The claustrophobic could not survive long.
The skipper said, “Mark; angle on the bow 50 port; range three-quarter division high power; use 100-foot masthead height.”
Rollins said, “Bearing 000 relative.”
Assistant Approach Officer Gugliotta said, “Range 12,000. Can you make him out at all?”
Coe said, “Looks like a small freighter, 100 feet, and speed up, Larry. Give me the normal approach course.”
During this period, until actual firing of torpedoes, observations were taken every few minutes with the speed kept as slow as possible to prevent a feather. This was the result of water running up the periscope, then down. Slow speed caused a dribble, fast speed caused a noticeable feather in the water, detectible by the enemy. But between looks, it was necessary to go fast to get close enough to fire. Less and less periscope was exposed above the surface as the range to the target decreased, and each observation was shorter, by now no more than five or six seconds. The mark 10 torpedoes used by S-boats had a maximum range of about 3,600 yards, but the ideal range for greatest accuracy was 1,000 yards. This was what Coe was hoping to achieve.
As Larry Bernard said to electrician Hiland, “Shift to series, 1,000 aside,” and Gugliotta said to helmsman Norton, “Left full rudder, steady on course 275,” both officers tied skivvy shirts around their necks to conserve their own sweat for cooling purposes, as well as to keep it from dripping onto the deck, where it turned slippery underfoot.
Hendrix, plotting officer, said, “I get him on course 240, we’re about 8,500 yards off the track.”
“Stand by for a look, 40 feet,” Coe said.
Nave, for once as quiet as everyone else, started the scope moving upwards by means of a hand-held switch, stopping now and then at Coe’s signal. As the scope rose, the skipper rose, coming off the deck until he reached standing position. The telephonic talker, with his trailing wires, kept them out of the way with the skill of royalty manipulating a train.
Bernard said to controller Hiland, “Shift to parallel, half-switch,” and a minute later, “Forty feet.”
“Stand by, mark, angle on the bow 55 port; down periscope, speed up, Larry,” Coe said. “Range, a bit more than three-quarter division high power.” Gugliotta put the information on the Iswas, a circular slide rule used to set the submarine course and also to set relative bearing and angle on the bow which gave target course. He converted the periscope range scale to yards with a slide calculator.
The quartermaster said, “Bearing 074 relative,” and Gugliotta came back with, “Range 11,000.” Bernard added, “Shift to series, 1,000 aside,” while preparations began for another observation.
Coe, eye glued to the rubber eyepiece again, his usually rosy complexion fiery from rising temperatures and anticipation, said, “Mark, he zigged towards; angle on the bow 30 port; down periscope, 100 feet and speed up again, Larry. Range just short of one division high power.”
“Bearing 093 relative,” Rollins said. Gugliotta contributed, “Range 9,000,” followed by Hendrix, “I get him on course 210 degrees (T) making eleven knots.”
After consulting his Iswas, Gugliotta said, “Recommend course about 20 degrees to the right,” to which Coe murmured, “Okay,” and Gugliotta told the helmsman, “Right full rudder, steady on course 295 degrees.”
The skipper asked, “Sound, do you hear anything? Target is near the starboard beam.” But sound operator Schab, in the torpedo room, replied, “Nothing yet, Captain.”
The approach party began discussing the probability that the target was heading for the entrance to Albay Gulf, which would put him on a base course of approximately 230 degrees (T) (true course by compass) to pass just north of Rapu-Rapu Island. The captain asked the quartermaster to break out the U.S. Navy publication on Japanese Merchant Silhouettes and, thumbing through, decided that #61, a cargo ship, most closely resembled the target. While this was going on, the tight-packed group took the opportunity to shift restlessly, dig a finger in an ear or up a nostril, pop a fresh stick of gum into a nervously working mouth, or hitch up the blue dungaree shorts that no matter how faded always looked black from grime. But they all settled down quickly when the old man called for another observation and reported, “Mark, angle on the bow 30 port, range one.”
Quartermaster Rollins said, “Bearing 092 relative,” and Gugliotta, “Range 8,000.” Hendrix reported, “No change, I get him on course 210 degrees speed 12, looking pretty good.”
Larry Bernard knew what to expect, and he got it from Coe. “Speed up, Larry, we’ve got to get closer to his track, and I’m sure he’s going to a more westerly course to head for the gulf entrance before long.”
Sound operator Schab cut in: “I hear something, could be screw noises on the starboard beam but can’t be sure.”
“That’s the target—stay on him and give us a screw count as soon as you can.” Coe’s voice stayed at the same pitch but his words came out faster than usual.
The next familiar “Stand by for a look” from the skipper was followed by, “Mark, he zigged towards; angle on bow zero; down periscope; stay at this slow speed, Larry. Let’s head for him.” The quartermaster replied, “Bearing 066 relative,” and Gugliotta gave the range: “6,000 and right full rudder, steady on course 003.” But it was slow work for impatient men. Three minutes later the bearing was 000 relative and the range 4,500.
At this point Schab reported, “I hear screws now, dead ahead, about 130 RPM.”
“Good, stay on him and report any changes,” Coe said. In a few minutes Schab came back with, “Target bearing is changing to the left. He may have zigged. I also hear more noise, screws at higher speed.”
This brought “Up periscope” from Coe and, after finding the target, “He sure did zig. Mark, angle on the bow 60 port, 100 feet, and pour on the speed, Larry. Torpedo room make ready number one and two torpedo tubes, and tell Sound that the high speed screws are a couple of destroyer-type escorts.”
The range was 3,600 yards, bearing 350 degrees. Gugliotta said to Coe, “Recommend course 330 to give us a 105-degree track,” got an “okay” from his captain, and said to helmsman, “Come left to 330 degrees.” Hendrix, plotting, said, “Twelve knots is still good and checks with sound; target on course 250 degrees.”
COB Nave relayed, “Torpedo room reports tubes one and two ready, zero gyro, ten feet depth set.”
Coe said, “Okay, we won’t get much closer, stand by for final setup and shoot. What’s my firing bearing? Slow down, Larry.”
Gugliotta fed him the information, 013: “I’ll put you on it when you’re ready.”
“Up periscope. Mark, no change, angle on bow about 100 port. Down periscope,” Coe said.
And for the last time this time, Gugliotta said, “Range 3,000” and the quartermaster replied, “Bearing 020.”
The excitement in the control room was palpable. There wasn’t a sound from those present as the skipper said, “Put me on the firing bearing”; Gugliotta turned the periscope to bearing; Monk said, “Setup checks, course 250, speed 12”; Coe said, “Up periscope, he’s coming on, stand by.”
A few seconds later the captain said, “Fire one.” Nave, who as chief of the boat rated the honor, pressed the electric firing switch, and again when Coe said, “Fire two.”
Torpedoman Bixler reported, “Both torpedoes fired electrically,” and sound man Schab, “Both torpedoes running straight.”
Now came the longest part of the 21 minutes since the approach had begun, the two-or three-minute interval between firing the torpedoes and knowing whether they’d found their mark. Coe kept wiping his palms on his skivvy pants but didn’t bother to push back the strands of red hair that had come unstuck when he pulled away from the periscope. Nave kept opening his mouth as though he were about to say something, but nothing came. Larry Bernard folded his arms over his midsection and pressed down hard. He’d forgotten his belly, but now it was giving him trouble. Hendrix rubbed his eyes and blinked, rubbed his eyes and blinked. Some had clenched jaws; some were slack-mouthed. One man kept rolling his thumbs over and over each other. Each showed tension differently, but they were all listening, all breathing hard, all scared. Then two explosions were heard by all hands.
Coe, having a look through the periscope, said softly, “He’s hit, going down by the stern and listing to port.” Sickness stirred in the gut of every man present, but the memory of the baptismal depth-charging 39 had experienced put a brake on regret. The captain’s next words stopped it completely. “Here come his escorts and one fired at our periscope; I just saw a splash nearby; 150 feet, Larry. Pass the word, rig for depth-charge attack.” It was like a blast of cold air in the 100-degree control room. Schab’s excited follow-up, “Two sets of high-speed screws approaching from vicinity of the target,” caused further chilling.
They were in for it. There were four enemy destroyers, but instead of depth-charging they started echo-ranging and tracking. Coe and company figured that the Japanese submarine they’d encountered earlier might still be in the vicinity. The enemy couldn’t be sure that the submersible they’d located wasn’t their own. The Japanese sub couldn’t be sure that the destroyers weren’t U.S., so she was afraid to divulge her identity.
Coe ordered, “Rig for silent running.” All electric motors not vitally needed were stopped. The gyro compass was kept running. The all-important but noisy battery ventilation motors were slowed as much as possible, as were the greatest noisemakers of all, the propellers. They had to be kept turning, though, in case it was necessary to make a knuckle. This consisted of a sharp turn and a burst of speed for just a few seconds, enough disturbance to create a mass of bubbles that would confuse the echo-ranging and enable the submarine to make a try at getting away. The sound waves that pinged against a target and echoed back were indiscriminate; a large fish, a mass of bubbles, or mud would sometimes do.
They were still at Battle Stations Submerged, which kept the best and most experienced people on watch. Silent running automatically meant that personnel movements were to be held to a minimum, especially in the engine room, where loose metal floor plates clanked when walked on. Sandals came off because callused soles were quieter than leather. A broken belt buckle on Tom Parks’s sweat-soaked shorts was snipped because it scraped against equipment. The smoking lamp (a term stemming from early days when an actual little lamp was used to light pipes and cigars) had been out for some time.
The hourly cigarette break usually permitted when submerged was ver-boten. Air quality was a prime consideration in the relentless heat. Most of the men sat down on the deck right where they were to use as little energy and make as little noise as possible. The only people working hard were the helmsman and the planesmen, who had to operate the rudder and the bow and stern planes by hand now that power was secured.
In the torpedo room Ed Schab, still on watch, had shifted from the normal, powered JK listening gear to the SC, a long-range stethoscope mounted topside near the JK. As it was for everybody else, this was his first war time experience with silent running. Wearing earphones, he was taking bearings when he began hearing something new, something other than the screws and the now familiar pings of the enemy’s destroyers. He listened harder, moved around, took another bearing, turning the thick handle of the SC gear. Same thing. It didn’t resemble the unmistakable explosion of depth charges; it was a very regular bang-bang, unchanging in tone and quality. Schab didn’t like it. It was creepy the way it followed him, never varying no matter how he turned to lose it.
Coe was well aware that as long as they had four enemy destroyers pinging on them they were hardly out of danger, so he kept close check on the torpedo room. He had been sweating out the mystery sound with Schab for about ten minutes when his impatience became obvious. “Haven’t you any idea yet what it might be?” he whispered.
Schab, who’d been having some unpleasant thoughts about the creepy noise, shook his head “no” just as Harris, radioman first class, came in. Ed handed over the equipment and Harris got down to the job. There was a touch of “We’ll find out now that the expert is here” in Harris’s manner as he set about covering the same territory Ed had. Schab sat back, praying that the leading radioman would come up fast with the solution. Waiting out the enemy still hovering above them was the worst part of the last five days. Everybody was exhausted, stubbly faces sagging from fatigue, the stinking air beginning to make eyes ache and temples throb from oxygen starvation. Expectations of living out the war were slim, but everyone had hoped to make it a little longer than this. To add the damned bang-bang and the fear of a secret weapon to the already existing misery seemed hitting below the belt.
“Well,” the captain said impatiently to Harris, “do you still hear it?”
Harris gave the handle a big swing, a furrow of concentration between his heavy brows, beads of perspiration rolling down his jowls, listening, listening. “There it is again,” he said. “I don’t know what it is.”
Schab, concentrating on every move the radioman made, suddenly caught sight of the metal tube leads that came through the hull; when Harris made a big, rapid swing, they twisted and banged together. Could it be? Ed wanted to shout as he watched it happen again when Harris trained around fast going from 15 to 90 degrees. Controlling himself, Ed tapped his skipper on the arm and pointed upward. Harris caught the action too. The mystery was solved.
For a few seconds it was almost reassuring to hear only pinging, but another hour went by and aching eyes had become red-rimmed and filmy. They were back to square one. Christopher, who kept having visions of a giant-sized, ice cold beer, thought to himself, How long, O Lord, how long? But nobody could answer that question. Increasing headaches were acting as a barometer of decreasing air quality inside the pigboat. Men who had been florid from heat were paling out from lack of oxygen. Nobody complained because there was no point in it. An S-boat was a great leveling agent; all suffered equally. Besides, why waste breath. It was too precious.
Depth-charging could blast you instantaneously out of existence, but pinging could wear you down until the lack of breathable air gave you the choice of surfacing or smothering to death. If you surfaced, you could shoot it out, hoping to do some damage and get away—not likely with four modern Jap destroyers on you. Or you could surrender and be taken prisoner, which was unthinkable. For 39 the point of surfacing and confrontation was getting near. Coe motioned Gugliotta to follow him into the wardroom. Guy silently picked his way across outstretched legs on the slimy deck; the only noisemakers were the enormous, dinosaur-vintage cockroaches plopping onto metal machinery.
“Guy, I want you to get all the confidential publications together,” the captain whispered into his communicator’s ear, “and if we have to surface, be ready to deep-six them.”
Following instructions, Gugliotta went to the ship’s safe, packed the confidential material into a canvas bag, and weighted it down with wrenches. Then he added his silent prayer to the rest of the silent prayers that he’d be taking them out and stuffing them back in the safe soon.
In the torpedo room Radioman Rice, who had relieved Schab, wanted to believe his ears but also wanted to be sure before he got everybody’s hopes up that the pinging was getting farther away. Coming in quietly as a mouse, Coe took one look at the radioman’s face and said, “There’s a change. Have they given up on us?”
“It looks like it, Captain,” Rice said cautiously. “The sound is getting further and further away. I haven’t heard anything at all for the last couple of minutes.”
The word got around fast. Faces brightened as 39 began surfacing, and by the time Quartermaster Rollins started cranking the dogs of the hatch cover, there were a few cautious smiles. If only they could get rid of the foul air, things might be okay. All eyes in the conning tower were on the hatch cover, still held shut by the latch and water pressure. Then the hatch was out of the water, and Diving Officer Bernard relayed the depth to Officer of the Deck Hendrix, who told the quartermaster, “Open the hatch.”
Rollins pulled hard on the lanyard that tripped the latch. With an angry blast the foul air blew out and fresh replaced it as the main engines were started. Officers and men had never known anything so good. For the first time they realized that air tasted. They opened their mouths and gulped it. They rolled it around their tongues. They smacked their lips over it.
The relief didn’t last long. They immediately made ready for a battery charge and found a considerable amount of water in the large main induction piping through which ventilating air was drawn into the boat when on the surface. The source of the leak was a distorted gasket on the main induction valve located in the bridge structure aft of the open bridge area; the shocks from depth charges on 11 December had unseated the gasket. It had become badly crushed from opening and shutting since then, and no spare was carried on board. It was decided to force the distorted gasket into place, shut the valve, and keep it shut for the rest of the patrol. The hardest part would be to do the noisy job quietly and quickly in a patrol area crawling with enemy ships.
Bernard sent for Chief Machinist’s Mate Paul Spencer and Jim Pennell to assess the task.
“Somebody will have to crank the valve shut from below because if it’s operated by power it could cut off fingers,” Spencer said. “It’ll take three of us to force it into place and hold it there.”
“I’ll go get somebody,” Pennell offered.
Coe had witnessed the rush of water when the valve was opened, and his concern brought him through the hatch to join the others on the bridge. It was a dark and hazy night, but the outlines of enemy vessels were discernible in the distance. In a few seconds Pennell was back with Earl Nave in tow. Though not a machinist’s mate, Nave understood the problem from past experience on another submarine and had volunteered to help. He won a lot of respect for the action because a chief of the boat didn’t have to do nasty little jobs like this. And most of them didn’t. Some of the admiration given Nave was grudging, but all of it was genuine.
The three men got to work at once, unable to go as fast as they would have liked for fear of the noise. It was a hammer and screwdriver job. While the men worked, the skipper’s eyes followed the progress of a clipper-bow Japanese “tin can” (destroyer) that loomed closer and closer. The machinist’s mates were finding Nave’s experience invaluable as they tried to get the hard rubber disc back where it belonged and the word was quickly passed below that the honker was not only working quiet but keeping quiet. “A miracle, a miracle,” somebody muttered. It was a night for miracles. Although the Japanese destroyer could be seen throughout the repair session, she never saw 39.
Frustration set in again next day. Albay Gulf was crawling with Japanese minelayers, transports, destroyers, and even a light cruiser. Visibility was poor because of rain and fog. The 39 sighted more cargo ships coming down from the north, but as they approached the entrance to the gulf, the enemy vessels were met by Japanese destroyer escorts to take them in. It was a very high-risk setup for a U.S. submersible, even if she could get close enough for a try. Excitement ran high when 39 sighted a transport on her stern, but it zigged away. The submarine could not close below 4,000 yards, which was beyond her torpedo range.
Then Coe got a wonderful idea. At least he thought it was and so did everyone else but Gugliotta. Except when his back was to the wall, Coe’s philosophy was to be neither stupidly reckless nor overly conservative but to evaluate the situation and decide whether he had a chance of making a successful hit and staying alive to report it. Going in during daylight was out right now; surface approach at night was a problem for S-boats because their sonar couldn’t be used unless submerged; going in submerged at night wouldn’t do, either, because the periscope was inadequate after dark, especially in stormy weather. What to do?
“Guy, it’ll be a natural for you,” Coe said, “since you’re torpedo and gunnery officer. We’ll go in submerged after dark but with the radio mast up; you can sit on it with binoculars and con the boat into firing position. You’ll be much more accurate than the periscope, and you’ll be in contact with me by telephone. This way we should get a good firing setup.”
Gugliotta was a Naval Academy graduate who’d been trained to obey his commanding officer. The brown eyes met the blue ones, and Gugliotta said, “Yes, sir,” but the plan didn’t appeal to him. It wasn’t so much the idea of being a human periscope, riding the radio mast all alone like the lookout on an old-time sailing ship while everybody else was safely below; it was the schools of viperish iridescent sea snakes he had so often seen in the warm waters of the Philippines. Did they sleep at night, or were they out to attack any legs that might be trailing through the water after dark? Gugliotta had a fix on snakes. He just didn’t like them.
“Gee, that sounds great,” Hendrix said, his big enthusiastic grin turned on his shipmate, who mumbled, “Yeah,” and wished the skipper had asked for volunteers and Monk had been it.
But before the plan could be implemented, the order came to return to Manila. On the way back, Schab caught a Tokyo Rose broadcast. The velvet-voiced lady announced the sinking of the S-39 in her perfect, unaccented English, and there was pathos in her tone when she said, “The rest of you brave submariners want to be able to see your wives and sweethearts again, don’t you? Why don’t you surrender?” The quiver in the dulcet voice was heartbreaking as she added, “And now I’m going to spin a record for you that will really make you think.” The song was “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” which provoked many a sigh from the crew. The women-hungry men thoroughly enjoyed the sexy voice without taking her proposals seriously; they figured she didn’t either. What really upset them was to hear that the Japanese had taken over Shanghai’s International Settlement on 8 December and that Blood Alley, a sailor’s paradise, was no more.
That chaotic Sunday, to be known in history as Pearl Harbor Day, would forever remain in the memory of Bobette Gugliotta. At home with her mother and stepfather in Malba, Long Island, she had nothing special planned. There would be the usual stroll down country roads lined with peach trees in this small community between College Point and the Whitestone Bridge. There would be the New York Times Book Review, roast beef, and snow flurries wafting across smudgy storm windows. After dinner there would be radio programs—such as Eddie Cantor’s show with his famous sign-off, “I love to spend each Sunday with you”—followed by writing to Guy, and winding up with the usual long session of reading in bed. Bobette was currently immersed in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd novels and was about to finish World’s End. It was a curiously prophetic title. The world that the 22-year-old had known was ending, and a new era was about to begin.
Word of the catastrophe came by telephone from a friend. The next few days were hectic, with normal people reacting abnormally. Charles Dixon, Bobette’s 45-year-old stepfather and an ex–merchant mariner, tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy on 8 December. His age, plus an X-ray that revealed an old tubercular scar, kept him out. Bobette’s mother, Aline, opened a can of Japa-nese crabmeat and upon finding glasslike slivers in it called the FBI; the bureau made an analysis and found the slivers harmless preservative. Bobette, who had done nothing throughout the past year but write letters to Guy, send him books, visit his family in New Jersey, and lose weight from lovesickness, pulled herself together and joined the American Women’s Voluntary Service. The most important job performed by the uniformed women was selling war savings bonds that helped finance badly needed equipment. Bobette worked out of a booth at the Jamaica, Long Island, racetrack and sold a good number of bonds to successful horse players who were put to shame by AWVS women beseeching them, in loud voices, to share their winnings with GI Joe so he could win, too. She was also good at collecting reading material, not so good at knitting socks, and no good at all at helping provide an honor guard for the dead. Unable to bear the sight of a flag-draped coffin with a naval officer’s cap atop it belonging to a young aviator killed in training, son of an AWVS volunteer, Bobette left in the middle of the services. Sitting in the dressing room, she wept quietly, blaming herself for being a coward.
Caroline Bernard and her son were living with Larry’s family in Dead-wood, South Dakota. Although the town was well known for western characters such as Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Deadwood Dick, its current 3,288 citizens were true blue but not worldly wise. When the news of Pearl Harbor was broadcast, Caroline received many a commiserating call because Larry was in that awful place where all those battleships were sunk. The Philippines and Hawaii were lumped together in the minds of many townfolk, as they were in the minds of people in larger, more sophisticated centers. The U.S. was about to have a geography lesson. But Deadwood, highly patriotic, was eager to cooperate with the war effort, and when government rationing books were issued later, ranchers were doubly on the alert for cattle rustlers eager to make bucks in the black market.
Caroline didn’t hear anything from Larry for some time, and knowing nothing of the routine employed to convey notice of death, she thought it would surely be by telephone, and quaked every time the instrument rang. Late one evening the harsh jangle of the wall phone struck terror into her heart, but it brought good news, a cable from Larry.
Corenne Ward was chatting and listening to the radio with friends in San Diego, including the English aircorpsman John Bellamy, still awaiting delivery of a plane. Suddenly the swing music of Artie Shaw stopped and a breathless voice kept repeating over and over, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.”
“Let’s drive down to the harbor and take a look around,” someone suggested. Nobody knew what they expected to see, but the idea of movement was a relief in itself.
It was a mild, sunny day, the kind that made San Diego boast that it possessed the finest climate in the world. The group swung past the Civic Center and onto the Embarcadero, where tons of lumber were stacked up to build new housing for the swarm of defense workers who had recently invaded the area and were living in tent cities. Sighting the headquarters of the 11th Naval District, Corenne thought of Tom Parks—as she had the moment the awesome announcement of war came on the air. She had heard from Tom not long before and was pretty sure he was around Manila, but no announcements had been made concerning the Asiatic Fleet. She would call his mother later. If Mrs. Parks hadn’t heard from Tom, she might have heard from his brother Jim on the carrier Langley. With a little shiver that had nothing to do with the weather, Corenne realized how hard it must be for Mr. and Mrs. Parks, whose only children were both in a theatre of war so far away. Corenne came back to the moment with a start as the car ground to a halt. “You’ve been dreaming,” John Bellamy said, helping her out.
Corenne smiled. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t realize we’d driven all the way to La Jolla.”
They stood on the wind-eroded cliffs, feeling mist upon their faces from waves that crashed against the strangely shaped rocks and sent watery fingers probing into caves underneath. As they looked out over the endless blue of a Pacific dancing with sun-sparkle, it was hard to believe that death and destruction lay beyond the horizon. It was their last opportunity to move about freely. Within a few hours the harbor was fenced off and the cliffs were declared out of bounds.
Corenne had no chance to become interested in a change of job, since she found out next day that the one she was in had been declared vital to the defense of the United States. By the time she arrived at the telephone building, there were guards at all doors. No calls to Mexico or anywhere out of the U.S. could be connected without a monitor to warn customers not to talk of weather conditions or troop movements. Callers were also warned not to speak Japanese, an order the employees considered little more than a bluff, since 90 percent of the operators wouldn’t have known Japanese from Tagalog or Hindi. Blackouts went into effect throughout the city, and the major buildings were sandbagged. All military personnel were recalled to their bases, and people in the streets glanced over their shoulders first and spoke in whispers if they had anything to say about the war.
Corenne’s friend Bellamy was a great help in those first frightening weeks; he had gone through much more in Britain, where London was taking the terrible bombing that fortunate San Diego would never experience. Nevertheless, it took a while for the initial fear to subside and for things to return to near-normal—with the exception of rationing. The common folk obeyed the law and took only their share of scarce canned goods, red meat, tires, and gasoline. Of course, the ever-present hoods and crooks immediately set up a black market in ration stamps that spread from coast to coast faster than maple syrup on hotcakes.
And then John Bellamy’s plane was ready and it was time for him to go. It was a difficult parting. Bellamy, to make sure Corenne’s letters would reach him, asked her to write in care of his home address in Sheffield, England, so that his mother could forward the letters to his proper war time address. He was to be reassigned after he reached home and had no way of knowing where he would end up. Corenne was very fond of him, she wrote faithfully. But as the months went by, she realized that John Bellamy’s dowager mother was not forwarding mail to her son from the American girl. Corenne’s letters from John (and there were many before he became totally discouraged) asked again and again why she never wrote. Since John’s letters bore no return address, after a while Corenne had to concede victory to Mrs. Bellamy.
Two stalwart crew members who had missed the S-39’s first patrol were Schoenrock and Tom Parks. Parks had become the complete, dyed-in-the-wool, 100-percent devoted pigboat sailor by the time he got his dolphins. He had totally eliminated from his consciousness his old desire to be in aviation. After a night on the town, he met up with an aviation machinist’s mate from a patrol bomber squadron. The encounter took place in the head at the barracks in Subic Bay. When the superiority of wings over dolphins came under discussion, Tom unfortunately did not have his pacifist friend Kutscherowski with him to keep him out of trouble. As the argument heated up, the aviation machinist’s mate became abusive to the point of impugning the honor and respectability of Tom’s mother, so the submarine sailor clopped his opponent in the jaw and was immediately decked by a punch to the solar plexus that left him gasping. By the time he caught his breath, the machinist’s mate had shoved off. Tom realized that his hand hurt like hell, and it soon swelled up like one of Ski’s boxing gloves.
Prewar tension had already resulted in a stab in the leg for Schoenrock during a fight on the beach. Coe had been able to finagle temporary duty aboard the Pigeon for the cook while his leg healed, but Tom’s right hand was more serious. Parks went to the hospital, and the 39 went to sea. When he was released, 6 December, the hospital personnel office sent Parks to the USS Holland, one of the newly arrived submarine tenders, where he knew no one at all. Tom managed to persuade the personnel officer to endorse orders to Division 201 instead, familiar territory.
As he started across the bay, he caught sight of the old carrier Langley coming in and realized that he hadn’t seen his brother Jim in over a month. And when he went aboard Canopus and found that the 39 was out to sea, he made a split-second decision that he never regretted: he went AWOL and spent the weekend aboard the Langley with his brother. Sunday night, as soon as he set foot on the Canopus, a heavy hand was placed on his shoulder by the master-at-arms. He was under arrest, spent the rest of the night in the brig, and after quarters in the morning was led out on deck for a captain’s mast.
The informality and homey touches of an S-boat were lacking here—no sloppy shorts, bare chests, and sandals. The drizzly, gray light of the rainy season showed a grim-faced Commander Earl Sackett, his leading petty officer, a division officer, and the master-at-arms who had put Tom in the brig. With all speed Tom was set for a summary court-martial. He began to realize that his impulsive act could have serious results. He hoped and prayed that what he’d heard was true, that the Navy took into consideration your previous record. His was clean, and there were extenuating circumstances, in this case a desire to see his only brother. What he didn’t realize yet was that a war had started. Within hours the Navy was too busy for minor things like courts-martial, and besides, it needed all the hands it could muster.
By the time the Canopus had sailed back across the bay and tied up at the President Lines pier, Tom had heard the news. Although not even Admiral Hart knew the extent of the damage at Pearl Harbor. Parks, like the higher-ups, thought the Philippines the main target. The area was alerted for air raids, and shortly after, sirens began their high-pitched, earsplitting whine. It was 10 December, the hour was 1210. Fifteen minutes later 54 Japanese bombers, accompanied by fighter planes, were sighted. Tom, mouth open and eyes wide as though in a trance, watched the faraway specks grow larger and break into two groups of 27 with the precision of an air show, before winging off into smaller units of nine with insolent ease. The flyers from Nippon knew they had nothing to fear by way of retaliation.
While Parks was wondering where the American fighter planes were, the first bombs began to fall, coming down at 1305 on Machina Wharf at Cavite, hitting minesweeper Bittern and submarine Sealion. That was only the beginning. The navy yard was bombed again and again, smashing ships and knocking out the power station so that no water pressure was available for firefighting. Parks was assigned to a boat gang ordered to take a fire-and-rescue party of 30 men to the navy yard. The trancelike feeling continued as they crossed the bay, and Tom stared in disbelief at red flames skyscrapering up through enormous black billows of smoke. But when he landed at Cavite, it was not the spectacle burning all around him that made war real but the sight of what shrapnel could do to a human body.
The Filipinos suffered most in the Cavite disaster; over 1,000 dockworkers and shop keepers were killed outright, and 400 more would die later in the hospital. As Tom stared at the bloody remains of what had been live people a few minutes before, he grew sick to his stomach and felt the cold grip of fear for his own life. The barracks had taken a direct hit; the torpedo and machine shops were in ruins; the Sealion had gone down; and he could see the superstructure of the Seadragon pocked with holes. But none of that mattered like the helpless dead.
When the battered fire and rescue party went back across the bay to Manila the next day, Tom cried unabashedly from anger, frustration, and fright as he watched Japanese bombers overhead and saw the futile antiaircraft fire popping so far below the planes that it would have been funny if it had been happening to somebody else. He consoled himself by thinking, We’ll even the score in a few days, we’ll get back at them. He was still expecting a battle fleet from Pearl Harbor to steam in and save the Philippines. Nobody had yet told him how impossible that was.
Fleet submarines Sealion and Seadragon, when caught in the devastating attack, had both been undergoing overhaul. Lieutenant Commander Richard Voge, captain of Sealion, had issued orders the day the war started that all hands were to come aboard fast if an air raid alarm sounded, because there were no shelters in the navy yard and the submarine was the safest place to be. The Philippine workmen had been trying their best to complete the overhaul and by working like demons were ahead of schedule, but Sealion’s engines were still dismantled. Frank Gierhart, radioman second class from Cincinnati, Ohio, had been in the yard on business connected with Sealion when he heard the siren’s wail. Running when he could and walking when he had to plow through the crowds of workmen and civilians frantically seeking shelter in a place which had none, Frank headed for home. He had put Sealion into commission and had been mighty glad to be on a new, up-to-date fleet boat after a two-year stint on the old S-43 in Panama.
Frank scrambled across Seadragon, his heart beating louder than the wailing siren. He was scared. On the bridge Captain Voge urged Gierhart and others coming along behind him to get a move on. It was hardly necessary. By the time the bombers were sighted, the only men topside on Sealion were her skipper, the exec, and three gunners manning the machine gun. It was almost instantly clear that a single bantam-weight gun was impotent against 54 heavy-weight bombers.
As Frank dropped into the control room where most of the men were assembled, he heard the puerile ack-ack of Cavite’s antiaircraft batteries, but not for long. The nine three-inch guns, with a range of 15,000 feet, might as well have been firing tennis balls into the air for all the impression they could make on high-altitude bombers. But it wasn’t long before the holocaust taking place in Cavite stilled the sound of antiaircraft guns forever.
When the first bombs slanted down a few yards astern, Voge ordered all hands below, and minutes later two bombs hit Sealion, one completely destroying the machine gun mount just vacated. Fortunately, the first bomb exploded outside the hull, a few feet away from the crowded control room. If it had penetrated, most of the crew would have been killed. The impact shook the boat with the force of a giant hand, and three men in the control room were injured by bomb fragments piercing the pressure hull. But there was no time for tears because, almost simultaneously, a second bomb passed through the main ballast tank and exploded in the after engine room. The four electrician’s mates working there were killed instantly. The room flooded immediately and the submarine settled in the mud, its sudden tilting slamming the men every which way as water started seeping through the bomb-fragment holes. All hatches were still above water, and the stunned and silent crew shot up them, escaping with all the speed of Battle Surface Drill, except the wounded assisted by their comrades.
It was worse outside than in. When Frank Gierhart emerged into the chaos of a thousand fires blazing like spin-offs from the fiery tropic sun and the explosions of zigzagging bombs wiping out people and landmarks before his eyes, he knew what terror was. The screams of the injured and dying were periodically obliterated by detonations, and the nauseating odor of cooked flesh was replaced by an oil stench when an errant breeze blew smoke from burning tanks through the hell that was Cavite. Gierhart was homeless now.
The day Cavite was bombed, another member of Sealion’s crew, Fireman First Class Leslie Dean, had been sent to Manila to buy or scrounge whatever supplies he could find. It was every ship for itself, and each one wanted to have as many spares and as much food as it could carry. Dean was a good man for the job. His farmer-minister-carpenter father had never made much money at any of his trades and during the Depression earned even less. This had made a realist out of his son, who joined the Navy in 1935 primarily to eat regularly and, by the way, to see the world. He’d never before been outside Mt. Vernon, Illinois. As soon as he could, he volunteered for submarines—extra pay the incentive. For the same reason he didn’t mind being a messcook; the hat was always passed on pay day for services rendered and the extra bucks were worth a little sweat.
Like Gierhart, Les Dean had also put the Sealion into commission. Older than Frank, Les appreciated even more the pleasant life on a fleet boat; he had come up in the world and he wanted to stay there. Let newcomers to submarines live on the stinking pigboats; his four long years on S-25 and S-28 had made him a grateful graduate. Dean didn’t get along with boatswain’s mates but otherwise considered himself peaceable enough, not a personality to rub people the wrong way, somewhat forgettable in fact. He considered himself lucky as hell to have been in Manila when Cavite was bombed, but when he heard about Sealion, he took it hard. He was homeless, too.
Also in the Cavite Navy Yard when the war started was J.T. Lebow (no first name, just initials), another guy without a bunk to call his own. Lebow had six years of Navy experience; he had served on S-boats in Panama and then on the fleet boat Cuttlefish in Pearl Harbor. But when there was a shortage of radiomen in the Asiatic Fleet in early 1941, J.T. volunteered for the duty. He had bounced around on three different boats during the move to Manila, taking over temporarily for nonfunctioning radiomen. In the Philippines he had gone to the sub tender Holland as a spare. Filling in wherever needed, J.T. was as sought after as a substitute teacher and had served on Sculpin, Sailfish, Spearfish, and Swordfish. The conflict came as no surprise to him: back in Panama in 1940 he had predicted that war in Asia would involve the U.S. within a year. He was often right and not modest about it, which made him somewhat of a loner, except when it came to women.
In looks Lebow was not the traditional tall Texan but possessed the cockiness attributed to natives of the Lone Star State. In his spare time in prewar Manila, he had shot craps; guzzled scotch, beer, juleps; had some women and some fights. As the old saying goes, he was full of piss and vinegar, and behaved like many another sailor trying to do it all while he was still young and strong enough to enjoy it. He had a girl back home, Minnie Jeanne Nozero, but nothing definite had been settled between them. J.T. was too fond of the fair sex to ignore them in the warm and welcoming climate of the Philippines, or any other climate, for that matter. But like many another sailor who’d been blasted out of a nice setup by the war, Lebow would have to be on the move soon or take to the hills and learn to exist on bananas.
The crew of the Sealion and other displaced personnel found temporary refuge in the new Enlisted Men’s Club on the dock in Manila. They were immediately set to work digging a trench around the club, wide enough and deep enough for a man to take shelter in. This was to be used only if they were unable to make the mile run to the wall surrounding the old city, which was considered a much safer place to be. After a few days a bombing pattern became obvious. With clocklike precision the Japanese came in twice daily, at 1300 and 0100; Gierhart, Dean, and others began grabbing a blanket to tote along for wee-hours session. The ground was hard, wet, and chilly at that time of the morning. They were supposed to go right back to the Enlisted Club as soon as the all-clear sounded, but many of them, worn out from recent events, fell asleep and stayed the night. Gierhart’s and Dean’s main preoccupation was thinking about what would become of them if the Philippines fell, which looked more and more likely. The rumor factory went 24 hours a day, ranging all the way from a Japanese bombing of D.C. that had killed President Roosevelt to the sinking of the fleet in Pearl Harbor. They believed the first more possible than the last, because all those big battleships and fancy cruisers and new destroyers in Pearl were supposed to come and rescue them.
And then came news that wasn’t a rumor. Until two days before the event, General MacArthur “forgot” to inform Admiral Hart that Manila would be declared an open city on Christmas Day. In a hastily summoned conference with his flag officers, Hart told them of the imminent need to evacuate personnel, equipment, and the Canopus, the only submarine tender left in the Philippines. Though he tried to control it, his bitterness at the cavalier behavior of his peer showed; the lives of men were at stake, men of the fleet who deserved every chance to escape so that they might live to fight more effectively another day.
Tom Parks hadn’t had much time to think about whether 39 would take him back when she came in but the thought loomed more and more important. There were a lot of homeless Navy men and Marines, an estimated 4,000 of them, and only small vessels to put them on. Rear Admiral William A. Glassford, Jr., had already departed for Balikpapan with a cruiser, two oilers, and the Langley. When push came to shove, which would be soon according to scuttlebutt, space available for displaced men to catch a ride would be the submarines and inshore patrol vessels that were left. Whoever made it aboard would be lucky; the rest, the bulk, could soon be in the talons of an enemy swooping in like falcons sure of their prey.
Ships from many countries had sought refuge in Manila Bay, among them a modern French merchantman, Marechal Joffre, flying the Vichy French flag. The top brass decided to take Marechal Joffre into protective custody and put 100 U.S. Navy personnel aboard to sail her to an eastern Australian port, where she could be used by the Allies. But first a boarding party had to be formed for the purpose, and Parks was a member of the group chosen for the takeover. He didn’t know much about Frenchmen, Vichy or otherwise, and was leery of the reception the “pirates” would receive. As they climbed into motor launches, he swallowed hard, recalling Errol Flynn movies where the boarding party always encountered gunfire and hand-to-hand fighting. The only thing missing would be sabers—maybe the French still used them.
When they neared the ship, the Americans could see officers and sailors hanging over the rails watching their approach. They couldn’t read the expressions on the faces. But as the first member of the boarding party set foot on the Joffre, the skipper said, “Allo,” with a big smile. Then the French sailors waved to the Americans, and Tom knew the takeover was going to be okay. He had one more hurdle to jump, and that was to find out if his billet was still available on the 39.