The U.S.S. Fox was a very new destroyer, launched only a year earlier in 1919. At just under twelve hundred tons, she carried a crew of one hundred and twenty-two men. Swift, she could do thirty-five knots, and her main armament consisted of turretless four-inch guns on her main deck. The Fox was called a flush deck because of her clean, straight lines and, since she had four smokestacks, ships like her were also called four-pipers.
This morning she was doing nowhere near her top speed. Instead, she was scarcely crawling through the gentle swells off the California coast. The cold and clammy fog had her totally imprisoned and her captain was not going to risk a collision with anything larger than a seal. The waters north of San Francisco were just too busy with commercial traffic to take such a chance.
Fine by me, thought Ensign Josh Cornell as he squinted through his binoculars at a blank wall of fog. He was standing at the very bow of the ship after getting the wild idea that being as far forward as possible would help him see better. It hadn’t helped at all, and he was beginning to feel a little foolish.
Only a year out of Annapolis, Josh originally thought assignment as a junior officer to a destroyer was a setback to his career. Most of his classmates thought serving on a battleship was the fastest way to promotion, and he’d been teased when they’d learned that he was on his way to a lowly destroyer.
Cornell was rethinking his original thoughts. On a destroyer, an officer was expected to know a lot about everything instead of being a specialist, like a gunner, although firing the great guns had to be one of the most exciting things possible. He also liked the dramatic way the destroyer knifed through the seas. To him it evoked memories of reading about Viking longships.
To his astonishment, he hadn’t gotten seasick, which the rest of the crew found surprising as the Fox’s other newcomers spent the first few days of the cruise puking their guts out and fouling the ocean. He was from Nebraska and hadn’t even seen a large lake, much less an ocean, until enrolling at the Naval Academy. Even though he was slightly built, thin haired, and looked younger than twenty-three, the men had begun to accept him. He did his work without complaint and didn’t pretend to know everything just because he’d gone to Annapolis. He asked questions and respected sailors who asked him about a variety of things.
Cornell was puzzled regarding the destroyer’s current assignment. Something was stirring and either nobody knew what it was or nobody was talking. The Fox was patrolling off San Francisco and their home base at Mare Island in the northern half of San Francisco Bay, and everyone wondered why. Since the battleship Arizona had almost flown out of the base the day before and the two remaining battlewagons, the Nevada and Pennsylvania, had left before dawn this morning, the rumors were rampant. Some had the U.S. in a war with Germany, which Josh thought was utterly implausible. The destroyer’s skipper said they should be prepared for anything. Or maybe the whole thing was a damned surprise maneuver.
Suddenly, the lookout above screamed, “Ship, dead ahead!”
Cornell froze. He squinted as if he could will the fog to clear. He saw nothing. No, wait…There was a large and shapeless object in front of him and moving closer. It was another ship and it was dangerously close. Dear God, would they collide? On the bridge behind him, he could hear the captain calling for a sharp turn to port and for more speed from the engine room.
The stranger was only yards away. It was a massive vessel whose hull towered above the Fox. They would not collide, but it would be close and the giant stranger’s powerful wake would rock them brutally. They could handle that and Cornell started breathing again.
As the stranger slid by, he saw massive turrets and guns. Jesus, it was a warship, a battleship, but which one? It had to be reinforcements from out east. As the Fox pulled away, guns from the battleship’s secondary battery suddenly opened fire and shells ripped through the helpless and outgunned American destroyer.
“What the hell is going on?” he heard the captain yelling. “Get on the radio,” he said before another shell struck the bridge, silencing him and sending mutilated bodies flying about like toys.
The Fox staggered like a losing prizefighter. Debris rained down on Josh. He ran back to the ruins of the bridge. Shattered bodies and limbs were everywhere and blood ran in torrents on to the deck and into the ocean. Josh knew they should be fighting back, but with what? Her four-inch guns were popguns against a battleship, and, besides, none of the crew was at their battle stations. Finally, a machine gun on the Fox opened fire, impotently strafing the armored hull of the battleship.
More shells struck the Fox and she exploded with a deafening roar. Josh found himself flying through the air like a bird. He hit the water and it knocked the wind out of him. The cold Pacific grabbed him with icy claws. Something was wrong with his left leg. Pain was shooting up from it. He gasped and tried to breathe.
Instinctively, he tried to swim. A piece of debris floated by and he grabbed on to it. A handful of other crewmen were doing the same thing. A very small handful, he realized sadly as someone grabbed him and steadied him.
Finally, the fog cleared a little and he could see a line of gigantic battleships heading for what he presumed was the Golden Gate and the base at Mare Island. He caught sight of a flag. They were German. Since when were we at war with Germany? he wondered as he fought off the pain from his leg. He caught the name of one of the ships, the Bayern. According to the latest Jane’s she was one of Germany’s newest and mightiest battleships and carried fifteen-inch guns. What the hell was she doing here?
And if she was headed for San Francisco Bay and Mare Island, there was nothing he could do about it. His first and only priority was to survive. His leg was killing him and he’d swallowed salt water which was making him vomit, and he was rapidly freezing. Still, he was an officer had to lead, had to live.
He called and gathered about him the half dozen men floating in the water. They connected their pieces of debris into something resembling a raft and climbed on. The ocean swells kept washing over them but at least they weren’t in danger of drowning if they didn’t fall off and if the sea remained fairly calm.
Finally the sun came out, warming them slightly, and they could see to the horizon. Josh could see nothing to the east. The coast was too far distant and the German ships had disappeared. They were far out to sea. He wondered how long they’d have to float. They had no food or water and he’d already begun shaking from shock and the cold. One of the men was praying for a miracle. Josh joined him.
It came. After a couple of hours, a fishing boat sighted the Fox’s survivors and hauled them on board, where they lay gasping and shaking. The crew had them strip, dried them, and gave them blankets and hot soup. They gave the injured Navy men first aid and put a splint on Josh’s leg. Of course the boat had no radio. Josh knew that would have been too much to ask for.
Hours later, as they approached the Golden Gate, they saw smoke arising from the old coastal batteries at Fort Point, along the shoreline by the Presidio complex, and well to the northeast where Mare Island was situated.
A motorized Navy launch filled with men armed with rifles and submachine guns, intercepted them as they turned and headed north to the Mare Island base. Josh lurched to his feet and to the boat’s rail. He recognized a petty officer named Mahoney.