Shortly before dawn next morning, Richardson climbed up on the bridge. Keith was there with Oregon, still shooting his morning stars for a careful fix of position.
“Ready for our morning dive for trim, Keith?”
“Nearly, sir. One more star.”
Swiftly Leone inverted his sextant, sighted on one of the pinpoints still showing through the rapidly graying atmosphere, with his left hand made a quick rough adjustment on the inverted sextant arc. Then, reversing the sextant to its correct position, he squinted at the star, gently rocked the sextant from side to side, carefully twirled the vernier scale knob with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. “Stand by,” he said. “Stand by — mark! Did you get it, Oregon?”
“Got it,” said the quartermaster. Oregon held a notebook and a large pocket-watch in his left hand, was writing in the book with a pencil with his other hand. “Watch time was six thirty-seven and twenty-one seconds.”
“Sixty-one degrees, fourteen minutes, and three-tenths,” read Keith from his sextant scale. “That’s it, Skipper. I’ll figure it up right away. We’re not far off our dead reckoning position, though. Should be right at our patrol spot.”
Then to Buck Williams, who was Officer of the Deck, “Navigator and quartermaster going below, Buck.” Keith and Oregon swung down the hatch.
Dawn was breaking rapidly. It was becoming perceptibly lighter. There was a muggy haze to the atmosphere, grayness creeping into the sky. The stars were already too dim to be viewed. The horizon was becoming more visible, though its outline was still far from clean. Keith must have had considerable difficulty in getting a sharp enough horizon for his sights. Eel lazed gently ahead, a single exhaust pipe aft burbling.
Rich put down the binoculars through which he had been surveying the sky and the sea, looked at Williams.
“We’re ready to dive, Captain,” reported the OOD. “We have two hundred fifty feet of water under the keel, going ahead one-third on one main engine. Battery charge is completed. So far as I know, we are on station.”
“Very well, Buck,” said Richardson. “Take her down.”
“Clear the bridge!” yelled Buck. At the same time, he reached forward to a switchbox placed on the center of the bridge overhang just behind the windscreen, placed his entire mittened hand upon it, pressed distinctly two times. Simultaneously he shouted “Dive! Dive!” down the open hatch. The sound of the diving alarm reverberated loudly twice on the ship’s general announcing system. At the order “Clear the bridge,” the four lookouts posted on the periscope shears behind Williams hastily tucked their binoculars into their windbreakers, stooped through their lookout guard rails, grasped the fireman’s poles, and slid swiftly down the intervening eight feet to the bridge deck. They landed with a thump. Half doubled over, protecting their binoculars with their left arms, they dashed forward to scramble one after the other down the hatch.
Quartermaster Scott and Larry Lasche, now a lieutenant (junior grade), who had been standing their watch on the after part of the bridge, walked forward more deliberately, waited until the four lookouts were below, and then themselves disappeared. Scott would wait in the conning tower alongside the bridge hatch to assist in closing it when the last man came down.
At the instant the diving alarm had sounded, a series of small geysers — mainly air, but with a little water mixed in — appeared in quick succession on either side of the main deck from forward to aft: the main vents, jerked open by hydraulic power from the control room. Simultaneously, the exhaust noise from aft ceased. There was a clank as the main induction valve, the air intake both for the engines and for ventilation, seated itself under the forty-millimeter gun in the center of the cigarette deck. There was increased turbulence of water astern. In accordance with standard diving procedure, the electrician mates in the motor room had put both motors on “ahead full.” Up forward, the bow planes were beginning to rig out and take a bite into the water.
Eel’s bow began to slide down toward the water’s surface. The sea burst through the large bullnose casting on her bow.
Richardson grinned at Williams. Seeing the bullnose go under had always given him a small thrill of pleasure. It provided a means, also, for testing or hazing his officers. Calmly, Williams put his binoculars to his eyes, made a pretense of taking another look around the horizon.
“Okay, Buck, I’ll go below,” said Rich, knowing that he had lost this little game of chicken. It was, after all, the Officer of the Deck’s duty, as well as his prerogative, to be the last man off the bridge. Rich gripped the hatch hand rails, dropped lightly down the ladder into the conning tower. Williams, a couple of seconds behind, swung down on the wire lanyard attached to the hatch, bringing it down with his weight. The hatch latched shut. Scott swiftly remounted the ladder, reached up, and twirled the handwheel on the underside of the hatch, extending the dogs and locking it securely shut.
“Hatch secured!” called Scott. Instantly there was a loud noise of air blowing from the control room below. A rapid increase in air pressure was noticeable in the ears.
Williams released the lanyard, stepped swiftly to the control room hatch, and a moment later was at the diving station where the lookouts had preceded him. The first two had their hands on the large chromium bow plane and stern plane wheels. The submarine had already taken a five-degree bow down attitude. Williams held up his right hand, palm and fingers open in the habitual signal, scrutinized an aneroid barometer on the diving instrument panel.
“Secure the air!” bellowed Williams above the noise, clenching his fist and shaking it for emphasis. The roar of air blowing from an open pipe stopped. Air pressure stopped rising. Ears adjusted. There was a pause as Williams carefully watched the barometer. “Pressure in the boat is two-tenths, Captain. Holding steady,” he announced up the hatch. Then, raising his voice, he called over his shoulder, “Blow negative to the mark!”
Lichtmann, standing watch on the air manifold on the starboard side of the control room, was expecting the order, promptly twisted the blow valve open. The roar of high-pressure air, slightly more muted because it was blowing into a tank under the pressure hull instead of freely into the control room, again filled the compartment. The chief petty officer to Williams’ right, facing the main hydraulic control manifold with its triple row of handles, stood up to inspect a gauge on the panel above them. He traced the needle with his finger as it slowly moved counterclockwise, suddenly held up his clenched fist. The blowing stopped.
“Negative blown to the mark, sir.” Klench, the chief, sat down on his padded tool bench, his hand on one of the shiny levers before him.
“Shut negative flood valve!” said Williams.
Klench pulled the lever toward him. There was a faintly perceptible thump somewhere below. “Negative flood valve is shut,” he said.
“Vent negative!” Klench leaned forward, pulled another handle. There was the low-pitched whoosh of a large volume of air issuing from a big opening. Air pressure in the control room again perceptibly increased. When the blowing noise stopped, Klench pushed back the lever he had been holding open. “Negative tank vented, sir. Vent shut,” he reported.
“Negative tank is blown and secured, Conn. Passing sixty feet. Trim looks good.” Williams tilted his head back, projected his voice through the open hatch so that Richardson in the conning tower could hear him. Negative tank, always kept full of water when the submarine was surfaced, gave her negative buoyancy when the ballast tanks were flooded on diving. Thus it increased the speed of submergence, after which, to achieve the desired state of neutral buoyancy, the tank had to be emptied again. This would be done after Eel had broken clear of the surface and was adequately tilted down by the bow, but it was important also that the tank not be blown at too deep a depth, for to do so would cause a tremendous volume of air, at a relatively high pressure, to be vented back into the submarine.