Sonar quickly identified it as a diesel submarine, Romeo class. The Chinese submarine must have been having a problem with her snorkeling system because she was recharging her batteries on the surface — and making a tremendous amount of diesel noise in the process. It was another two hours before they picked up the Luda destroyer running at about thirteen knots.
Mack ordered battle stations manned. “Quite a day for going hunting, don’t you think?” he said to the diving officer.
“Sure is, Captain. It’s not often you find an enemy submarine on the surface with its pants down like this one.”
For targets such as these, the Harpoon surface-to-surface missile — or, in this case, submarine-to-surface missile — was without a doubt the weapon of choice, especially since both the Chinese submarine and the destroyer were operating so noisily. Cheyenne was able to determine their positions precisely and easily, something that was highly uncommon at this distance.
“Conn, sonar. Master 11 is bearing 013. Master 12 is bearing 002.” Master 11 was the Romeo-class submarine; Master 12 was the destroyer. Neither of them had any idea what was about to be sent their way.
Over the next ten minutes, the BSY-1 computers were able to determine rough ranges of forty-three nautical miles to Master 11, and forty-two nautical miles to Master 12. Cheyenne didn’t need the actual range. As long as the targets were within reach of the Harpoons, it was the accurate bearings that counted.
Mack was pleased with the target acquisitions. “Torpedo room,” he called from the conn. “Remove the torpedoes and reload tubes two, three, and four with Harpoons. Leave an ADCAP in tube one.”
The response was immediate. “Remove the torpedoes and reload tubes two, three, and four with Harpoons, leave an ADCAP in tube one, aye, sir.”
Mack would have loved to shoot off all four of his Harpoon missiles, but that was cowboy tactics. The two known targets were making so much noise that he had to keep in mind the possibility that there was a third — and much more quiet — enemy in the area. He needed to keep one torpedo ready to shoot in case he ran into one of the remaining Han class attack submarines they knew about — or, worse, an enemy they didn’t know about and weren’t prepared for.
The Luda destroyer was the bigger target, and it was more mobile than the surfaced Romeo class submarine. Mack decided to target two Harpoons to the Luda and only one to the submarine. At his command, Cheyenne decreased speed and began to creep silently through the water.
“Tubes two, three, and four are loaded with Harpoons,” reported the combat system officer. Cheyenne was now ready to fire her missiles.
The UGM-84, the submarine-launched variant of the Harpoon, came “wrapped” inside a buoyant capsule that was shaped to fit inside a torpedo tube. Upon firing, the UGM-84 would rise to the surface and, after ejecting the nose to the capsule, would ignite its rocket booster. Then, after dropping its booster, the Harpoon’s turbojet engine would light off and the missile would accelerate on course toward its target. As the UGM-84 neared its target, the radar seeker head would switch on and the Harpoon would commence its final approach.
For this mission, Mack ordered each Harpoon programmed to make a “pop-up” maneuver before attacking its target. This would confuse any antimissile systems the enemy destroyer might have on board. Cheyenne was only going to have one easy launch window at these two Chinese vessels. Mack wanted to make sure that his shots counted.
“Firing point procedures,” Mack ordered, “tube two, Master 11; tubes three and four, Master 12.”
He gave the order to fire the Harpoons two minutes later. They were launched to the surface by the weapons control console and the sonar man heard the rocket boosters ignite. “Reload tubes two, three, and four with Mk 48s,” Mack commanded.
Flying at just under the speed of sound, the missiles found their marks in less than five minutes. This time it was the Chinese who never had a chance.
Three large explosions marked the success of Cheyenne’s attack. The Romeo was hit first. The Harpoon came from its cruising altitude, performed its pop-up maneuver, and slammed into the top of the Romeo’s afterdeck while the submarine was recharging on the surface. The Chinese navy had tried to save money by not repairing the damaged snorkel system. That decision cost them their submarine.
The missile’s 510-pound high-explosive warhead detonated on impact, tearing a large hole in the hull and sending the force of its explosion down into the belly of the submarine. The thin steel hull burst apart, splitting the submarine into two pieces. Both halves quickly filled with water and sank, opposite ends first, into the sea.
Twelve seconds later, it was the destroyer’s turn. The first missile hit its front end, directly under the 130mm gun. There was a horrific explosion and the entire fore section of the destroyer was bent in a downward direction, bringing a large amount of water into the ship. The second Harpoon hit the ship’s bridge, killing the captain and all in its command center.
The 3,400-ton destroyer did not sink right away. It didn’t break up quickly enough for that. It would be three long hours before it sank into the depths of the Pacific. Instead, it sat, dead in the water, a spreading pool of oil and diesel fuel marking what would become its watery grave.
Aboard Cheyenne, the captain and crew knew only that they should have hit their targets, but they had no way of determining how well the missiles had done their job. As soon as the Harpoons were launched, Cheyenne descended to 375 feet and immediately departed the area. If there were any other enemy vessels nearby, they would undoubtedly be looking for her at this very moment. Mack waited for nearly an hour before he secured from battle stations.
Cheyenne had done her job extremely well, Captain Mackey thought. Mack’s grandfather had served in the “Silent Service” of World War II, and Mack thought the old man would be very proud of their accomplishments, if only he were still alive.
Cheyenne was the newest operational attack submarine in the entire U.S. submarine force. She had been on active duty for only a short while. But already she had been directly responsible for two kills of enemy submarines and one kill of an enemy destroyer. Mack didn’t know it, but Cheyenne was well on her way to becoming one of the most decorated submarines of the entire Pacific Fleet.
Life aboard a submarine was often a lonely existence in which sailors had little personal space and almost zero privacy. The newest sailors were often required to “hot bunk”—sharing bunks on a rotating sleep schedule. As soon as one sailor rolled out of bed, another crewman would take his place in the same bunk. The uncomfortable feeling of climbing into an already warm bed gave rise to the term “hot bunking.”
After their most recent encounter, however, life aboard Cheyenne was anything but lonely. Every sonar contact seemed to signal an enemy, every noise from their reactor or propulsion plant threatened to expose them to the Chinese, and every incoming communication held the promise of action. Running at twenty-six knots in the same “sprint and drift” mode they had employed in their transit to Pearl, Mack wanted to reach Independence as quickly as was practically possible.
As time passed, however, with no further encounters, the tension levels on board gradually returned to normal, and before the crew realized it they were approaching the Celebes Sea. Once through this, they would have only the Sulu Sea between them and their rendezvous in the South China Sea.