This, rather obviously, is a pretty risky way to operate. Four torpedoes already have been fired, and there are only two more ready forward. All four after tubes are ready, of course, but there is no time to turn the submarine around. So Morton is shooting the works with only two fish, and one of them had better hit!
Grimly, O’Kane hangs on to the periscope, watching the Jap ship complete his evasive maneuver — turning away and paralleling the last torpedo, and then, after it has safely passed, turning around once more and heading for the source of the sudden attack. Smoke belches from his stacks as his firerooms are called upon for full power. Around he comes, a full 180 degrees, until all that O’Kane can see is the destroyer’s sharp, evil-looking bow, curiously now rather fat in appearance. Men are racing around the decks, and at least a hundred of them take stations in various spots of the topside, on top of turrets and gun shields, in the rigging, and along the rails on both sides of the bow.
Sweat pours off the face of the Executive Officer as he stares at what looks like certain destruction. But he does not forget his primary mission. “I’m keeping right on his bowl” he growls. “Angle on the bow is zero! You can get a bearing any time!” Occasionally he twirls the periscope range knob, and a new range is fed into the TDC. All is silent — except for the muttered bearings and ranges of the quartermaster, and the Captain’s terse commands, and the hoarse breathing of the ten men in the conning tower, and the creak of the hull and the murmur of water slowly passing through the superstructure. O’Kane becomes conscious of a drumming sound and realizes that it is only the racing beat of his own heart.
“One five double oh yards”—from the quartermaster. Paine looks inquiringly at his skipper. Surely he must fire now!
Morton’s jaw muscles bulge, and his face assumes even more vividly that prize-fighter expression which was to become well known — and even feared — by his crew. But his mouth remains clamped shut.
The dials of the TDC whirl around: 1,400 yards’ range! — 1,350 yards! — 1,300!—1,250!
As the range reaches 1,200 yards, the Captain’s lips part at last, and a roar bursts from him, as if pent up within him until there is no containing it.
“FIRE!”
Wahoo’s fifth torpedo starts its trip toward the rapidly approaching enemy. The men in their cylindrical steel prison feel a tightening of the suspense; the tension under which they are all laboring rises to a nearly unbearable pitch. But O’Kane is still giving bearings, and the TDC dials are still racing. Torpedo run for that fifth fish should be about thirty-two seconds. Morton waits a full ten seconds.
“FIRE!”
The sixth and last torpedo leaves its tube.
Dick O’Kane continues to watch at the periscope. A curious feeling of relief, of actual detachment from the whole situation, wells up within him. He now has the role of spectator, and there is nothing he or anyone else can do to change the outcome of events. He makes a mental reservation to pull the ’scope down if the torpedoes miss, so that the destroyer will not break it off passing overhead.
Two white streaks almost merged into one in the murky water, swiftly draw themselves toward the onrushing Jap. Twenty seconds since the first one was fired. Dick notices much activity on the bridge of the destroyer. He starts to heel to port, as his rudder is evidently put hard a-starboard. The first white streak is almost there now — is there, and goes on beyond, evidently a miss by a hairbreadth. But the second white chalkline is a little to the left of the first — it is almost there now — it is there. My God, we’ve missed! What? — WHAM! A geyser of dirty water rises right in the middle of the destroyer, breaks him exactly in half, holds him suspended there like a huge inverted V, his bow slanted down to the right. The white-clad figures crowded all over his top-sides are tumbling ridiculously into the water, arms and legs helplessly flailing the air. A cloud of mingled smoke and steam billows out of the broken portion of the stricken hull, rises hundreds of feet into the air, a continuation of the original geyser. Then, swiftly, the halves separate, and each slides drunkenly beneath the once-smooth surface of Wewak Harbor, now roiled up by the force of the explosion and the splashes from hundreds of particles of metal and other pieces of gear from the doomed vessel.
Within Wahoo’s thick steel hull the force of the explosion is terrific, something like a very close depth charge, as heavy a blow as if the destroyer had actually succeeded in completing his run upon her. Some of the crew, in fact, do believe they have received the first of a series of such depth charges. But in the conning tower there is wild exultation. Always kept ready for an opportunity such as this, the cam era is broken out, and several pictures are made of the bow of the enemy vessel which, for a moment, remains to be photographed.
Then, and not until then, Wahoo goes to deep submergence — obviously not very deep in an anchorage — and starts for the entrance of the harbor more than nine miles away. The trip out is punctuated by numerous shell splashes on the surface of the water, sporadic bombing, and the patter of several distant machine guns. No doubt the Japs in the shore batteries would like to cause the undersea raider to lie “doggo” on the bottom until some anti-submarine forces, perhaps the two patrol ships sighted in the early morning, can get to the area. But Wahoo doesn’t scare worth a damn, and late that evening she surfaces well clear of the harbor.
When asked later how he had managed to keep his nerve in the face of the attacking destroyer, Morton is reputed to have answered: “Why do you think I made O’Kane look at him? He’s the bravest man I know!”
So it was that Wahoo gave the submarine force her first lesson on one way to dispose of enemy destroyers. Needless to say, that method was seldom sought deliberately, even by the more successful sub skippers, but it is worthy of note that Sam Dealey in Harder, Roy Benson in Trigger, and Gene Fluckey in Barb at one time or another attempted similar shots.
Three days after Wewak, Wahoo’s lookouts sighted smoke on the horizon. This was to be a red-letter day.
The minute smoke is sighted, or radar contact made at night, it is necessary to determine the approximate direction of movement of the contact. Otherwise, the submarine might track in the wrong direction, lose contact, and never regain it. So Wahoo’s bow is swung toward the smoke, and several successive bearings are taken. This takes time, for it is not easy to determine the direction of motion of a wind-blown cloud of smoke when the ship making it is not visible. You don’t want it to be visible, either, for that might enable an alert lookout to sight you.
The smoke resolves itself into two freighters on a steady course, no zigzag — which makes the problem easier. Shortly before 0900 Wahoo dives with the two vessels “coming over the hill,” masts in line. Then she lies in ambush, her crew at battle stations, torpedoes ready except for the final operations, always delayed until the last possible moment before firing.
Wahoo’s plan is to lie a little off the track of the two ships, and fire at both almost at once in a single attack, so that torpedoes fired at the second ship will have nearly arrived before hits in the leading ship might give the second sufficient warning to maneuver to avoid. As the targets finally show up, however, Morton realizes that he is too close to the track to carry out his original intention of firing three of his six bow tubes at each ship. You must allow enough range for your fish to arm and reach running depth. So Mush regretfully reverses course, and now plans to shoot stern tubes. Since there are only four tubes aft, he will have to be content with two fish per ship, and consequently less certain of sinking them.