A quick setup. Range and bearing by radar, bearing checked by TBT. Angle on the bow estimated from the bridge, checked by plot, verified by TDC. In a matter of seconds comes the welcome word from the conning tower:
“Set below, Captain!”
“Standby forward!” Another quick bearing from the Target Bearing Transmitter… another quick radar setup.…
“Set!”
“Fire!” Seawolf’s last three torpedoes race out into the night, trailing their streams of bubbles. They diverge slightly as their fan-shaped spread reaches out for the left freighter in the starboard column.
Suddenly the forward part of the target bursts into incandescence! A brilliant flame flashes into the sky with straight, streaked fury, razor-edged disaster roaring into the heavens.
Seconds later the after part of the ship also bursts into holocaust. In the brilliant flame which lights up the stricken vessel the fascinated watchers on Seawolf’s bridge see a mast topple to one side, the single stack to the other, and then all is blotted out in a screaming, searing flame which guts the entire ship in a single white-hot second.
The noise of the explosion reaches Seawolf, drowned in the insanely triumphant uproar of the forces she has released. At the limiting peak of the inferno a black boiling cloud of smoke billows hundreds of feet into the sky.
On the surface of the sea it might well be day. The perpetrator of the outrage and the white faces on her bridge are brilliantly silhouetted in the funeral flames of her victim.
The skipper recovers first. “Right full rudder! All ahead flank!” He shouts the orders down the open hatch at his feet.
A stream of troubled white water flows aft from Seawolf’s stern, angling sharply off to starboard under the impetus of the suddenly accelerated propellers and the full rudder. The yammering of the diesels comfortingly reaches the ears of the bridge personnel, and careening to port, the white water glaring and foaming between the wooden deck slats, the Wolf dashes away.
Ten depth charges are heard a few minutes later — a good sign — and the submarine checks her headlong rush some five miles away. The thing on Gross’s mind now is the remainder of the convoy.
COMSUBPAC FROM SEA WOLF X URGENT X OPERATIONAL X CONTACT X CONVOY X THREE FREIGHTERS TWO DESTROYERS BASE COURSE ONE-FIVE-ZERO SPEED NINE POSIT BAKER FIVE FOUR YOKE TWO THREE X ALL TORPEDOES EXPENDED X TRAILING BT K
Captain Joe Grenfell, lately of the submarines Gudgeon and Tunny, now serving on the staff of ComSubPac, receives the decoded message. Day after day the officers on the staff of ComSubPac stand their watches hoping for just such a break. They have been bound to their desks by official orders and cannot get out in the boats, yet their hearts are out on the sea as they watch their friends coming and going. Here is one of the few chances a “staffie” gets to toss a couple of personal licks at the enemy. Grenfell does not neglect the opportunity.
Scanning the message, he rises from his desk where he has been working on next month’s submarine dispositions and strides swiftly to the side of the room where a heavy curtain conceals the entire wall.
A two-handed pull on a pair of cords alongside, and the curtain slides back, revealing a huge chart of the Pacific. Studded here and there, concentrated chiefly about the home islands of Japan, are numerous tiny submarine silhouettes, each bearing a name. This is the Top Secret disposition chart.
With a long plastic ruler and an equally long pair of dividers, Grenfell carefully picks off a spot on the chart; draws a light circle about it with an arrow pointing southeast. He studies the area carefully, noting the locations of the submarines in the vicinity. A three-ship convoy is a valuable prize, but not one to justify calling away all submarines in the general area. It is necessary to select one or two who can best reach the target from their present positions, considering the possible objective of the enemy.
Several hundred miles to the southwest of the convoy’s plotted position is a single marker bearing the name Whale. To Grenfell’s practiced eye there is little doubt that this is the ship which must fall heir to the job.
Again the ruler, measuring. Again the dividers, stepping off distances carefully. A few scribbled figures on a pad of paper. He checks the situation, goes over the distances and the computation a second time. More than one impossible mission has been generated right here. Satisfied, he lays aside the instruments, tears the piece of paper off the pad, draws the curtain back across the chart, and returns to his desk.
FOR WHALE FROM COMSUBPAC X CONVOY THREE SHIPS TWO ESCORTS SPEED NINE X POSIT BAKER FIFTY FOUR YOKE TWENTY THREE AT TWENTY HUNDRED ITEM X COURSE ONE FIVE ZERO X SEAWOLF TRAILING REPORTING X DEPART PRESENT STATION INTERCEPT X ACKNOWLEDGE X BT K
Off the coast of China, Fred Janney, Executive Officer of the USS Whale, decodes the message and immediately calls the skipper. The two pore over the charts of the area.
After several minutes Commander A. C. (Acey) Burrows lays down his pencil.
“Looks as if we can catch them on three engines, Fred.”
“Yessir, Captain,” replies Janney, “except that if we take a more northerly course on four engines we might intercept them earlier and be able to make a night attack. Besides, that would give us nearly twenty-four hours longer to work on them.”
“Guess you’re right. Let’s bend on four engines and try it.”
Whale, until now patrolling leisurely in the traffic lanes south of Formosa, veers away from her accustomed circuit and speeds to the northeast.
In the meantime, Seawolf has been keeping contact astern of the convoy. It is now night, and over a period of several hours she has sent two more contact reports. The trouble with this kind of business is that you never know whether you are getting anywhere. It is up to someone else to perform; all you can do is wait. After the exciting action of the past few days the monotony becomes deadly and is felt throughout the whole ship. Finally the quartermaster of the watch turns to the Captain.
“Captain, sir, that ship, the one we blew up a while ago — maybe one of these has got a load of avgas too. Do you think maybe our gun might set it off if we tried it, sir?”
Gross stares unblinkingly at his interlocutor.
“You might have something there, Kuehn,” he says. “We ought to wait till it’s a little darker, though, before we try it.”
After a few more minutes’ discussion, in which several other officers and enlisted men express their views, the general alarm rings again, and the announcing system blares forth.
“Battle stations! All hands man your battle stations for gun action!”
Seawolf’s three-inch gun is manned, trained out on the starboard beam, and she commences to ease in on the nearest enemy ship. Silently she creeps toward the foe, ammunition and crew at the ready, nerveless fingers twitching the firing keys, eyes straining to pierce the gloom. At a range of approximately two miles, with the water sibilant along the thin side plating of the submarine hull, Gross hoarsely calls out:
“Commence firing!”
Six shots answer him from Seawolf’s deck gun and six tracer streams mark the paths of the shells on their way toward the enemy. Possibly one or two hits are achieved, but there is precious little time to verify them, for all five enemy ships instantly reply with a veritable barrage of shellfire.