Comment in the patrol report: “Considered this a good idea that didn’t work… continued tracking well clear to port.”
Gross orders another contact report to be sent to Pearl Harbor. He has not yet been able to talk directly to Whale by radio, though he has received word she is on her way. This is exasperating because a considerable time lag is involved in sending the message to Pearl for decoding, re-encoding, and retransmitting to Whale.
Some twenty-eight hours after the initial contact with the convoy, fourteen hours after sinking the vessel, Seawolf sights two planes approaching the convoy. Evidently these had been ordered out as air cover, and their arrival forces the submarine to dive. Five hours later she is back on the surface making full power in pursuit — and three hours after that, contact is regained. Lesson: If you drive a submarine under, keep him there.
0245 on the morning of January 16, nearly forty-eight hours after the initial contact, Seawolf is still trailing, pumping out information every few hours. Finally Gross is able to talk directly to Acey Burrows. Comment in the patrol report: “This was encouraging.”
1554, fifty-four hours after initial contact, three explosions are heard in the distance, followed a little later by a fourth.
1807: more explosions; flashes of gunfire in the convoy. Subsequently, for a period of about two hours, Seawolf hears sporadic explosions from the direction of the convoy. Some are identified as depth charges and some may be torpedoes. Much gunfire is visible through the elevated periscope but by this time it is night again, and nothing further can be seen.
Seawolf’s weary plotting parties now report that the convoy has stopped.
Carefully the Wolf’s radar checks over each enemy ship. All five are still visible, but only one appears to be underway, and he is leaving the area of action at full speed. The indications are that Whale may have hit and damaged two of the freighters, and perhaps is occupied at the moment by the two destroyers. Under these circumstances, she will never get another shot at the last ship — unless, somehow, the fleeing freighter can be induced to turn back after a suitable interval.
Despite mute signals of exhaustion which he detects in himself and his companions, the thought, in Gross, is father to the deed. Once again the terribly fatigued Wolf swings into action. The plotting parties, by now quite expert, resume their interminable chore.
About two and a half hours later: “This ought to be long enough! If Whale is going to get out from under those tin cans she’ll have pretty well accomplished it by now. Time to turn this fellow around! Battle stations — gun action!”
Gross sees the answering gleam of assent in the eyes of his men. Once again Seawolf’s tiny deck gun is manned, and the submarine ghosts in toward the fleeing enemy. The gun crew is on deck, the ammunition is standing by. The radar is giving steady ranges to the sight-setters. All is desperate readiness.
Nervelessly the low-lying sub closes her much larger antagonist. The mettle of the latter had been shown not long ago, when Seawolf had made her earlier attempt at gun action. When a surface ship has been alerted to the presence of a submarine, the greatest advantage of the undersea vessel — the factor of surprise — is taken from her. In this case, of course, there can no longer be any surprise, except perhaps at the temerity of the submarine skipper.
Googy Gross, for all his daring tactics, is not the man to pass up any possible advantage which he might be able to garner. He jockeys carefully for position, hoping to open fire from such a direction that the enemy’s stack smoke at least partially blankets the expected return fire. The moon is about to rise, however, and Gross realizes that its additional light will enable his adversary to see him and probably reply effectively, at the necessarily short range he would have to employ should he open fire now. And so the Wolf glides along, keeping parallel course with, but just out of sight of, the Nipponese freighter.
Then the moon rises, and Seawolf maneuvers to silhouette the target against the frosty light in the east.
Unlike the previous gun attack, this time the object is not necessarily to sink the vessel — though that outcome, of course, would be welcomed — but to cause him to reverse course and drive him back toward Whale. It is a gigantic bluff Gross is acting, one worthy of his well-known poker prowess. At a range of about two miles the Wolf commences rapid fire, pumping out her shells as fast as they can be loaded.
The reaction from the enemy is twofold and immediate. Apparently he has been keeping his guns manned for just this possibility, although he probably has not divined the ulterior motive behind this second gun attack. Instead of changing course, he instantly returns the fire with two heavy guns — both considerably larger than that of the submarine — plus several machine guns.
Noting that the Jap return fire is wild and erratic, Gross holds to his initial program, and keeps his crew at it. The hotly served gun on the submarine’s deck registers several hits before the Nip gun crews manage to find the range. Then, with shells whistling overhead and plunging into the water not far away, Googy is forced to sheer sharply and break off the action.
Feelings of bitter disappointment fill the skipper of the Wolf. He has exposed his ship and crew, in their badly fatigued state, for nothing gained. Yet there was little else he could do, under the circumstances-so run Captain Roy Gross’s thoughts as he hears a report from one of the lookouts:
“Target has changed course!”
And so he has; but he isn’t heading back toward Whale yet. Rather, it develops, he is steaming in large circles, apparently puzzled as to which direction to choose. Gross stations his ship to southeastward of him, vowing to have another go at him if he needs it.
But he doesn’t. With the Wolf dogging his heels at the more respectable range of about four miles, he heads back in the direction he came from, zigzagging radically, but heading northwest for sure. Her purpose accomplished, Seawolf follows along, sending periodic contact reports to Whale. Every time the Jap edges a little too far one way or the other, accidental “sighting” of a submarine shadowing him in that quarter sends him back in line again.
Proof that Acey Burrows is back on the surface—Whale replies to the first report instantly. Position, course, and speed of the enemy are radioed to her, in each case answered with the cryptic “R.” According to plot she and the remainder of the convoy are approximately fifty miles to the northwest. As Gross sends Burrows the necessary information as to enemy movements, Burrows will try to position himself for interception.
Every time the Japanese skipper zigs or zags, a new message crackles through the ether:
FROM SEAWOLF TO WHALE BT ZIG X NEW COURSE 350 SPEED SAME K
It is almost as if a sheep were being herded to slaughter — and indeed he is. You can imagine the Jap skipper’s state of mind at this point. Everywhere he has turned he has run into a submarine. He must think there are dozens of them in the area, never dreaming that eleven of the twelve submarines are one and the same — the Seawolf—and without torpedoes.
0524 on the morning of January 17, 1944, three torpedo explosions, followed by the reverberations of gunfire from the Jap. Possibly one fish hit in him.