“Radar contact!” another destroyer, and not far away. From the speed with which the range diminishes, it is obvious that he is heading directly for Harder!
Battle stations submerged! A few hurried minutes of tracking. No doubt about it: this fellow is a comer! Perhaps he has seen the submarine — although that seems hardly possible, or maybe he has radar information-we’ve suspected the Japs of this for some time. Or maybe he’s merely running down the most probable bearing of the submarine, based on previous information. Whatever the cause, he certainly deserves 100 per cent for effort so far, and Harder had better get out of the way.
“Take her down! Dive! Dive!” There may still be a chance to go after the convoy, but this new fellow requires attention first. Again the approach. Not so easy as the last time. This bird is wary, and zigzagging. He’s alert, no question of it, and no doubt is fully aware of what happened to his buddy. On he comes, weaving first one way, then the other. It is now fairly dark. Broken clouds obscure the moon and deprive. Sam Dealey of the light he sorely needs to make accurate observations. The destroyer is a dim blur in the periscope. Ranges are inaccurate and estimations of enemy course difficult to make. Finally, with the best information he can set into the TDC, Sam gives the order to fire. Six torpedoes flash out toward the oncoming destroyer.
Sound listens intently for the sound of the proper functioning of the deadly fish. A white-faced operator turns to the skipper. “Can’t hear the first two!” he gasps. “Last four seem to be running O.K.!” Two sinkers! Damn those undependable torpedoes! But four out of six are still all right. They should do the trick, barring extraordinary luck and skill on the part of the Jap.
We’ve simply got to see what he’s doing. Up with the periscope again. Time stands still for the members of the fire control party — as it does, indeed, for every man aboard. You have no way of knowing what is going on except through the eyes of the Captain. From his attitude and his actions, plus what few words of description he might remember to say, you make up your own picture of the topside.
This time they do not have long to wait. Dealey’s figure stiffens. “He’s seen them! He’s turning this way! Take her down!” As the submarine noses over in obedience to the command, Sam gets a last sight of the enemy ship twisting radically as he avoids the torpedoes. Almost inaudibly he mutters, “Good work, you son of a bitch!”
And that is as far as Sam Dealey’s accolade of the enemy’s maneuvers goes, for he has much to do and a very short time in which to do it. Harder is immediately rigged for depth charges and for “silent running.”
The sound man has suddenly become the most important man in the ship. All hands hang upon his words, as he deliberately turns his sound head control wheel. “Target is starting a run!” You might have thought the sound operator was reporting a drill instead of a life-and-death battle. “Target,” indeed!
“He’s shifted to short scale.” The enemy destroyer has speeded up his pinging, shortened the interval between pings as the range closes. All hands unconsciously brace themselves, awaiting the first shock of the depth charges. It doesn’t take long.
Harder is just reaching deep depth as five depth charges explode in her face. This veteran ship and crew have received many depth charges in the past, but a depth charge is something you never get used to. The whole ship shudders convulsively as the explosions rain upon her, and the vibration of the hull swiftly fills the air with clouds of dust particles and bits of debris from broken light bulbs and other fragile fixtures.
In the control room a new man is on the stern planes. This is his first patrol and he is doing the best he can, straining perhaps a bit too hard in his anxiety to have everything perfect. The stern plane indicators stop moving. He instantly deduces that the electrical control for the stem planes has been damaged. Quickly he shifts into hand power, nervously tugging at the slow-moving change gear. Then, panting heavily and a little flustered, he rapidly spins the wheel — the wrong way! It takes less time to do than it does to tell about it. The power to the stern planes had not been lost — merely the indicating circuit. And as Harder reaches maximum submergence, she has full dive on her stern planes instead of full rise.
In a second everyone realizes that something is wrong. Instead of gradually decreasing its angle, the ship tilts down even more, as though going into an outside loop. The deck slants at an impossible angle and the depth gauge needle goes unheedingly past the 300-foot mark.
“All hands aft on the double!” The diving officer’s harsh command starts everyone moving, with the exception of those who are required to remain at their stations. In the meantime he quickly checks the situation, and reaching across the struggling stern planesman’s shoulders, flips a tiny switch which cuts in the emergency stern plane angle indicator — which should have been energized previously. The emergency indicator shows Full Dive. Grasping the wheel, the diving officer puts his whole body into countering the frenzied effort of the now-frightened stern planesman, wrests the wheel away from him and commences to spin it counterclockwise. He works silently with the furious speed of urgency. When he finally has the planes corrected to full rise, he turns them back over to the trembling sailor who has been the cause of the trouble.
“Watch this,” he says, pointing to the emergency angle indicator. No time now for investigation or instruction. The angle is coming off the ship. She finally levels off, far below her designed depth, and then commences to rise again. Forty-odd men huddled in the after parts of the ship create a rather large, unbalanced weight. The stern planes in hand power are slow to turn, the bow of the ship continues to rise, and the deck now tilts again in the opposite direction. The men sent aft understand what is going on and stream forward as soon as the ship commences to rise, but it is not until she is halfway back to the surface that she is finally brought under control.
In the meantime, the destroyer has reversed course and returned to the vicinity, and lets fly with another severe hammering.
You have to hand it to this destroyer. He has taken the initiative away from the submarine and has effectively protected his convoy. Sam Dealey’s only thought by this time is to get away from him. It takes a few hours to do so, but finally Harder comes to the surface several miles away from the scene of the attack. These have been an eventful four hours.
Late forenoon of the next day Harder’s crew is still resting from the strenuous previous evening. The ship is patrolling submerged, and everything appears to be calm and peaceful, when the musical “Bong! Bong! Bong!” of the general alarm shatters the quiet of the sleeping crew. The word flashes almost instantly through the ship: “Another destroyer!”
This is a fast one. There has been a slight haze on the surface and the range at sighting is 4000 yards, angle on the bow port twenty. Harder turns and heads toward the enemy, preparing all torpedo tubes as she does so. At 3000 yards the destroyer turns and heads directly toward the submarine as though he had sighted the periscope in the glassy smooth sea. He commences weaving, first to one side and then to the other, and increases speed rapidly as he roars in. No question but that he has detected the submarine. Sam will have to fire right down his throat in order to get him. If he misses — well, he’d better not. If the destroyer catches the submarine at shallow depth, things will be pretty tough.