With the last rays of the setting sun we are on the surface, all ahead full on four engines, running down the track after the vanished convoy. No engines to spare for a battery charge. Give them all to the screws. Put the auxiliaries on the battery. You can’t get anywhere by halves in this business.
The chase is tense and thrilling. We have an estimate of target course and speed, but if he’s smart he’ll change radically at dark. Our game is to dash up and regain contact quickly, before he gets very far from his original track. If we miss him, we suspect he’ll have turned to his left, but that’s just a guess, and cuts down our chances 50 per cent. Best bet is to go like hell, which we do.
It pays off, too, for this particular son of heaven didn’t even bother to change course. We pick him up dead ahead, right on his old track — and he’s stopped zigzagging. This is murder.
And so it proves. We draw up on the starboard bow of the convoy, out of sight, then stealthily creep in. Slowly the biggest tanker lumbers into our sights. Angle on the bow, starboard seventy-five. Range, 1,500 yards. Bearing, 335. Target speed checks perfectly, at 7 knots. Surely this big Nippon Maru class tanker can do better than 7 knots. The Japs have tied him down with a bunch of slow boys — too bad for him! On he comes, filling our binoculars with his huge, heavily laden bulk. Looks good — looks perfect! We plan to fire three fish at the first tanker, three at the second, then spin on our tail and shoot four at the third one. They won’t know what hit them.
Standby forward! He’s coming on. Bearing — mark! We’re keeping the sights on him now — a few more degrees. Come on — come on — Fire ONE!.. Fire TWO!.. Fire THREE!.. Check fire! Shifting targets — second ship. Bearing — mark — set — Fire FOUR!.. Fire FIVE!.. Fire SIX!..
Left full rudder! All ahead full! Standby aft!
Trigger leaps ahead, swings steadily left. She has nearly one hundred eighty degrees to swing, and it takes a long time. She is only halfway around, broadside to broadside with the leading tanker, range about one thousand yards heading in opposite directions, when suddenly, cataclysmically, the darkness of the night is thunderously shattered with light. A sheet of brilliant white flame shoots 1000 feet into the air! The leading tanker must have had a load of aviation gasoline, for he has burst into incandescence.
Momentarily blinded by the terrific fire, we recover to see the whole scene as bright as day. On the deck of the doomed tanker scores of little white-clad figures rush helplessly across his decks to the bow, where the fire has not yet reached. It must be awfully hot over there. We shift our eyes to the second tanker and see a torpedo hit with a flash of flame right amidships. A fire starts, but he steers around the brilliantly blazing pyre of his leader and continues on his course. The second ship in the far column is hit with a soundless catastrophe. He folds in the middle into a big V and starts down. Evidently he caught a torpedo which missed the first or second tanker. We had figured on that, hoped it would happen. Three ships hit, two down for sure, in the first salvo!
In the meantime, the Japs obviously can see Trigger’s black hull, too, and their ready guns begin to bark. A few shells scream overhead, but not very close. They are probably too excited to settle down, and we ignore them, intent on getting our stem tube salvo off. But the third tanker pulls a joker and sheers out of line directly toward us. By this time we are running directly away from him, and he is coming, bows on, 700 yards away. We are still increasing speed, but so is he, and he’s gaining on us with his initial advantage of speed. A gun on his forecastle opens up, and this time the shells whistle fairly close. One or two drop alongside, not too close yet, but no doubt he’ll improve.
Maybe he thinks he has the drop on us; he cannot know that we have the drop on him too. We could dive, but Trigger is stubborn. Standby aft! Continuous aim. Angle on the bow, zero. Range, 700 yards. We’re starting to hold our own now, as we pick up speed. Fire SEVEN!.. Nothing happens. Fire EIGHT!.. Nothing. We must hit him! Check everything carefully. It must be the tumultuous wash of our straining screws throwing the torpedoes off. Fire NINE!.. Still nothing. Now we are in the soup. One torpedo left aft. It has to be good. He is coming much too close with his shells now. Give him one more, then dive! Fire TEN! “Clear the bridge!” “Honk, honk!” goes the diving alarm. “Dive! Dive! Take her down!”
Down we plunge, listening for that fateful crack which tells us he’s found our pressure hull with a five-inch shell before we could get her under. We pass forty feet and breathe easier. Startlingly a voice squeaks over the welcome gurgle of water and the drumming of Trigger’s superstructure: “Where’s the Captain?”
No answer. We look about. “Did anybody see him get off the bridge when we dived?”
No answer. Fear lays an icy hand over us. Just then a stream of furious curses shocks our ears and warms our hearts. There is Dusty, inside the periscope well, supporting himself on the edges by his elbows, struggling to climb back out, cussing a blue streak. He has reason to cuss, too, for the quartermaster has his big feet firmly planted on the skipper’s hands and is calmly and nonchalantly lowering the periscope! End of tableau.
About this time, as we pass seventy-five feet, a good loud WHANG reverberates through the water. We had almost forgotten the target in this novel emergency, but get back to business quickly. “Target’s screws have stopped!” This from the sound man. “Breaking-up noises.”
“Control! Sixty feet!” The order snaps out, and feverishly we get Trigger back to periscope depth, put up the ’scope and take a look. Wonder of wonders! There floats the stern of the tanker, straight up and down! So we surface, hoping to catch one of the two remaining ships with our last few torpedoes.
We find one. We track him. As usual he doesn’t see us — or so we think, until he opens fire with both his deck guns. While we think over this development, another ship — the only other ship — opens fire behind us. Then, as shells from both parties scream overhead, we realize the truth. They are shooting at each other. We are still undetected; so we make four separate attacks on this bird up forward, use up all six of our remaining torpedoes, and get only two hits. Finally we are forced to leave him, sinking slowly by the bow.
We find the last ship, too, but we can’t hurt him. So we turn Trigger’s bow east and shove off. As we go, we pass close by our first tanker, by this time nearly consumed, his steel hulk red-hot from end to end. In the distance another fire flares up and bursts into brilliant flame. We take a look there, and find to our delight the second tanker stopped, abandoned, and ablaze from bow to stern. We verify his complete destruction, and depart at last after one of the shortest patrols on record.
Score for the night’s work: three big tankers sunk, one freighter sunk, one freighter probably sunk. Total, five out of six, and a very unhappy good evening to you, Tojo!
Less than a month after leaving Pearl Harbor, Trigger was back at Midway, with a cockscomb of five miniature Jap flags flying from her extended periscope. The usual crates of fresh fruit, leafy green vegetables — lettuce and celery especially — ice cream, letters from home, and assorted bigwigs, were on the dock awaiting us.
This business of welcoming a submarine back from war patrol had been started as a sort of morale booster, and to say that it hit the mark is putting it mildly. After having been deprived of these things for about two months we were almost as avid for fresh fruit and leafy vegetables as we were for the mail — and it was not at all uncommon to see a bearded sailor, pockets stuffed with apples and oranges, reading letter after letter in quick succession, and munching on a celery stalk at the same time.