They know that the competition in the far western Pacific is mighty tough, so they drill steadily, on every maneuver of which the ship is capable, except the actual firing of torpedoes. Archerfish cannot fire torpedoes, because she is transporting a full load of “war shots.” One of the most convenient ways of getting torpedoes to Pearl Harbor was to send them by submarine.
Finally land is sighted. A PC boat signals through the early dawn to Archerfish, “We are your escort,” and swings about to lead the submarine to Pearl Harbor. This is the last stop. Below decks all hands are feverishly cleaning up the ship and themselves. They intend to make a good entrance into Pearl; they are proud of their ship, and will not willingly allow her to suffer by comparison with any other in looks or efficiency.
Finally Archerfish gently noses into a dock at the submarine base, Pearl Harbor, where a small group of officers and enlisted men await her. Admiral Lockwood, the Commander Submarines, Pacific Fleet (also known as “Uncle Charlie”), is on hand to greet this newest addition to his forces. With him is an array of talent: the squadron commander, the division commander, the officer in charge of the repair department, the submarine supply officer, a submarine medical officer, an electronics officer, and a commissary officer.
The enlisted men are evidently a working party. As Archerfish approaches the dock, they scamper to catch the weighted heaving lines thrown by members of her crew. Pulling in swiftly on the “heevies,” they haul heavy hawsers from the deck of the submarine to the dock. Others stand by with a narrow gangway and, when the submarine finally comes to rest alongside the dock, bridge the gap between dock and ship with it.
The moment the gangway has been placed, Admiral Lockwood, followed by his train of experts, walks aboard to greet the skipper, who by this time has jumped down from his station on the bridge. Asking if there are any outstanding emergency repairs or other troubles, Uncle Charlie chats for a few moments. Like a man who has just had a new automobile delivered to him, he is interested in all the new wrinkles and gadgets on board. Then, bidding the skipper good-by until lunch, to which he has been invited at Uncle Charlie’s mess, the Admiral leaves the ship.
This is the opportunity the rest of his staff have been waiting for. Each one of them searches out his opposite number on board and makes arrangements for necessary repairs. In addition, there are several last-minute alterations which must be accomplished before the ship can depart. The workmen — all Navy men — who are to perform these operations are to a large extent already en route to the dock with their tools and equipment. By this method of making alterations virtually on the fighting front, so to speak, our submarines always went into battle with the very latest and finest equipment.
Meanwhile, the enlisted men who had come on the dock with the Admiral, and who had handled lines for the ship, have not been idle. Three or four bulging mail sacks, a crate of oranges, a box of nice red apples, and a five-gallon can of ice cream were brought down with them on a handcart. These they now passed over the gangway to the eagerly awaiting crew of Archerfish.
On December 23, 1943, while Shinano was still building, Archerfish departed Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol. Too bad she could not have stayed for Christmas, but orders must be obeyed, and operations seldom take notice of such things. Besides, her crew had been brought up to the fever pitch of enthusiasm. Christmas or no, she was eager to be on her way.
On January 8, 1944, Archerfish entered her assigned area, near Formosa. If any of her crew expected even this final lap of her 13,000-mile voyage to war to be a rest cure, they must have been disappointed, for every day of this two-week period was utilized for drill. Practice makes perfect.
To some extent a submarine is a weapon of opportunity. You cannot attack ships which do not arrive. If the seas are too rough, you have the devil’s own time keeping an efficient periscope watch, for if you run too close to the surface in order to increase your effective periscope height and see over the wave tops, you stand grave danger of “broaching”; that is, surfacing involuntarily as a result of wave action.
On her first patrol Archerfish and her disgusted crew fought heavy weather for two solid weeks, but finally she reported radar contact with four large and five smaller ships heading in the general direction of Formosa. The leading ship was attacked and sunk and Archerfish’s patrol report stated, “We had celebrated the first anniversary of our keel laying in right smart fashion.”
Months passed, and she was a veteran. The vast Pacific was her playground and her no man’s land. Then, as Joe Enright, her skipper, recorded in the fifth war patrol report of Archerfish, on November 28, 1944, she was patrolling submerged to the south and west of the western entrance to Sagami Nada, or outer Tokyo Bay. No ships had been sighted. No contacts of any kind (except fishing boats) had been made thus far in the patrol, which had begun twenty-nine days before.
At 1718 she surfaced, the visibility having decreased to such an extent that surface patrolling was feasible and desirable. With no premonition of the events which were to give him an enviable place in our naval history, the Commanding Officer ordered the regular routine of nighttime functions. A radar watch had of course been established the instant the ship broke water. Two engines were put on battery charge and one engine on propulsion at leisurely speed. Air compressors were started, and garbage was assembled, ready to be thrown over the side in burlap sacks. The crew settled down to the routine of alert watchfulness which is a concomitant part of night surface submarine operations in enemy waters.
At 2048 Fate finally uncovered her hand and brought together the characters she had been coaching for so long. Four years for Shinano and almost two years for Archerfish—time means little to the gods. How she must have sat back in her big, soft, easy chair, and chuckled. Having brought the two major characters of her play together, now she would leave it up to them, and see what would happen.
“Radar contact!” These words never fail to bring a shiver of anticipation to the submariner. From the size of the pip, the range, and the speed which the first few hasty moments of plotting show this target to be making, there is no doubt whatever in the minds of any of the crew of Archerfish that she is really on to something big. The word passes almost instantaneously throughout the ship, “Something big and fast!”
With the ease and sureness of long practice, tracking stations are manned. On the first word of radar contact, the Officer of the Deck had turned the bow of Archerfish directly toward the contact, and had stopped. This gave the plotting party an immediate indication of the direction of target movement. As soon as this had been determined, Archerfish roared off in hot pursuit, not directly at the target, but on such a course that she might have an opportunity of getting ahead of him. The main engine still on battery charge was replaced by the auxiliary engine, and all four great nine-cylinder Diesel engines were placed on propulsion. Within minutes after the initial contact, Archerfish was pounding along at full speed, 18 knots, throwing a cloud of spray and spume from her sharp knifelike bow as she hurried across the sea.