In the meantime a quieter campaign was also going on. Besides the possibility of minor errors in functioning of the fish there was undeniable evidence of something inherently wrong with their design. The submarine high command ordered a searching investigation into the minutest details of torpedo design, construction, and performance.
But it all took time. As might have been expected, the most immediate progress was made by the men of the force themselves. They became perfectionists — especially the skippers — and gradually the causes of our early troubles came to light.
On November 3, 1942, Seawolf has penetrated far into Davao Gulf, in Mindanao, in her search for enemy shipping. Warder and company have reasoned that their torpedoes are passing under the targets without exploding, and have resolved to prove it. Their first requirement is to find a ship which will present no fire control problem whatsoever, thus disposing of that possible cause of failure. Their second requirement is for the torpedo — if it misses — to explode after passing beyond the target. The location of the explosion should furnish conclusive proof of its path. Taken together, these requirements spell out an anchored or moored ship in a harbor, where torpedoes fired from seaward will go off upon hitting the shore after passing the target. For a clincher, Warder has taken two types of torpedoes on this patrol — the Mark XIV, recently put in service, and the obsolete Mark X. Maybe, he thinks, a little comparative performance data might be useful.
The blame for failure in this attack, if failure there is to be, will rest squarely where it belongs — where Warder has for months known it belongs — on the torpedo itself. Seawolf will fire each fish carefully and deliberately, and will record the performance of each. Rather a heroic test, this, and one which should have been performed by the Naval Torpedo Station in the calm and peaceful waters of Narragansett Bay years ago!
At last Warder and his Seawolves sight what they seek: Sagami Maru, an 8,000-ton transport lying at anchor in Talomo Bay, a small harbor. Warder surveys the harbor, the anchorage, indication of current; he pores over the chart of the area and carefully selects and memorizes the “getaway” course. He has the torpedoes given one final check, then he quietly calls his crew to battle stations.
With Fred Warder at the periscope and Bill Deragon, Executive Officer, backing him up, Seawolf creeps into position, running silent. Every bit of machinery not essential to firing torpedoes is secured.
Closer and closer creeps the submarine, her periscope popping out of the water at irregular intervals, never for very long. Finally, Seawolf is in position. Range, 1,400 yards. Target speed, of course, is zero. Target course, not applicable. Current, zero, indicated by Sagami Maru’s anchor chain which is hanging straight up and down.
Ever an enthusiastic and ingenious fellow, young Reserve Lieutenant Jim Mercer has rigged up a new gimmick to try out: a system of taking pictures through the periscope. If Seawolf can get a series of half-decent photographs there will be indisputable evidence to back up the arguments about torpedoes!
“Up periscope!” Fred Warder snaps. “Bearing — mark! Range — mark! Down periscope!” The data are fed into the old-fashioned Torpedo Data Computer, located in the control room.
“Angle on the bow, one one oh starboard! — Control, what is the generated gyro angle?”
Don Syverson, torpedo officer, checks his TDC carefully before replying. “Gyro angle one degree left, Captain!”
“What do you head, helmsman?” Warder’s next question is directed to the man at the wheel.
“Mark! Three oh six, sir!”
“Come left one degree to three oh five, and steady!” Skipper Warder is determined to eliminate all possible points of error or argument. He will fire his torpedoes with zero gyro angles, at the optimum range. The “straight bow shot”—the simplest one in the book.
“Steady on three oh five, sir!” The helmsman’s report coincides with one from Don Syverson that the gyros now indicate zero.
Sweat standing out beneath his short stubble of beard, Warder turns to Bill Deragon. “Take a look — fast!”
As Deragon squats before the rising periscope, Warder busies himself with last-minute preparations for firing. “Make ready bow tubes!” he orders. Theoretically the torpedo tube outer doors should have been opened and the tubes flooded long ago, but experience has shown that the longer a torpedo is in a flooded tube the less chance it will run properly.
“Set depth eighteen feet!” With the target’s estimated draft of about twenty feet, and with allowance for the torpedo to run only slightly deeper than set, this fish should pass right beneath the dazzle-painted Sagami Maru and explode magnetically under her keel.
“Bow tubes ready, depth set eighteen feet!” A young sailor standing in the forward part of the conning tower swiftly relays the telephoned report from the forward torpedo room.
Fred Warder takes over the periscope. “Standby forward!.. Standby ONE!.. Up periscope.… Final observation and shoot!”
The periscope comes up. “Bearing — MARK! Range — MARK! Standby!”
“FIRE ONE!”
With a hiss of air and the sudden whine of rapidly starting gears, the torpedo in number one tube is on its way. The whole ship recoils as the ton and a half is suddenly expelled. Immediately comes a confused burble of water back-flooding the tube and rushing in through the poppet valve, as the air bubble which would otherwise come to the surface is swallowed within the ship.
Grimly determined, despite previous training and doctrine, to see the whole show, Warder now keeps the periscope up. An ever-lengthening path of fine bubbles streaks unerringly for the dappled side of the target. A mist of oil smoke rises from the water where the torpedo has passed, indicative of excessive oil — a minor matter, but annoying, for it will certainly attract the enemy’s attention.
Straight as a die speeds the torpedo. The corners of Fred Warder’s mouth curl almost imperceptibly. “If that fish works the way it’s supposed to,” growls the skipper, “this ship is a goner. It should break him right in half!”
All eyes are on Bill Deragon, who holds the stop watch. The seconds tick away with excruciating slowness.…
Suddenly the captain lets out a yelp. “Camera! I nearly forgot! Standby for a picture!”
Bill snatches the camera off a locker top and hands it to his skipper.
Warder keeps his eyes at the ’scope eyepiece. “How much time, Bill?”
“Forty-seven seconds, Captain!”
“Damn! Should be hitting right now!” The fervent comment echoes the thoughts of everyone in the conning tower.
Suddenly Warder whips the camera toward the periscope eyepiece, feverishly fits it into place. Almost simultaneously the roar of a torpedo explosion fills the conning tower, and a moment later the sound of hoarse cheering wells up from the control room. “We’ve hit him! A hit with the first shot!”
The skipper furiously quells the incipient jubilation. “Pipe down! That was not a hit! Fish passed under point of aim and exploded on the beach!”
Dead silence.
The skipper’s voice cuts through the gloom. “That torpedo was a Mark XIV. Deragon, see that the depth we set on that fish is logged and witnessed, and that the serial number and type are noted. This time we’ve got proof of what happened. This picture will show the torpedo track to the target and the explosion beyond it.”