“‘It’s very funny,’ he says. ‘Here I am on the bridge, wondering if all hands have made the hatch, when it dawns on me that I’m standing there all alone. I’m standing there like a nitwit in that searchlight. My boys are fast, but even if I am older than most of them, I’d surely have passed them getting to that hatch tonight…’” Franz chuckled.
“‘Lucky I had a clear hatch when I hit it,’ the old man says. ‘Did I feel like a hero standing up there all alone in the limelight!’”
We remained down. Hours passed. Her screws were gone.
We surfaced carefully and completed our battery charge.
Toward noon the next day Captain Warder sighted a ship well in toward the beach. “This is definitely a patrol vessel,” he announced. “About three hundred feet long. Looks like a converted yacht. She has the longest depth-charge racks I have ever seen. They extend from the break of the bridge down to the stern. Looks as if she might be loaded with oil drums. I’m going to plunk her if I can.”
Our approach continued with frequent observations. The weather was all against us. The waves were monstrous. We were constantly in fear of broaching. Suddenly Captain Warder, at the periscope, his voice surprised:
“What’s this? Down periscope! Secure battle stations. Come to course zero… zero… zero. She has a plane working with her. It came so close her pontoons splashed water on the periscope. We’ll be having company in a few minutes.”
We did. A pattern of depth bombs dropped all around us, but they didn’t come too close.
Now, of course, we knew our value here was nullified. We had been detected twice, and the Japs were on the alert.
We headed for a new location and arrived before very long.
It was the hottest area we had ever been in. Jap planes, anti-sub vessels, and corvettes patrolled incessantly, guarding their supply lines. One slip meant death, and we knew it. The next four and a half days were to be the most exhausting and nerve-wracking any of us had ever undergone. We were at battle stations continually. We grabbed sleep when we could. We ate with one ear cocked to hear the alarm. Captain Warder virtually lived in the conning tower. He scanned the sea without rest. At dawn of the third day he reported: “Masts and ships on the horizon.”
Then he added: “I’m not going to try to mark all these ships; the traffic is exceptionally heavy… their air coverage is exceptionally heavy. They have a lot of ships… going in empty and coming out full… Those babies coming out are loaded right down to the waterline. Probably bound for Tokyo. They’re really making hay while the sun shines. Let’s go to work, now. Mark… three five eight… leading ship, destroyer… three ships in line. No estimate on the range. Down periscope.” He conferred with Deragon and Mercer. He studied his charts. He upped the periscope and looked again. “I have a new type destroyer here,” he said. “Stubby mainmast; two turrets forward; lot of anti-aircraft guns; one turret aft. She’s leading three big Maru’s. They’re probably coming out here to a rendezvous point. Down periscope.”
He spoke to Mercer: “Now, Jim, what I want to do is to fire at that destroyer and at the leading Maru. We’ve got good conditions. The water is a little flat, but I think we can get in.”
He called down to me: “Eckberg, is this man using his sound gear?”
I’d heard no pinging. “No, sir,” I said.
“They probably think this place is invulnerable to submarines,” said Captain Warder.
We maneuvered into position and fired. We waited. Captain Warder’s forehead was pressed against the periscope. Just then a terrific ka-boom! hit my ears through the phones.
“There’s a Jap officer in shorts walking up and down the fo’c’stle,” came Captain Warder’s voice. “They see the wakes… He’s not walking now! He’s galloping for the bridge! There go our fish… missed her! Hell, they missed her!”
“Captain, there was an explosion,” I sang out. This was quite unnecessary because everybody in the ship heard it.
“Yes, she went off just the other side of her.” He sounded disgusted. “Water shot up higher than her stacks.” He watched. “They’re panicky,” he said. “The destroyer’s picking up speed. He’s leaning this way… Down periscope!” Then: “Take her deep.” And then: “Rig for depth charge.”
We went down and waited. I sat on my little stool, working the sound gear, earphones on my head. Maley was sitting at my left elbow, as busy as I. I could picture Sousa, walking back and forth throughout the ship, saying, “Now, boys, you all set in here? Goddammit, we missed… I wonder what was wrong?”
Dishman would be grunting as he maneuvered the bowplanes, wearing his cut-off shorts and sandals, his big hammy arms and chest glistening with sweat. At his right Gunner Bennett, intent on his bowplane wheel, glancing now and then at Holden to see if the latter wanted any change. Holden standing one arm behind his back, his legs astride, biting the nails of his right hand, his head turning from right to left as he watched the depth gauges.
Squeaky Langford sitting down in the forward torpedo room, elbow on knee, chin on hand, worried about why the torpedoes missed, expecting to be bawled out. Be jerk standing, hands on hips, head down, watching the sound shafts to see that nothing went wrong. Gus Wright, walking about in the after-battery room testing valves above his head to see they were tight. Swede Enslin, legs apart, standing at hydraulic manifold, hands on two levers, looking at his Christmas Tree, then at Holden, his head swinging from one to another. At the air manifold, Red Jenkins, holding the big spin bar in his hands, looking at the air gauges, very calm. And, his head through the after-battery hatch, peering into the control room, Doc Loaiza, rubbing his face, muttering: “Dios, Dios, Dios!”…
Lieutenant Deragon would be at the fire-control unit, absolutely absorbed in the picture created before him; he’d probably not even heard “Rig for depth charge,” because he’d missed; standing there as if to say, “What went wrong here? It looked perfectly good to me.” Captain Warder, directly behind him, leaning against the control-room ladder, deep in thought, his right elbow cradled in his left palm, his right hand fingering his beard, thinking, thinking, thinking hard!… The mess cooks washing the morning dishes, one man wiping; depth charges coming or no, dishes had to be taken care of. Sully putting on his battle telephones, wondering where his mess boys were, and if they’d closed all valves. Our observer sitting in the Captain’s stateroom, reading a magazine, very bored, depth charges or not….
But the depth charges never came.
About 10 a.m. Captain Warder said, “Well, I guess they’re not going to give us the rock and roll. Maybe we did hurt him. Maybe he can’t depth charge us. I think I’ll go up and take a look.”
As he was about to order, “Up periscope,” I picked up enemy activity.
“Captain, they’re looking for us,” I warned.
Captain Warder demanded, “What does he seem to be doing?”
I said, “He’s pinging; I can’t pick up his screws. He must be quite a ways off.”
We came up cautiously. The Skipper took a fast look. “Here’s a little launch over here; he’s just floating around; that’s probably the fellow who’s looking for us. My, he’s a little thing!”
We started up the hydraulic pump, and the Jap heard us and came toward us like a flash.
“That won’t do. Down periscope,” snapped the Skipper. “This fellow seems pretty intent on what he’s doing. He probably knows we’re around here. Let’s take it easy for a while and see if we can’t shake him.”