We were on the double alert all night. When you sink a ship and then return to the same area, you’re inviting trouble. The Skipper decided to patrol outside the harbor for a period of watchful waiting. We were on the alert, too, for mine fields. We saw hostile aircraft and ignored them. After surfacing that night the Captain decided to go into the Gulf again. We sneaked into the Gulf before diving, and at this point we were less than twenty miles from a beehive of Jap activity. We pushed on silently, nearer and nearer to the Jap center. We upped a cautious periscope.
“I can see a church steeple, some houses,” the Skipper reported. “Looks like a lot of shipping in there. I see several masts… Can’t go in there, boys, that’s mined. Let’s take a look over here…. Hmmmm, could be at that… What a wonderful camouflage job… Left full rudder, Rudy… I think there’s a ship over there, but I’m not sure. If it is, it’s a big one. Battle stations! Sure that’s a ship… She’s a beauty… Motor ship, with a cruiser stern… Heavy guns aft… looks brand new to me… What a camouflage job!… I can see them loading her, probably hemp. This ship is tied up to a wharf or anchored right off one. She’s a beauty. This should be an easy attack if we can avoid detection. Down periscope.”
Silence. Then: “What course are we steering, Jim? Where are we? Let me have a look here. This is a ticklish spot to get out of in case they send somebody out here looking for us, as I expect them to… So that’s where we are… Well, I want to work up to this point and take a zero angle shot. How about the tides and the current drift?”
Captain Warder was thorough as usual. We worked our way slowly in. The water was shallow, but the possibility of mines kept us even more tense. This place surely must have a mine field.
I could almost sense Maley’s thoughts. Again, up periscope.
“Just as I thought,” observed the Skipper. “Down periscope. Make ready the bow tubes. Sound, I won’t need you on this attack, but I want you to track these fish. I want to know especially if any of them run erratic… Bow tubes ready? O.K., open the outer doors. Rudy, this is going to be ticklish, and I’m going to have to coach you on. Up periscope. We will fire this time if everything is the same up here.”
The periscope hit its upper level, and the Captain was on it like a leech.
“Okay, they haven’t seen us. They’re loading hemp, all right. Boy, she’s a beauty! Henry, I’m going to fire. Are you ready?… Rudy, come left more, come left a hair, steady, hold her steady… Fire!… Eckberg, are they running?”
“They’re running, Captain—hot and straight.”
“Yes, I see ’em now, number two is going to miss, number three is going to hit.”
Boom! I heard her go. What an explosion!
The whole ship seethed with excitement.
Captain Warder watched intently. “She’s listing heavily to port. Seems to be settling heavily. The guns are manned and firing wildly—in all directions. They don’t know what hit them. We must have caught them flat-footed… Now, what is this?… Boy, what damage control they must have! They have righted the ship and taken off the list… Oh, no, my friends!… Not that easy!… Make ready the aftertubes… Rudy, swing her around!”
The Wolf swung completely around, attacked again—from the stern. More of our torpedoes crashed into her. Captain Warder waited impatiently until the smoke cleared away.
“We blew their aft guns to bits. The forward gun is manned, but the crew is standing there. They’re probably dazed. Wait, there’s a fire breaking out in the bow. They’re abandoning ship… There she goes settling in the water. Wait a minute! What have we here? Here come some Zeros! They’re peppering my periscope.”
We heard the rat-tat-tat of the machine guns. But Captain Warder was determined to see this large Jap vessel sink, Zeros or no Zeros.
“Dammit,” he exploded, “that ship must be honeycombed with watertight compartments. It won’t do any good to put any more fish into her now, unless I can place it… Hmmmm. Damn those planes! Damn them! Well, I’m going to throw one more at her and see what happens. Up periscope. Rudy, come right, now. Steady. Are you ready, Hank? Okay—Fire!” Pause. “Well, there she goes, boys. She’s going up in smoke. Fires are breaking out all over her. I believe she’s sitting on the bottom in very shallow water. Come on, I’m satisfied. Take a couple of snaps, Jim, and then let’s get the hell out of here.”
I heard the sound of many screws. The anti-sub boats were still hunting for us. I gave the Captain their bearings.
“We’ll have to get out of here,” he said.
The Japs were coming closer, throwing depth charges right and left. They were missing completely. The Wolf headed out for the mouth of the Gulf. We had to get out of here fast. We knew the Japs would immediately take protective measures. It would be suicide to stay.
It was now late afternoon. We raced under a flat sea, with a bright sun in the sky. It was risky periscope weather. Seventy miles should take us—Just then the Captain’s voice broke in. “Oh, here’s another one. Looks like—yes, it is a big Maru… We’ll take her. Sound, this will have to be your approach.”
I heard the freighter zigzagging, seeking frantically to escape. She knew we were stalking her. This Maru was doing about 120 degrees zigs. I told the Captain, and he called back:
“Eckberg, I’m getting ready to fire. She should be on the port bow now. Got her?”
The Captain upped the periscope and took a look. He said, “Oh, Christ! Down periscope! Take ’er deep!”
We went down fast. I heard the screws of this Maru coming at us. Then she was over us. It was like standing under a trestle while a freight train rumbled overhead. She was still zigzagging and had no idea where we were.
The Captain again put the Seawolf on the course to the Gulf’s mouth. He left the conning tower and went to his room. For the next four hours I listened intently for the freighter, but she was gone. The Wolf was moving south at a rapid pace. My eyes were tired. I took off the earphones. Maley was absent-mindedly doodling on a scratch pad.
“I’m going to hit the sack,” I told him.
He nodded. “O.K., Eck.”
Lamberson was asleep in his bunk next to mine. He woke up as I got in. “Where the hell are we, Eck?” he asked drowsily.
“On the way out of this damn gulf,” I told him.
He yawned loudly and turned on his other side. “I don’t want to be on the next sub that pokes her nose into this gulf,” he said. Then, after a minute, he sat up restlessly and began rubbing his eyes. “Guess I’ll play a little solitaire.”
He climbed down, got a deck of cards, and sat on an overturned water bucket. He used a chair for a table.
“Hope we go east, Eck,” he said. “That means home, and will I be glad to see it!”
I had closed my eyes, trying to force myself to sleep. My nerves were still tingling from the long stretch I had just completed.
I fell into uneasy sleep. It seemed as if I had closed my eyes for only a few minutes when the alarm went. When I hit the deck seven feet below my bunk, it jarred me awake. I raced up the three steps through the watertight hatch to the officers’ quarters, squirmed down the narrow passageway. It was like a subway rush. Crew members were pushing each other along. I had to buck this human tide. Finally I reached the after end of the forward battery, then the control room. There wasn’t any talking. Each man had a job to do and we didn’t waste time in talking. I took over sound.
The Captain’s voice broke the silence. “This ship has something on the forward deck that I can’t make out. He apparently doesn’t see us, he’s not zigging at all. This will be a big day if we can get him. Sound, can we pick him up yet?”