“This doesn’t look so good,” I said to Paul. “We’re heading for trouble, sure.”
The third day we took torpedoes aboard—not exercise torpedoes, but warheads. They went into place under my bunk.
There could be only one reason why we were getting war shots ready. That was to sink somebody. On the fifth night we pulled away from Pearl Harbor.
Now, for all practical purposes, we were on war service. The official declaration of war was still a year away, but our High Command was on the alert. We traveled with darkened ship; night lookouts were posted, four at a time, each to sweep one-fourth of the sea with powerful night glasses. We trained constantly; we were ready. The blow would come soon, no one knew when—but the Seawolf was ready.
CHAPTER II
The Wolf Strikes Back
MONDAY MORNING, December 8, 1941, the Seawolf lay in Manila Bay, anchored 600 yards from Cavite. We had been there for two weeks, waiting our turn to be overhauled. The port was as busy as a beehive with submarines. Two of them, the Sea Lion and Sea Dragon, our sister ships, were undergoing a complete yard overhaul. That meant removing all engines, tearing down the electrical systems, and then rebuilding the ship—a six- to eight-weeks job. The Dragon was almost completed, but the Lion’s engines were still lying on the dock. The Wolf was scheduled to go in for repairs on Thursday. We had quite a gathering there that day. Most of our Asiatic fleet, under Admiral Thomas C. Hart, was based in Manila Bay, its home port, and I should judge that at least thirty submarines were almost within shouting distance. Three submarine tenders—the Holland, the Otus and the Canopus—were on hand, too. They carried torpedoes, submarine spare parts, provisions, and stores. Admiral Hart himself was in Manila that day.
Jim Riley, an old shipmate of mine, and I were celebrating our reunion that weekend, and Monday morning found us in the outskirts of Manila with big heads. We needed a lot of black coffee. We climbed into a cab and made for the Plaza Café.
Around the corner of the restaurant we could pick up a bus for Cavite, twelve miles away.
We sat down at the counter. The Filipino boy looked as though he was going to bawl. “Hell, boy, what’s the matter with you?” Jim demanded. He looked around. “What in hell is the matter with everybody? They’re jumping around like a bunch of jitterbugs.”
He was right. The place seemed to be seething with excitement.
The boy looked at us, startled. “You no hear Japs bomb Pearl Harbor?”
Pearl Harbor? U.S. soil? Jim and I stared at each other.
“You crazy?” I asked, turning to the Filipino. We glanced out the Plaza’s big plate-glass window. People were hurrying by.
And suddenly we felt the tension, too. We dashed outside. A cab screeched to a stop. The driver poked his head out. “Going to the docks, sailor?” he asked.
“You hear anything about a bombing?” I demanded.
“Sure,” said the driver. “You boys better wake up. I’ve been carrying Marines back to Cavite all morning.”
“Well, hell!” I said. “Let’s get going!” We piled into the cab. When we got to the dock everyone was rushing about. My heart leaped when I saw the Wolf. I caught a ship’s boat out to her. On the way I saw the aircraft tender Langley, her helmeted gun crews manning anti-aircraft guns on her flight deck. Most of the Wolf’s crew was below when I finally got there. We were all a little punch drunk by the suddenness of it. Captain Warder, looking preoccupied, was already there. I was due topside for my watch, and I was pulling on my dungarees when Sousa walked through, his chin jutting out about an inch from where it should be.
“Come on, you guys, there’s a war on,” he growled. “Get moving!”
I climbed up the ladder fast. The air was mild, the sun shone.
War seemed impossible. Suddenly, in toward Manila, a light began blinking. It was our tender ship, the Canopus, signaling with her searchlight. She was about three miles away. I read the flashes, and with each word my blood pressure shot up.
“From… Commander Asiatic Fleet… To Asiatic Fleet… 080820… Urgent… Break… Japan… has… commenced… hostilities… Govern… yourselves… accordingly.”
There it was, officially. From Admiral Hart himself.
Frank Franz, one of the signalmen, was on the bridge answering the Canopus, but I wanted to give the message to the Skipper immediately. I ran to the conning tower and shouted down, “Below!”
“What do you want?” boomed back.
“Tell the Captain urgent message came in from the Admiral. Japan has commenced hostilities.”
The Canopus’s searchlight was blinking again. All sub captains were to come aboard at once for a conference. The Skipper hurried off. Lieutenant Deragon’s high-pitched voice ran through the boat: “Preparations for getting under way.”
I kept the watch on deck. I thought: Those yellow sons of bitches. They’re going to rate everything I can give them. Why haven’t they shown up here? Those sons of bitches, those sons of bitches… and then a surge of rage so strong I felt myself tremble:
“What are we waiting for?”
I sensed the tension below. Everything depended on the orders Captain Warder brought back. Most of the men came up on deck.
We crowded the deck waiting for him. A few minutes after 9 a.m., a launch sped out toward us. The Skipper was in it. He carried a large white official-looking envelope in his hand, and I saw him limp slightly as he climbed over the rail. His knee was still bothering him. He turned to the coxswain who had helped him over. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and went below. The officers followed him. I trailed behind. “Willie,” I heard Captain Warder say, “what I want…” And then: “We’re going to take on more fish.”
A moment later Sousa boomed the order to load stores and ammunition. We set to work. Another launch roared up from the Canopus. She carried torpedoes. We rigged our booms. The huge warheads began to swing over. More launches raced out to us from the Canopus, loaded to the gunwales with dry stores and fresh provisions. A hand-to-hand brigade was set up on deck, and as boxes were hauled up we passed them along and down into the hatches. Launches scurried back and forth over the waters of the bay, their wakes crisscrossing each other, supplying torpedoes to the submarines, food for their men. The entire crew of the Wolf worked like beavers. We stocked up on milk, canned ham, canned chicken, sacks of beans, sacks of coffee, sacks of rice. We had no room for fresh vegetables now. We began throwing overboard cans of paint, bright-work polish, and useless tools—everything not essential to the business of war. The Wolf’s spit-and-polish days were over.
We took lunch on the run—sandwiches, and coffee. Gus Wright, the cook, and our three Filipino messboys were all over the boat. As I stopped for a moment topside to gulp down my coffee, I could see Cavite’s three giant radio towers piercing the blue sky. How long would they be standing there, I wondered? What messages were going out from them to the world right now? Just after lunch an oil lighter drew alongside. We loaded to capacity with fuel. Supper came at 7 p.m. Thick steak, french fried potatoes, asparagus, and ice cream. The crew was almost light-hearted now. “Let’s get going!” you’d hear, and then a burst of swearing, and someone saying, “What are we waiting for? Time’s awastin’, ducks on the pond, let’s be away!”