Thirty minutes later we were called to quarters. The skipper had a message for us. We lined up. Captain Warder, not much older than many of us, looked us over quietly. The smallest vestige of a smile was on his lips, but it was a grim smile. It was as though he were saying to us, without putting it into words, “Well, boys, here it is. You and I are going to be damn busy. It’s serious as hell because it’s war, but we’re ready for it. We’re the Seawolf and now we really begin the job we got to do.”
What he said, was: “Men, we’re leaving here tonight. We are escorting a convoy made up of the Langley, the oil tanker Pecos, and the U.S.S. Black Hawk. The Sculpin and the Seawolf will escort these ships south.”
He paused. His left hand closed and opened and closed and opened again at his side—a habit of his when he was deeply moved. “Needless to say, you all know we’re not playing any more. We’re out after them now. Let’s get them.”
The Wolf left Manila at 10 p.m. The words on Captain Warder’s orders were clear and precise: “You will sink or destroy enemy shipping wherever encountered.”
We had no chance to cable our families that we were all right. We’d have to wait for that later—somewhere, somehow. We knew we had our work cut out. Philippine waters are dangerous for submarines. Coral reefs, treacherous rocks, shoals, and in many places little depth to maneuver in, all add up to trouble. And the waters themselves are so clear that planes can easily spot submarines. We moved swiftly, but carefully, through the mine fields in Manila Bay, and then opened up to the best speed the surface ships could maintain. We were constantly on the alert. The night lookouts kept their eyes glued to their binoculars. Any moment we expected a wave of Jap bombers overhead. We strained every sense watching and listening for Jap submarines. We knew they must be racing toward us. News bulletins sputtered over the radio. The Japs had bombed Davao on the island of Mindanao. They had bombed Zamboanga on the southern tip of the Philippines. They’d landed on the north coast of Luzon. They’d bombed the important airfield at Aparri, 250 miles from Manila on the northeast tip of Luzon. They’d seized the International Settlement in Shanghai, bombed Hong Kong and even Singapore. Huge invasion forces had been sighted headed for the Philippines. Don Bell, the Manila news commentator, an honest, straight-from-the-shoulder broadcaster, was on the air without rest, giving additional details of the bombing of Pearl. And after Pearl, Cavite was their logical target…. But we saw the surface ships safely through the narrow and dangerous Verde Island passage south of Corregidor, and left them at dawn the next morning. As the sun rose on the ninth of December, we made our first day-long dive. We were on our first mission of the war; and from now on, unless we found ourselves in the safety of our own ports, the Wolf would never show more than her periscope in daylight.
My watches were 4 to 8 a.m. and 4 to 8 p.m., and at any other time of the day or night in emergency. As soon as my first watch was over, I stepped out into the control room. I wanted to know where we were headed. I asked the first man I saw—Chief Machinist’s Mate Carl Enslin, a 200-pounder called “Swede,” although he always insisted he was Pennsylvania Dutch. He was standing his watch as diving officer, his eye on the Christmas Tree.
“Don’t you know?” he asked, surprised.
“I just came off watch,” I explained. “I haven’t heard a damn thing.”
He pointed to the chart table. “It’s all plotted out there,” he said.
I squeezed past him to the small desk covered with charts of the Pacific waters. A thin red line had been drawn from Manila south through the San Bernardino Straits, up around the east coast of Luzon, up to the northeast point—to Aparri itself. We were going straight into the heart of hell. Aparri was under fire, the area was swarming with Jap ships, and it was the nearest point to Formosa.
“Oh, oh,” I said. “We ought to see some business up there.”
“We’ll probably be in the thick of it in a couple of days,” said Swede, keeping the Christmas Tree in view in the corner of his eye. As long as all the lights were green, all was well. A red light meant a hatch open somewhere.
I was due to get some sleep. I still wasn’t altogether over my big head. I climbed up and threw myself in my bunk. We dressed for comfort on the Wolf—sandals, shorts, and undershirt—and I kicked off my sandals and lay down as I was and tried to sleep. But I was too geared up. The Wolf’s powerful electric motors kept up a steady, high-pitched whine, and I thought of Marjorie and Spike, and how worried Marjorie must be, and how I could get word to her that I was all right. I finally dozed off.
My second watch was nearly over that night when Don Bell’s voice came in again. He said he was standing on the roof of the Manila Hotel.
“I have been here most of the day watching the methodical destruction of Cavite,” he said. He sounded tired. “Right now Cavite is a mass of smoke and flame. The Japs have been very accurate today. There has been no opposition in the air. I have seen wave after wave of heavy bombers and dive bombers concentrate on Cavite. The destruction is complete. God knows how many men have been lost. The Japs haven’t left the water front untouched, either. They have continuously bombed piers and water-front installations. So far they are leaving the ships in the harbor alone. They are probably waiting, knowing they will have plenty of time for that.” And then a brief halt in his words. “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know when I shall be back on the air, but I shall be back, God willing.”
We had missed being caught by less than forty-eight hours. Later we learned that the Dragon got away safely, but the Lion was so badly damaged she had to be destroyed to prevent her falling into the enemy’s hands.
My second watch over, I tried to sleep again. All at once someone was shaking me. “Eck! Eck! They want you in sound.”
I jumped out of my bunk, ducked through the hatch and down the passageway to the sound shack. Maley was there, hands pressed over his phones. He shook his finger for silence and listened for ten seconds more. His face was strained.
“Here,” he said, and pulled off the phones. “I can’t figure it out, Eck. I got something here, and I don’t know what in hell it is.”
I sat down and took over. Maley stood by.
There was a soft chatter in the phones. Two detectors transmitting to each other, conversing with each other? Jap submarines? Our first contact of the war? I listened intently. I adjusted my dials to hair-like accuracy. I turned on the intercom system after a minute and reported:
“Captain, I have something on the sound gear that sounds like two Jap subs talking to each other.”
“Give me a bearing, Eckberg,” came back Captain Warder’s voice.
I turned my wheel carefully, trying to find the point on 360-degree dial where the chatter was the loudest. I tried to pin it down to a definite spot in a definite direction from the Wolf, but I couldn’t.
“They’re all over the dial,” I said. “I get them everywhere.”
“Does it sound like the Japs?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Silence for a moment. Then the Skipper’s voice, very calm: “Well, keep giving me information, Eckberg. Keep it up.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I didn’t like it. Submarines can ram each other underwater, and if one locates the other by sound, it can even send a torpedo after it. If two Jap subs were closing in on us from either side… But if the sound did come from another submarine, the bearings must show a change over a period of time, and these did not. Since it was impossible for another submarine to be gliding alongside of us, at the same speed, at the same distance, never varying in angle, the noise must come from something else.