get a promotion. But when you’re about to set out in a pigboat to sink
as many Jap ships as possible, it doesn’t seem very important. And
certainly gold braid and pretty gold leaves aren’t important at all.
But I’ll tell you what really _is_ important, what really _does_ count
for a lot when you’re about to get under way for enemy waters. That is
the knowledge that I have a crew like mine! I’ve got a crew that is
proud of its boat, proud of its Skipper, proud of itself. A crew
that’ll do something—like this—like what you’ve just done—well, it just
can’t be licked, that’s all.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER TWELVE
VISIT TO WAKE ISLAND
They went all the way to Pearl Harbor on the surface. They had
beautiful clear weather each day. Jap ships and subs and planes had
been cleared from the entire area so effectively that American
submarines did not need to fear being mistaken by their own patrols for
Jap subs. They made good time, and the crew and officers alike were
happy, in the highest of spirits.
March laughed, one day, as he looked down from the bridge and saw
clothes drying on the line, put there by the crew who took the first
opportunity to give their things a good sunning.
“This doesn’t look much like war,” he mused. “Very domestic scene,
really. And some of the men have been on deck enough to get a little
sunburn. Not the usual picture of the submariner, pale and dehydrated,
after his long days beneath the waters of the deep.”
But he knew there would be plenty of that life ahead of them. He was
happy that this part of the trip was so pleasant. It meant a lot to the
crew, who were inclined sometimes to be superstitious, despite all
protestations to the contrary. They felt that everything would go well
with them since the start of their real patrol had been so auspicious.
The Skipper had opened his orders twelve hours out from San Francisco.
They were no great surprise to anyone. They were to go by way of Pearl
Harbor to a submarine base in the southwest Pacific, a tiny island
where a sub tender nursed its brood of pigboats, fed them oil and
torpedoes and supplies before sending them out to break up the Jap
shipping lines.
The stop at Pearl Harbor was short, but March enjoyed it, remembering
when he and Scoot had left the _Plymouth_ there, heading back for the
United States and their training in submarines and airplanes. Much to
his surprise there was a letter for him. He had not thought anyone
would have a chance to write since learning his San Francisco address.
The envelope, a plain one with a typed address, gave him no clue:
It was from Scoot! Dated three weeks before, it said, “In case you come
this way you’ll get this. I’m on the carrier _Bunker Hill_ heading for
where all of us head when we get out here. Don’t forget to come and
save me from those Japs when I holler for you!”
That was all, but it was good. It was just like Scoot and it made March
feel fine to read it and to picture again his old friend. He showed the
note to Larry when he went back to _Kamongo_, and told him about Scoot
Bailey.
“Sounds like a swell guy,” Larry said. “Why couldn’t he have gone into
submarines, too?”
“No—he’s swell, but he’s not right for pigboats,” March said. “Too much
of an individualist. He’ll take orders fine, do a swell job, but he’s
best when he’s on his own. Flying a fighter plane off a carrier is just
exactly right for Scoot.”
“Well, you never can tell—maybe we’ll run into him,” Larry said.
“Stranger things have happened in wartime.”
They sailed from Pearl Harbor looking for action, but several days went
by without a sign of ship or plane of any kind.
“We’ve got to run into something,” Larry said one day in the wardroom.
“I’d hate to show up at the base with all my torpedoes intact, without
a single Jap ship accounted for. Why, we’re going through about nine
hundred miles of enemy waters and we’ve got to get something on the
way.”
“The boys out here have been scaring them into their ratholes,” McFee
said. “They don’t come out any more than they have to.”
“But that’s the point,” Larry said. “They’ve got to come out sometime.
They’ve got garrisons on a lot of these islands, and garrisons need to
be supplied.”
“Well, they’re just letting the garrisons on lots of those islands
starve to death,” Stan said.
“Sure, in the Marshalls and a few other places where we’ve got ’em
surrounded,” the Skipper said. “But they’re still supplying and
reinforcing plenty of places around these parts. They lose some ships
every day. I just want them to lose a couple to us, as we’re passing by
on our way to more important things.”
“What about Wake Island?” March asked.
“Yes, they’re still supplying Wake,” Larry said. “We’re not too far
away from it any more, but we haven’t got it really cut off. But our
course isn’t very close to Wake.”
“Couldn’t we just edge over that way and have a look?” March asked.
“Well, now, maybe we could,” Larry said. “Nobody told us just what
course to follow out here. When we get a bit further we’ve got to run
submerged most of the time anyway. We just laid down the straightest
route to our destination. But a little detour wouldn’t do any harm.
Lieutenant Anson, carry us over near Wake.”
With a smile, March left the wardroom and went to the navigating desk.
There he plotted the course for Wake Island, went up on the conning
tower for a shot of the sun to check his course, and gave the new
course to the helmsman. Then he went back to the wardroom.
“About six hundred Army-Navy time, courtesy of Whoozis watches,” he
announced, “we shall sight Wake Island.”
“Hm, works out very nicely,” Larry said. “Tomorrow morning just after
dawn. We can travel on the surface all night and submerge just before
the approach.”
Everyone was up and about early the next morning, even those who had
been on watch during the night. Breakfast was over and officers and men
were at their stations before dawn.
“We may get nothing, of course,” Larry said. “We mustn’t get our hopes
up.”
“Okay, Skipper,” McFee said. “We’re just dropping by for a look and if
anything’s there we’ll try to take care of it.”
“Rig ship for diving,” the Skipper said, and the word was passed
throughout the boat. One by one the departments reported back to March
that everything was ready. The long slim boat slid under the water, the
whine of the electric motors replacing the throbbing of the Diesels. As
March handled the diving operations, he recalled the days when it had
seemed to him such a complicated and difficult task. Now it was a
simple straightforward job, especially when carried out by a crew that
knew its job.
After about twenty minutes, March turned to Larry. “I think we ought to
be able to have a look now,” he said.
“Up periscope,” Larry said, reaching forward to grab the adjusting
handles as they rose into position. He adjusted the eyepiece and
looked, focussing with the handles. March saw his mouth open slightly
in a whispered exclamation.
“Have a look, March,” he said. “I think we’ve raised something.”
March looked and saw the low-lying atolls where the Marines had for so
long battled the Japs against great odds. It would do his heart good to
kill a few Japs at Wake, entirely apart from the excellence of the idea
in general. He located the harbor and then saw two dark blobs in it.
“There’s something there, all right,” he said. “Can’t be sure what they
are yet, though.”
“Down ’scope,” Larry said. “We’ll get a little closer and have another
look.”
There was almost nothing said as the boat moved silently forward under
the water, until Larry ordered the periscope up again. Then he
exclaimed aloud at what he saw.
“Three of ’em!” he cried. “Looks as if they just got here themselves,
probably came in under cover of darkness. Lighters are just tying up to
them to unload.”
“What are they?” March asked. “Can you make out?”
“One’s a troopship,” Larry replied, “loaded to the gunwales! The men’ll
go ashore in the lighters. They haven’t even started yet. Must be
relief for the garrison—old ones will be going back.”
[Illustration: _He Adjusted the Eyepiece and Looked_]
“Oh, no they won’t,” March said. “Not yet, anyway, because their relief
is going to be cut down in number right soon now.”
“Here, March, have a look,” Larry said. “I think one’s a tanker, one an
ammunition ship, or a freighter with the supplies.”
March stepped to the periscope and looked carefully.
“Tanker and troopship are certain,” he said. “Can’t be sure about the
other, though. How many do you think we can get?”
“Not more than two,” Larry said. “They’ll get planes after us that
fast. We’ll have to get away after two, maybe after one. Can’t tell
until we’re in the middle of it. But what about all the reefs around
here? Can we get in position to fire?”
“If we’re good we can,” March said. “Come on, I’ll show you. I’ve been
studying the Wake Island chart, and we know it’s right.”
Larry followed March to the navigation desk, where they both studied
the chart of Wake Island.
“We have to go west first,” March said. “Then cut back sharply in a
hairpin turn—go in about four hundred yards, turn about thirty degrees
to starboard without going forward too much, fire and then back away.
Backing will be slow, but we can’t turn her for a couple of hundred
yards. Think we can make it?”
“Deep water out here?” Larry asked, pointing to a point about a mile
off shore.
“Plenty deep,” March replied.
“Then I think we can do it,” Larry said. “Those ships are worth the
chance, anyway. If we’re slow getting the first one, we’ll cut and run.”
“Which one first?” March asked.
“The tanker,” Larry said. “Most important. Planes can’t fly without the
gas and oil it carries.”
“Not the troopship?”
“No, too many of the men will be able to swim or get ashore some way,”
Larry said. “We could count on about fifty percent casualties there.
But the tanker—that’ll be all gone, and maybe set fire to a few other
things. Tanker first, then troopship.”
The Skipper gave orders to move the boat to the west around the reefs
as March had indicated. March stood close by the soundman, who could
tell at every instant just how far they were from the rocky shoals that
might trap them.
Slowly the boat moved forward and then, when March gave the word, it
turned and moved in toward the island.
“I hope I’m right,” March said to himself. “There’s not very much room
here, though if those ships got through, we surely can.”
The sound man picked up reefs to the right and then to the left—nothing
ahead, and March breathed more deeply. They went forward for a few
moments, still moving slowly.
“About now, March?” Larry asked quietly.
“Yes, this ought to be it,” March replied. He saw Scotty at the
soundman’s side, the other crew members standing by their levers and
valves. They were all calm and quiet, but with just a touch of excited
expectancy in their manner.
The Skipper gave the order for the turn to starboard, for the cutting
of motors. Then he called for the periscope. As it rose from its well
in the deck he crouched and grabbed it. Then March realized why Larry
was a good Skipper. In just about two seconds he had seen everything
there was to see. He called out the course settings for the torpedoes,
first for two to go into the sides of the tanker, then for two to go
into the sides of the transport.
The settings were called back to him, and he called, without a moment’s
hesitation—“Fire one! Fire two!” He waited a moment, glancing at his
watch. “Fire three! Fire four!”
Stepping away from the eyepiece he called, “Down periscope!” and
followed it immediately with “Reverse motors!”
As the whine of the motors started and the boat slid backwards in the
water, he kept his eyes on his watch, finger in the air as if counting.
He lifted his eyes and—thud! The submarine trembled and shook from the
explosion of a torpedo against the side of a ship. There was a wild cry
throughout the pigboat as the crew whooped with glee, so loud that it
almost drowned out the roar of the second torpedo hitting home against
the tanker.
Men danced and jigged, but not for a moment did they take their hands
from their levers or wheels, or their eyes from the dials they watched.
“You can turn now, Skipper,” March said quietly, and Larry gave the
order for the ship to turn and dive deep as it cleared the reefs.
The words were not out of his mouth when another roar sent a tremble
through the submarine and another shout arose. It was a short roar
because the men stopped to listen for the second torpedo that had been
sent against the troopship. But nothing came, and it was Larry who
broke the silence.
“A miss, men,” he said. “Only one got through.”
“Well, what can you expect?” Scotty demanded. “After all, the position
we were in!”
“Are still in!” Larry exclaimed. “Only a hundred feet! Take her to
two-fifty!”
Everybody adjusted his body to the slope of the boat as it slid rapidly
down in the water. In a few minutes, they knew, depth charges would be
dropped in an attempt to locate them. Certainly planes would be in the
air and perhaps fast small boats something like our own PT-boats would
be dashing out of the harbor after them.
Larry grabbed the phone from the interphone orderly and spoke into it.
“You heard the blasts,” he said, knowing that men all over the boat
would hear him. “Two into a Jap tanker. One into a troopship. Second
one there was a dud. You can expect some depth charges, but I think
we’ll be down away from them. Later we’ll go up for a look and I’ll
tell you what we did.”
March knew that all the men appreciated that. They were tense and
excited and they wanted to know exactly what was going on. Their
Skipper didn’t keep them waiting long. They were part of this just as
much as he was.
They leveled off at two hundred and fifty feet just as they felt the
first bumping rattle of a depth charge explosion. But it was far away
and hardly bothered them. In two minutes another came a little closer.
Everyone gripped the nearest solid support and held on. March said to
himself, “You’re going through a depth bombing. This was the one thing
they couldn’t simulate at New London. Well, how do you like it?”
And he answered himself, “It’s not so bad.”
He looked around at the men in the crew. They held on and they
listened, but they did not look frightened. Larry grinned at him.
“Lousy aim they’ve got,” he said. “They’re not coming very close.”
“What about a little zigzagging?” March asked.
“No, we might zig or zag into something,” Larry said. “They obviously
haven’t located us and are just dropping at random. Also, we’re deep
enough to be below the explosions. After all, the biggest force of the
blow is above the exploding charge. We’ll just keep sliding along the
way we’re going. They’ll give up after a while.”
The charges exploded regularly, but not for long. Soon they hardly felt
a jar when one went off.
“They think we’re hanging around back there for a look,” Larry said.
“They don’t know how safe we play. I’m not going back for my look for
two hours. So just keep going.”
They did keep going, and for two hours. By the time they circled around
and came back toward the island there were no more depth charges. About
a mile away they surfaced quickly and the Skipper took a quick look.
Then the ’scope went down and March ordered another dive.
“Sorry you couldn’t have had a look, March,” Larry said, “but I didn’t—”
He was interrupted by a shaking roar that almost spilled him off his
feet. March, who had one hand against the bulkhead, grabbed him.
“As I was saying,” Larry went on with a smile, “I didn’t want to keep
the ’scope up any longer than I had to. They spotted it pretty fast,
didn’t they?”
Another roar was the answer, followed by another and another, and half
a dozen more. They were bad shocks, worse than those they had
experienced at first, but the sub had got down fast enough to get away
from the worst effects.
“What did you see?” March asked between blasts.
“Listen,” Larry said. He took the interphone and gave his news to the
whole ship. “Tanker down—only the bow showing, oil-covered water
blazing over the entire bay. Total loss for the Nips on that one.
Troopship looks half busted in two, but still afloat, though listing
badly. No men on her. Plenty of bodies in the water. Lots got ashore,
I’m sure, but plenty got burned in the oil trying to make it.”
A loud cheer rose through the ship as Larry handed the phone back to
the orderly.
“Well, anyway,” he said. “It was certainly worth four torpedoes!”
As the _Kamongo_ slid down through the dark waters, the depth charges
grew less intense. Finally they got away from them entirely, and
resumed the course for their southwest Pacific base.
“Don’t let that fool you,” Larry said, as they sat in the wardroom
having a cup of coffee. “There weren’t any sound detectors there, so we
got away pretty easily. When the destroyers are after you, they
_follow_ you—and their depth charges are bigger. This was a setup!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SCOOT MEETS TWO ZEROS
Scoot Bailey lounged in the ready room of the aircraft carrier _Bunker
Hill_ as the big ship plunged through heavy seas at top speed. They had
been at sea for some weeks now, in company with a cruiser and three
destroyers, heading southwest from Pearl Harbor for scenes of battle.
For the last two days the five ships had put on full steam, and
everyone aboard knew that something was up.
“Something’s cooking up ahead,” Scoot said to Turk Bottomley, who sat
next to him, legs stretched out on a straightback in front of him.
“Obviously, my friend,” Turk said. “Something’s been cooking in this
part of the world almost all the time lately.”
“I thought we’d be heading for the Marshalls and the Carolines,” Scoot
said, “to get in on the fighting there. But I guess they’ve got things
well in hand in those parts. We’re well past them now, and to the
south.”
“No flying for two days now,” Turk said. “That’s what’s been bothering
me. Before we got off once in a while for a look around, anyway. I want
to fly, that’s all. I won’t worry about where. Let the Admirals send me
where they want me, but let me fly and fight when I get there—and, if
possible, on the way, too.”
“Gee, I thought I loved flying,” Scoot said, with a laugh, “but I never
held a candle to you.”
“Yeah, I even resent walkin’,” Turk said. “Seems like I should’ve had
wings instead of legs—just for gettin’ around short distances. I’d
still want that Grumman Hellcat for longer jumps.”
“They’re sweet ships, all right,” Scoot said. “I used to dream of
flying a Wildcat—thought there just couldn’t be anything better than
that. And I still thought so when I finally flew one off the training
carrier. She was an old one, but still a Wildcat. Then when I get here
on the _Bunker Hill_, I find the brand new F6F’s—and Hellcat is the
right name. They’re what a Wildcat pilot dreams up as impossibly
perfect when he thinks about what kind of plane he’ll have in Heaven.”
“Poetic, now, aren’t you, Scoot?” Turk said. “I can’t put words
together that way, but it sounds nice when you talk about planes.
Sometimes, when you get real excited, you almost talk the way I feel.”
Suddenly they sat up, as did the four or five others in the large room.
Other pilots began to pile into the room followed by most of the
big-shot officers on the ship.
“Oh-oh—here it comes!” Scoot said. “Now we’ll find out. It looks like a
briefing.”
There were fighter pilots, the pilots, gunners and observers of torpedo
and scout dive bombers, and the squadron leaders of each group,
accompanied by the particular vice-admiral in command of the force now
racing across the Pacific. This rugged, beetle-browed gentleman lost
little time in getting down to business. Addressing the flying officers
before him while other officers hung a huge map on the wall behind, he
quickly gave them the information they wanted.
“You’ve all known we’ve been heading for something as fast as we could
get there,” he said, in clipped tones. “Now I can tell you, because
we’ve made speed and are not far away. Within a few hours we should
contact other carriers and ships going to the same objective. That
objective is the Jap Naval base at Truk.”
There was a gasp of surprise throughout the room as the Admiral paused
for a second.
“There’s a mighty fine batch of ships in Truk Harbor,” he said, “and,
we have reason to believe, not too much protection. Carriers—and
there’ll be six of them—will go in close enough to launch all planes.
Battleships, cruisers, and destroyers will go in closer.”
Turk Bottomley was sitting on the edge of his chair, as if he would
bound from the room and race to his plane in a second, but the Admiral
continued.
“The time is now about 1600. We shall rendezvous with the others of the
task force at about 2030. You will take off on a schedule your squadron
commanders will give you beginning at 0430, arriving over Truk about
dawn—the first wave, that is. All scout and torpedo planes will go to
Truk, one-half the fighters will remain as protection with or near the
carrier. Your squadron commanders will go over all necessary details
with you now. That is all.”
The Admiral stalked from the room, and the commanders prepared to go
over all details. They launched at once into detailed descriptions of
the objective, the schedule of flights.
“If we’ve figured right,” one of them said, “we’ll stick around two
days, throwing in wave after wave. We must meet our schedule because it
ties in precisely with the schedules of the other carriers in the
group. We’ll not give them a minute to catch their breath. There’ll be
planes coming at them continuously.”
For two hours the briefing session continued. Photographs and maps were
shown, man after man asked questions. Finally every flier felt that he
knew Truk and its environs as he knew his own home town. Then came the
announcement of the fliers who would remain with the carrier instead of
going to the attack on Truk and there were groans about the room as men
heard their names called.
“One minute,” the fighter squadron commander called. “I think the Old
Man gave a wrong impression. The names I’m calling won’t stay with the
carrier both days. They’ll stay behind the first day but go on to the
attack the second day, while the first group remains with the carrier.”
Groans turned to laughter, but Turk Bottomley was furious. He was going
out the first day, but he wanted to go out the second day, too. He made
his feelings known in no uncertain terms.
“Never mind, Turk,” the commander laughed. “You can go up and fly
around and around the _Bunker Hill_ all day!”
So it was that Turk flew off in the dark morning hours, while Scoot
Bailey stayed behind envying those lucky men whose names had been
opposite the odd numbers on the list instead of the even. As plane
after plane rolled across the heaving deck of the flat-top and roared
off into the overcast sky, Scoot muttered under his breath, wishing
that each one might have been his.
Dawn came and there was no word. Scoot went up with half a dozen other
fighters to keep eyes on the sea, to attack any Japanese craft that
came through to get them. But for hours there was no sign of a
plane—either of the enemy or of their own.
Then Scoot, just after he had landed again, heard them far away—the
roar of many powerful engines. And in a moment he saw the tiny specks
that raced so fast they soon became planes circling in mighty sweeps
around the carrier. The first one came in as the signalman waved his
paddles for a landing. Deck men and the fighter pilots who were not up
in the air lined the edge of the deck, and officers crowded the bridge.
As the first pilot scrambled from his plane, the deck crew grabbed it,
folded its wings, and raced it back to the elevator so the next plane
could land.
In a moment the pilot was talking—and in a few minutes he was joined by
another, then another and another.
“We caught ’em with their pants down!” the first yelled. “Flatfooted.
We caught ’em right on the airfields! They couldn’t get off.”
“And when the bombers came in,” cried the next, “they had a clear
field. How those boys dove! Oil tanks blew up! Ships strewn all over
the place, clogging up the harbor!”
One after another the pilots told their stories while mechanics checked
their engines, filled the tanks with gas, the guns with ammunition.
They all told of how the Japs had been taken by surprise, how plane
after plane had been wrecked on the field, how torpedo planes and
scout-dive bombers came in with little more than scattered antiaircraft
fire to get in their way.