Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

11

From Easter Island to Guam would take us about two weeks. Aside from the necessity of threading rather neatly between the outlying reefs of one or two archipelagos, we foresaw no need to slow down, except for such maneuvers as we might ourselves decide on. But I remember having a feeling of concern which I could not shake, as we began this longest leg of our trip.

The passage from Cape Horn to Easter Island had turned out to be full of very real difficulties. Fortunately, all had been successfully remedied, with the exception of the fathometer, but the experience boded ill for the future.

We could use a fathometer in the Pacific, for it had at least as many peaks as the Atlantic, but there was one difference. Most of these were coral formations instead of volcanic in origin. They should, therefore, be less precipitous, more gradual in slope in both directions, inherently less dangerous. As we moved along our course, we gained assurance in the various methods we had devised to get substitute depth readings, now that the fathometer was no longer working. Every day we became more certain of our ability to detect shoaling water under any circumstances. More and more, I knew that my decision to press on had been the right one.

As for our equipment, however, the trans-Pacific leg of our voyage began in a manner by then uncomfortably all too familiar. On the seventeenth of March, in the early morning, George Troffer, Triton’s Electrical Officer, stood solemnly outside my door. One of the air compressors which supplied the air pressure needed for certain automatic control systems had gone out of commission. As George explained it, the electric motor had apparently been slowly failing in its resistance to ground and, overworked as it was, had finally given up the ghost. Inspection of the motor had disclosed that the armature windings were entirely burned out.

This was disquieting news. Although we had stand-by controls for all essential systems, this would necessitate increasing the watch squad in certain areas. It might also, at the same time, result in some sluggishness in the automatic controls. I listened gravely as the technical tale of woe was unfolded.

“What about a jury rig, George?” I asked.

George nodded. “I was going to suggest one, Captain,” he said, “but I don’t know how you’ll like it …”

“Shoot,” I said, motioning him to the tiny built-in stool under my folding wash basin.

Troffer carefully perched on the stool, which had now been dubbed, so I had discovered, “the one-cheek hot seat.”

“We can get air from the ship’s main air system, though not at the right pressure,” Troffer explained. “But we do have some pressure-reducing valves among our spares, and I think we can rig them up. We’ll have to use two reducers in tandem and the pressure won’t be quite the same, but I think it’ll work.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Where will you get the air from?”

“Well, maybe we can take it from the ship’s hundred pound service air main,” he said. “That would be the simplest, provided we can get the right reducing valve arrangement. Otherwise, we might have to take it from the four hundred pound air-pressure header.”

“You’ll need a pretty good length of hose or copper tubing to run it over to the control air system,” I said. “Do we have enough?”

“We may have to rob something else, but I think it’ll be OK,” George said. “If we have to take it straight off the four hundred pound header, it will be a pretty long run, though.”

“Well,” I said, “it looks as if we don’t have much choice. See what you can do.”

Troffer nodded. “I figured the same thing, Captain,” he said. “We’ve already started—one of the troubles, however, is that if we have to use the four hundred pound air system, we’ll have to run it through a watertight door. This will reduce our watertight integrity, because we won’t be able to shut the door if we should have to.”

“Not so fast,” I interrupted. “If you have to run a line through a door, let me know before you do, and at all times while that line is through the door, there’ll be a damage-control ax and a heavy set of wire cutters standing by. That’s easy.”

George’s face cleared as he stood up. “Aye aye, sir. That’s just what we’ll do.”

As Troffer disappeared down the passageway back toward the engine room, I could not help but reflect upon the tremendous competence Triton had working for her. One way or another, her control system would be working again soon; and I also knew that in due course the reason for the failure of the air-compressor motor would be discovered; its cause eliminated. Shaking out such bugs is always one of the objectives of a shakedown cruise, and Triton was at the moment indubitably on hers. The only difference was that an ordinary ship on a shakedown cruise is unperturbed by minor casualties, even if they temporarily reduce her operability. No one expects a brand-new ship to function perfectly the first time. We, however, had a mission to complete. Not only was the Navy depending on us, but there was also a tradition that no nuclear submarine had yet failed on a mission to which she had been assigned. No doubt it was this confidence in the dependability of Admiral Rickover’s ships which had inspired this voyage in the first place. We would not be the first to break the tradition.

I knew that this spirit and outlook had permeated our crew. But even so, I was surprised, a few hours later as I was wandering through the engineering spaces, to discover a group of toiling men, conspicuous among them Chief Electrician’s Mate Herbert F. Hardman—the same who had happily announced achievement of a thirteen-year’s ambition at the crossing-of-the-line ceremony—struggling to remove the ponderous inoperative electric motor from the control air compressor to a workbench some distance away.

“I thought I understood that we had no spare armatures for this thing, Hardman,” I said.

“We don’t, sir, but this damned motor shouldn’t have broken down. First, we’re going to find out why, and then we’re going to rewind it.”

“Rewind the armature!” I expostulated. “I’ve heard of Navy Yards and tenders doing that with all the extra equipment they have, but I know darned well we don’t carry any of that kind of gear!”

Hardman, as I had reason to know, was a man of great positiveness, as well as being an efficient Electrician’s Mate. His whole bearing spoke determination as he answered, “This damned motor is my piece of gear, and it’s going to be running before we get back.” His jaw muscles bulged slightly as he snapped out the last few words.

I remember wishing at the moment that I had had some appropriate rejoinder worthy of the occasion. All I could think of to say was, “Good!”

But if I was surprised in the engine room, what I saw that same day in the electronics technician’s storeroom was astonishing. Electronics Technicians G. E. Simpson, M. F. Docker, and N. L. Blaede had started constructing a new fathometer! A stainless-steel cooking pot had been commandeered from the galley, and a number of stainless-steel rods, plus considerable small, fine copper wire from the engineering and electrical spare parts petty officers. The technicians had calculated the resistances and impedances and were busily engaged in constructing a new sound head.

“Certainly it’ll work,” said Docker. “The question is whether it will be powerful enough to do the job for us, and whether we can find some way to put its signal into the water.”

Another project they were working on was the conversion of one of our general announcing speakers into a sonar transmitter, a conversion that involved developing a means of making it both watertight and pressure-proof at the same time, and yet able to transmit and receive sonar signals. A third, and much more primitive idea, beating on the bottom of the hull with a hammer, was ready for trial as soon as we happened into shallow water again. All these projects were based on the hope that we might be able to catch an echo on one of our other sonar sets and, by timing it, ascertain the depth of water.

I could only marvel at the ingenuity of the American sailor. These experiments might not work, but all three were certainly worth trying.

The last-named idea required no special preparation other than finding the best spot for hammering on the hull, a suitably heavy hammer, and a brawny sailor. Years ago, when the submarine S4 lay sunk on the bottom of Cape Cod Bay, communication had been maintained with the survivors by means of hammering against the hull. It was just possible that enough energy could thus be placed in the water for our modern and acutely sensitive sonar to pick up a returning echo from a nearby shoal.

When it came time to make the test, Torpedoman Second Class Wilmot A. Jones drew the assignment of being the human fathometer. The forward torpedo room bilges, beneath the torpedo tubes themselves, appeared to be the most suitable spot for the effort. Armed with a heavy sledge hammer, Jones crawled down into position.

The number of hours poor Jones spent at his task, hammering with prodigious force upon the unyielding structure of Triton’s hull in the hopes that somehow a faint return might be heard, are unrecorded. We heard him clearly inside the ship, but no matter how hard he hammered or how shallow the water, no echo was ever picked up.

Had we been able to project all the sounds straight down through some sort of a diaphragm or sound-channeling arrangement, better results might have been achieved, for, after all, that is the principle upon which the fathometer itself operates. But this was not possible, and the only tangible result of Jones’s efforts was a cartoon which appeared the next day in the Triton Eagle, showing a section of the forward torpedo room bilges with an idiotic-looking sailor sucking his thumb and crouched below a set of torpedo tubes. He was labeled “Jones,” to be sure he would be properly identified, and with his free hand he was swinging a hammer and pounding on the hull. The balloon above his head held the words, “Da Da Da, Whee—I’m a fathometer.”

Nevertheless, we had a good idea of the depth of the water. As we approached the charted shallow areas, our search sonar detected shallow water ahead and to port, where we had expected it. In the meantime, Mike Smalet, our gravity-meter expert, noted definite changes in the gravity readings recorded by the “monkey in a cage.” While the change in gravity might have resulted from some other cause, its correlation with the search sonar could not be ignored.

Crossing the Pacific from Easter Island to Guam took us two weeks, and it was during this trip that Will Adams decided the greatest danger of boredom existed. The same trip took Magellan three months, during which he and his crew nearly starved to death. Our desire to emulate his feat did not extend to culinary duplication, and the various breaks in our monotony which Will devised were to a large degree dependent upon food (Poi, near Hawaii, for example).

On Sunday evening, the twentieth of March, Triton reached her closest point of approach to Pearl Harbor, and we held a ship’s party in honor of the occasion. Naturally, it had to be a Hawaiian Luau. My memories of such an occasion stemmed from the war years, for I had not been in Hawaii since then. But Will had, and so had Ship’s Cook First Class William “Jim” Crow. In fact, Will had given the matter some forethought, and one of the announcements before departure from New London was that all hands were advised to bring along some sort of sports togs or shirts (he had been very cute about this), similar to Hawaiian “Aloha” shirts, for our expected ship’s party in the Bahamas. He had also suggested that anyone who had a musical instrument bring it along.

Bob Fisher and Will Adams spent considerable time on the Luau menu. And even though I had been pretty well prepared for what I was to see at 1800 when the party started, I was amazed at what they had done. A coconut tree, bearing two large brown coconuts garnished with great purple leaves, “grew” out of the deck. A number of Hawaiian leis were strung about the overhead, some looking suspiciously like the commercially manufactured article made with bits of colored plastic paper, others obviously homemade. On the bulkheads were drawings of Hawaiian scenes. Having seen some of Tom Thamm’s work before, I had no doubt that a great deal of this was due to him. There were brightly colored shirts and two or three battered but gaudy straw hats. There were even hula skirts, made of cloth strips and string. And the food, with the exception of Will Adams’ poi, was uniformly excellent. There was no octopus, the Navy standard menu having no provision for serving octopus in any form, but we did have raw fish garnished with some sort of hot sauce, French-fried shrimp and ocean scallops, sweet-and-sour pork, fruit, salted nuts, and iced punch.

To my surprise, even the ersatz poi had a number of takers, although so far as I was concerned, it was just like Hawaiian poi: paste without taste. And when the meal was over, and a large, specially baked cake cut and passed around, we all relaxed for an hour, singing songs of the Navy and the submarine force dating back to the war years and before.

From the Log:

Monday, 21 March 1960 Shortly after midnight, as we came to periscope depth for celestial observations, it was discovered that the sextant built into our new periscope has gone out of order. This will be a serious blow if we can’t fix it, ameliorated only by the fact that running continuously submerged as we are, we find that our dead-reckoning is most phenomenally accurate. Rarely has our estimated position deviated from our actual observed position by more than a mile or two. It appears that currents and other forces affecting surface ships during transits are much less a factor during submerged runs. To paraphrase an aphorism, “deep waters run still.”

0531 Periscope sextant is back in commission as the result of some rather inspired work by L. L. Garlock, FTC (SS) and W. E. Constantine, FT1 (SS).

Our submerged navigation was accomplished by several methods. One consisted of regular observation of the SINS mechanism, a system so new, however, that it was in effect an experimental model, full of bugs and therefore not dependable. Celestial observations through our special periscope proved to be far more accurate; and to Will’s satisfaction, dead-reckoning also surpassed the SINS. Since the celestial observations were by far the most accurate of the three methods, loss of the periscope equipment would have been serious, despite the stand-by system which, thanks to George Sawyer—who had put long hours into having it ready in case of need—we could have placed in service.

From the Log:

Midnight, 21 March A double babygram: an 8 pound 7 ounce girl [Frances Ann] for Leonard F. Lehman, Electrician’s Mate First Class; and 6 pound Kari Jeanne for Richard Brown, also Electrician’s Mate First Class. Birth dates respectively 15th and 18th of March. Mother’s and Father’s copies of babygrams are duly delivered. Fathers are honor-bound to bring the one with the cupids home to their wives.

Wednesday, 23 March 1960 0834 Crossed International Date Line from west longitude to east longitude at latitude 10° –36’ North. As this significant milestone was achieved, a message arrived from King Neptune informing us that because of our highly satisfactory conduct on 24 February, when we first crossed the equator, all hands were automatically, without further examination, taken into The Royal Order of Golden Dragons and so recorded in his log. There will, however, be a severe price.

Thursday, 24 March, is dropped from our calendar. This day, a full day from the lives of all hands, has been exacted from us in tribute for crossing the date line [technically speaking we advanced all clocks twenty-four hours]. Additional penance consists of working the ship for 24 full 25-hour days before we will be home again, although it should be noted that a number of these 25-hour days have already been worked off enroute to this area.

Still from the Log:

1733 The gravity meter indicated a rise in the ocean floor. There is no indication from sonar for 5 minutes, until 1738, when sonar detects a ledge from dead ahead around to port to a bearing of south.

1834 Gravity meter and sonar together show a dropping away in the ocean floor.

1933 First trial on our hand-made fathometer transducer: Unsuccessful.

The new fathometer transducer, the product of much inspired work by the Electronics Technicians gang under “Whitey” Rubb, had at last been completed, and had passed a successful test. In the Electronics Technicians’ workshop, a sonar signal set into the transducer was clearly heard outside it, even though the frequency response was theoretically in the inaudible range. The thing was worked in reverse also and was proven sensitive to the reception of noise beamed at it by radio or tape recorder at an approximately correct frequency. The problem now was to find some means of getting this sound into the water and catching it on the return.

Steel is a good conductor of sound. Our theory was that if we could send out a sufficiently strong signal, it might pass through the steel of our pressure hull and carry to the ocean floor, there to be reflected, hopefully, in sufficient strength to be detected either on the transducer itself or on one of our external hydrophones.

Another of our problems was that the pressure hull was the inner of Triton’s two hulls. When Jones had gone to work with the sledge hammer, we hoped that the water between the two hulls would carry the signal. But this experiment had been completely unsuccessful; in order to get the maximum possible chance of success with our handmade fathometer transducer, we had to do better.

There was, fortunately, a way to reach the outer skin of the ship itself, through the forward trim tank. Located in the space between the pressure hull and the outer hull, the tank had been built to withstand full test pressure and to meet the highest specifications of shock resistance. It also was accessible through a manhole cover at the bottom of the torpedo storeroom.

Tom Thamm adjusted the trim of the ship so that all water normally carried in the forward trim tank could be pumped out of it and into the midships auxiliary tanks. (Balance fore and aft was maintained by pumping an equal weight of water to auxiliaries from the after trim tank.) Then the tank was opened and tested for gas. After it had been pronounced clear, Lieutenant “Whitey” Rubb and Machinist Phil Kinnie descended into the heretofore sealed space, carrying our jury-rigged transducer with them.

Placing the new mechanism carefully against the skin of the ship, alongside the internal keel, they quickly made a connection to a cable from the fathometer transmitter nearby. After all was in readiness, we began the first test.

For a moment, we were greatly encouraged. We actually heard a sharp click, as the outgoing signal sped through our handmade transducer. But there was no returning echo. Various combinations were tried, including partially reflooding the forward trim tank so as to submerge the transducer and thus increase its ability to transmit through the bottom of the trim tank and to the water outside. But in the end, we were completely disappointed. The effort was unsuccessful.

“Whitey” was dejected. “I’m satisfied this isn’t going to work, Captain,” he said. “But I’d like to keep trying.”

The only bright spot of the day was receipt of our fifth babygram. A boy, Donald, Jr., for Engineman First Class Donald R. Quick.

From the Log:

Sunday, 27 March 1960 1349 We will soon be passing through our nearest point of approach to the presumed location at which the first Triton (SS-201) was lost in action during World War II. As a matter of interest, this took place almost exactly seventeen years ago, and by a strange coincidence the first Triton departed on her last patrol from Brisbane, Australia, on the same day (16 February) as we, her namesake, departed from New London on this voyage. Triton I is presumed to have been lost as a result of depth charge attack by three Japanese destroyers on 15 March 1943, in a position almost exactly 800 miles due south of where we are now.

At that time I was engineer officer of Trigger, also lost in action later in the war, and LCDR R. S. Benson, USN, was skipper. On 15 March 1943, as it happened, we were on patrol in the same general vicinity as Triton I. Correlation between the known facts of Triton’s loss and Trigger’s report of the events of that date indicates that the two ships may have attacked the same convoy. Trigger believed she had sunk one ship and damaged a second, and Triton’s results were unknown. We were depth charged, though not severely. But afterwards we heard distant depth charges for approximately an hour. Japanese records indicate that the depth charging heard by Trigger most probably accounted for the loss of the old Triton. Their report of the action contains the notation that a large amount of oil came to the surface in the center of which floating objects were found bearing the label “Made in USA.”

It was Triton’s sixth patrol, but the first for her new commander, LCDR George K. McKenzie, Jr. Besides her skipper, she had on board an unusual array of talent in LCDR John Eichmann, Executive Officer, and LCDR Jack R. Crutchfield, who was, I believe, Engineer. Eichmann had been with the Triton since she was commissioned in 1940. His name is engraved upon Triton’s old commissioning plaque, presented to us last November 10 by Mrs. Lent, widow of the late Rear Admiral W. A. Lent, Triton I’s first skipper. The plaque is now mounted in the passageway outside our wardroom.

Without too much fact on which to base my supposition, I have always assumed that John Eichmann had been slated for transfer to his own command, possibly to be brought back to the States for a new construction submarine as was the custom for people who had spent a long time in the war zone [and later happened, in time, to me], and that he had either been pursuaded to remain for one additional patrol, or very likely had volunteered to do so in order to provide some kind of continuity for the new skipper.

I had met Eichmann in 1939 when, as an Ensign, I spent a day at sea with the S-25 to which he was attached. Without conscious intention I had kept track of his whereabouts ever since. A year after the loss of Triton, after I had been Executive Officer of the Trigger for some time, I also agreed to stay for one extra patrol because Trigger had unexpectedly received a new skipper. In my case, Trigger survived the most serious depth-charging of her career and returned triumphantly to Pearl Harbor. But all during the ordeal, I kept hearing the parting words of the chap who left Trigger in my place: “You’ll be sorry you didn’t go, Ned—you’ll be sorry—you’ll be sorry.” The Japanese depth charges’ “click—WHAM—swish” said the same, and I kept thinking of Jack Eichmann.

Lt. McDonald and I put considerable thought into preparation of the service. We decided that a version of the committal service would be most appropriate, although we could find no reference or description of exactly what we wanted. Improvisation is the order of the day in submarines at sea anyway.

The services were announced at 1340, with directions that all hands not on watch assemble in the crew’s mess, the air-control center or the officer’s wardroom. At 1345 the services were broadcast throughout the ship, begun by the playing of Tattoo. This was followed by the National Anthem and a scripture reading from Psalm 107.

Following the scripture reading, a short prayer similar to the committal service was read, followed by reading of the tribute, which could hardly be called a eulogy but which was an attempt to put the significance of the occasion into words for our own better inspiration and understanding: The sacrifice made by the first Triton, and all the sacrifices by all the people lost in all the wars of our country, sanctify the service of those who follow in their footsteps.

Rendering of proper honors gave considerable occasion for thought, and it finally was decided that the only salute a submarine can fire is actually the most appropriate one anyway. Upon command, Triton’s course was changed to due south and the Officer of the Deck was directed to stop all engines. The entire ship’s company was then brought to attention, and all were directed to face forward. This was, of course, possible even at their regular watch stations. Then, with the entire crew silently at attention, the forward torpedo tubes were fired three times in rapid succession.

We could hear the resounding echo of the water-ram and feel the fluctuation of air pressure on our eardrums. Three times the harsh war-like note traveled through the ship; and as the last air fluctuation died away, the clear notes of Taps sounded in proud and thoughtful tribute.

The moment of reverence was a real one, truly caught. Everyone on board felt it; and though their response was by command, their personal participation sprang from deep within themselves and was given willingly.

When the memorial services were completed, we resumed our base course and speed. Next day, we were to pass between Guam and Rota islands in the Marianas.