Battlefield Korea

Opening Salvos

It was early October, and though the weather was starting to turn cold, the skies were relatively clear and the seas smooth. Rear Admiral James Lomas looked up to the sky and said a small thank you to the Big Man Upstairs for this little bit of good fortune as his naval task force began to steer towards North Korean waters.

Lomas took a deep breath. He was nervous but also anxious to start the action. Nearly 60 U.S. warships had started their trek into uncertainty, flanked by another 22 ROK ships. All told, the combined fleet was escorting nearly 70,000 U.S. and ROK Marines to carry out the largest amphibious assault since the last Korean War.

The Rear Admiral felt confident in his men and ships. He hoped that he was right, and this assault behind the North Korean lines would help lead to a quick defeat of the enemy. He felt some comfort as he remembered that despite being one of the largest armies in the world, the average North Korean soldier was underfed and under-equipped, which should play to their advantage.

When the DPRK launched their surprise invasion of South Korea in 1950, the US and South Korean Forces were caught completely by surprise. In a matter of months, the allied forces were pushed to the Sea of Japan, and it looked like certain defeat. Then, General Douglas McArthur (who was the overall commander of US Forces in the Pacific), launched Operation Chromite, storming the shores with 75,000 soldiers at Inchon, less than 30 miles from Seoul and deep behind enemy lines. By threatening the Communists rear area, the allied forces had forced them to withdraw or be completely cut off. This tremendous victory had saved the war from almost certain defeat. Now the Americans were hoping to pull a page from history and secure Pyongyang quickly, possibly ending the war before it could really get going.

As the ships moved slowly forward in the night, one of the biggest concerns Admiral Lomas had was the proximity to the Chinese mainland and the possibility of so many warships being near each other. If they wrongly identified a submarine or aircraft threat, it could easily lead to an accident. Submarines were their greatest fear; they had been tracking several Chinese subs for days, but now they also had to be leery of North Korean submarines.

Captain Yong-ju’s Sang-O (Shark) class submarine had sailed out to meet the American fleet almost a week ago, after being told that war with the Americans would start soon. His orders had been to move to their attack position and then wait until the appointed time. After days of waiting and mentally preparing themselves, they were now down to less than six hours before they would move to engage the Americans. For the past day, Captain Yong-ju’s crew had been tracking the American fleet as it began to change course and start to head towards them; it looked like they would not have to maneuver very far to get a shot off at the Americans… they were sailing right into the trap.

As the captain reviewed information in Control, the voice of one of the sonar operators suddenly came over his headset. “Captain, this is Conn. Submarine identified less than 5,000 yards from our position.”

“We’ve been sitting still in this position for more than a day, so it’s unlikely that we made any noise that should have given away our position,” thought Yong-ju. “Still… I can’t be certain.”

As the captain was calculating his response, the sonar operator suddenly yelled, “Sir! I just identified the sound of a torpedo door-it sounds like the submarine is getting ready to launch!”

Captain Yong-ju panicked. “It’s not time to launch our attack against the Americans, and now our submarine might be destroyed before we even get our chance.”

He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves. “No, I will not be sunk by some sort of sneak attack by the Americans,” he resolved. “The only submarines operating in this area are the Americans and the South Koreans…. I’m going to hit them before they hit us.”

“Fire at the enemy sub!” he ordered. “Then bring us up to full speed and take evasive maneuvers as soon as the torpedoes shoot!”

Captain Ma had just taken command of one of China’s quietest diesel submarines, the Wu Ling, a Type 039A Yuan-class attack submarine. His sub had been moving down the Yellow Sea, and was going to observe the coming battle between the DPRK and the American-backed ROK naval forces. There were rumors among the other naval officers that a war with the Americans may happen soon.

“I hope those are just rumors,” thought Ma. “The American navy is good, and despite our best efforts, I just don’t see our forces holding up against them.”

As they moved to their observation point (which was well outside the combat area and in international waters), he wanted to raise their communications buoy to make sure they did not have any additional orders since he set sail several days ago. They had one of the new communications buoys that the Russians had developed; Captain Ma hoped it would do as promised and allow his sub to be better able to communicate with the surface fleet while reducing the likelihood of being detected by the Americans.

As Ma overheard his communications officers talking with the enlisted men as they prepared the buoy, suddenly a series of events went wrong.

He heard a loud grating noise, and yelled, “What was that?”

One of the officers responded, “The outer door that protects the buoy scraped against something as it opened, Sir.”

The sound of rushing air suddenly gurgled in the waters. An enlisted man shouted, “The hose that was supposed to release the air into the buoy at a specific rate must have malfunctioned. This piece of trash is supposed to be silent!”

“Clearly, a function check was missed before we left the shipyard,” realized Captain Ma. “Now we are all paying for it by alerting nearly everyone in the area of our presence.”

Seething with anger, the captain ripped into his officers. “How did this happen?!” he demanded. “What if someone heard us? You numbskulls-your incompetence may have just put all of our lives at risk!”

A voice came from the sonar room, “Conn, Sonar. We have contact. Submarine less than 5,000 yards from our position.”

Everyone in the room froze in that second, unsure of whose submarine it was that just detected them.

The Captain grabbed the handset in a jerking motion. “I want a read out — whose submarine did we stumble onto?” he yelled.

Then, to their horror, the sonar room announced, “A torpedo has just been launched! I spot a second torpedo… the unknown submarine just moved to flank speed and appears to be dropping a noise maker behind them.”

They had precious little time to make their own decision on whether they should respond.

Captain Ma bellowed, “Are there any American submarines in the area?”

“Conn, Sonar. We have not identified any American subs, but that does not mean that there may not be one that slipped by us,” came the reply.

The Captain made a critical decision in that moment (one that might have been made differently from a more senior captain, but he had just been promoted and this was his first command). “I am not about to lose my sub on my maiden voyage as its commander,” he thought.

“Take us to flank speed,” he ordered. “and drop our own noise maker. Then turn hard to starboard, creating a knuckle in the water. Hopefully, we can confuse those incoming torpedoes.”

Turning to his weapons officer, he instructed, “Prepare one of our own torpedoes to fire.”

Seconds later, the sub lurched forward and then turned hard to starboard, just as they had trained a million times. It was a Russian strategy that had played out well in the Atlantic, and the Chinese Navy was not at all opposed to adopting a new strategy if it worked.

While still in the middle of their turn, they fired off one torpedo towards the other submarine, which was now running at flank speed and making an inordinate amount of noise for a submarine.

As they began to pick up speed and move deeper to get under the next thermal layer, their sonar finally identified the sub that shot at them. “Sir…” began the officer in disbelief, “it was a Sang-O (Shark) class North Korean submarine.”

Captain Ma was furious that an ally had launched a pair of torpedoes at him. He also felt foolish for launching his own torpedoes so quickly. “If I would have just waited a few more minutes, I would have known it was a North Korean sub and not one from the U.S. or ROK.”

The first North Korean torpedo went straight for the noise maker and detonated several thousand yards away, rattling everyone in the sub.

A very tense moment passed; the second DPRK torpedo seemed confused and began to head away from them, in the direction of the Americans. They had somehow escaped unscathed.

Their own torpedo, however, was a much more advanced model, with smarter targeting sonar and a processor to help it distinguish between distractions and the sounds of an actual sub; it blew right past the noise maker and locked onto the Sang-O sub. Once it had a solid lock, it began to increase in speed to close in for the kill.

Minutes later, the torpedoes rammed the Sang-O and exploded in spectacular fashion. The submarine crumpled under the pressure and began to sink to the bottom quickly.

Captain Ma turned his attention back to his officers. “What in the blazes happened? How did we not know that noisy, clunky diesel was sitting right there-and what in the world happened with that buoy?” he demanded of his officers.

The enlisted men tried to sink a little lower in their chairs to avoid the gaze of their irate captain. They had just survived a very close encounter and were still not 100 % out of danger yet. Their position had just been broadcasted to every submarine in the area, which is something no submariner ever wants to have happen.

One of the officers suddenly stepped forward and offered himself up. “Captain, I take full responsibility for this mistake. Prior to you taking command, when we took the ship out of the shipyard to test the upgrades, the communications buoy made this same noise. We spoke with the engineers about it during the test, and they said it would be corrected when we returned back to the shipyard.”

“A week later, the engineers told me the problem had been corrected and tested to make sure it worked. I did not insist on a second sea trial test before you arrived. I trusted them when they said it was corrected.” As he finished his explanation, he hung his head in defeat and humiliation. He was certain he would be shot when they returned to port, if they ever made it back.

Captain Ma was fuming. “I can’t believe that one my officers could be so reckless,” he moaned to himself. “Ugh — I should have made sure we used the buoy prior to this situation. If we had, we would have discovered the problem sooner.”

They had only been at sea for three days, so they had not had a need to use the buoy just yet. So far, they had been able to come to periscope depth and had relied on their main antenna.

“This whole deployment was rushed,” Ma complained to himself. “If the previous captain of this submarine hadn’t died unexpectedly of a heart attack, two days before the submarine was supposed to put to sea, I would have had the appropriate time to get to know the submarine and check on all the upgrades the sub had just received at the shipyard. I am paying the price for that now…”

Just as he was about to tear into his officers for this screw up, a voice over the speaker yelled, “Conn, Sonar. We have a new contact. It’s an American Virginia class attack submarine… Torpedo in the water! Torpedo in the water!”

“Left full rudder. Ahead full speed!” yelled the Captain as the sub driver began to turn the sub hard and took them to full power.

“Drop countermeasures and let’s create another knuckle,” he said, hoping the trick that had worked on the Korean submarine might also work on the American submarine.

Turning to his weapons officer, he ordered, “Fire off two torpedoes at the American submarine!”

“I am not about to let those Americans get away with shooting at my sub,” he thought. “Plus, I need to have them reacting to my torpedoes if we have any chance of evading theirs.”

There were now four torpedoes in the water and numerous noise makers. It was unclear if either submarine would be able to escape, but both captains and crews were giving it their best effort. One of the American torpedoes hit the Chinese noise maker in the knuckle and exploded. The second torpedo blew through the explosion and continued to hunt for them.

As Captain Ma’s submarine began to rise now to further throw off the torpedo that was still tracking them down, they heard the unmistakable sound of a new third torpedo.

“Where did that come from?!” yelled the captain to anyone who could give him an answer.

“It was probably dropped from a helicopter,” one of the officers responded nervously, a bit of fear in his voice.

This new smaller torpedo began to speed below three hundred feet at an alarming rate. It immediately triggered its active sonar and went to full speed towards them.

In that moment, Captain Ma knew that they were not going to be able to get away. This third torpedo had been dropped too close to their position and they had been rising, not diving, when it landed in the water.

“At this point, my only hope is to get this submarine to the surface so that I can give my crew the best possible chance to escape and live,” he realized.

Turning to the submarine driver, Ma yelled, “Blow the ballast tanks and surface!”

Then he directed his communications officer, “Send a FLASH message to fleet headquarters. Let them know we’ve been fired at by an American sub and we are not going to make it.”

As their submarine began to climb towards the surface, the American torpedo slammed into the forward section of the sub. The whole vessel was rocked by the explosion, and water began to push its way into the confined space of the sub.

Still safely breathing air in Control, Captain Ma began receiving reports of the damage. “Sir, there is flooding in the forward compartments, and it is moving towards us!” one officer yelled.

“The ballast systems are beginning to fail!” yelled another.

“How far are we from the surface?” Ma shouted.

“Less than a hundred feet now,” came the response.

“We have to get to the surface,” the captain thought. “That’s all that matters. I have to save as many of my crew members as possible.”

The submarine broke through to the surface and began to level out immediately. Unfortunately, the sub almost immediately began slowly tipping back down into the waves because of the gash in the hull.

“Abandon ship!” the captain bellowed. “Get to the life rafts!”

The crew had less than three minutes to push and shove their way out of the escape hatches before the remaining American torpedo hit them. When it impacted, it nearly split the submarine in half. It took less than sixty seconds for the sub to slip below the water, this time for the last time.

Of the one hundred and nine crew members, only eighteen escaped before the sub slipped beneath the waves for the final time. An American helicopter began to hover over the remaining survivors, quickly joined by a second helicopter. They threw down a number of life preservers to the survivors while an American destroyer began to head towards them to pick them up as prisoners of war.

Captain Michael Richards of the USS Carl Vinson breathed a sigh of relief when one of the helicopters reported that their torpedo had hit the enemy submarine. It had been a chaotic 34 minutes. Their anti-submarine warfare screen had been tracking a North Korean diesel submarine for some time, when out of nowhere a new sub was identified and the two of them started shooting at each other.

Suddenly, the calm waters of the Yellow Sea had multiple torpedoes racing through it. At first, they were not sure if the attack was being directed at them. Then, the ROK navy informed them that they had a submarine operating in the area and it could have been one of theirs that was under attack.

It was a confusing moment. “We thought that the first sub we were tracking was from North Korea,” thought Captain Richards. “Could we have been wrong?”

Then, one of the torpedoes headed towards one of the American attack submarines, which fired in retaliation. The fight was on.

At that moment, Richards realized, “It doesn’t matter who fired at who first anymore. All that matters is that American sailors are now in harm’s way. The fleet has to defend itself.”

Admiral Lomas ordered several helicopters to assist the American submarine and neutralize the underwater threats.

The war with North Korea had officially started. Perhaps the Chinese were trying to move into position and they had jumped the gun. In either case, they were about to pay the price for it.

Admiral Lomas turned to Captain Richards, “Order the fleet to begin engaging the North Korean fleet now. We need to sink the rest of their ships before they launch their own attacks.”

Lomas then turned to face his Commander Air Group (CAG) and issued his next set of orders. “I want your aircraft to start hitting their targets and keep an eye out for the Chinese; I think they may try to jump the fleet now that hostilities have officially started,” he said, hoping the fleet was not sailing into some sort of trap.

He turned to look at his weapons officer and directed, “Send the signal to the rest of the fleet to start launching their Tomahawk missiles.”

“We need to start hammering the landing zones and the known enemy positions before the Marines begin their assault from the sea,” thought Lomas. “The seaborne assault isn’t scheduled to take place for another day, but we need to start buttering them up now.”