Run Silent, Run Deep

7

Our first night out gave us fair warning that this trip would not be a repetition of our voyage from Balboa to Pearl.

I had just written the night orders and had gone below for a couple of hours' sleep, after which I would relieve Jim of the 'on-call duty,' is we termed our agreement to alternate wakefulness. On my bunk fully clothed, not having even bothered to remove my shoes, I could feel my- self slipping rapidly into slumber when there came a faraway call.

"Captain to the bridge!" I jerked into alertness, still not sure I had heard it. Running footsteps came from the control room and Lobo Smith, standing messenger watch, thrust his disheveled head past the curtain which I had drawn across the entrance to my room.

"Captain, wake up!" he shouted. "Captain to the bridge!"

"I jumped out of my bunk, thrust past Smith, dashed down the passageway into the control room, up the ladder, and was on the bridge within seconds.

"What is it?"

Jim was already there, standing beside Hugh Adams.

"There's a ship out there, Captain," Hugh said, pointing to our port beam.

It was a sticky, black night. I could barely see Jim and Hugh's shadowy forms. My binoculars revealed nothing.

"What kind of a ship, Hugh?"

"Can't tell, sir, low to the water-fairly small, I think, not too far away!"

"I saw him too for a minute, sir," said Jim. "That's about right, I think."

"Could you tell which way he was going?" I asked.

"No, sir," both answered at once. "Looked like nearly broad- side to," Jim added.

I leaned toward the hatch. "Conning tower," I called, "tell Mr. Freeman to come to the foot of the hatch."

"I don't remember anything in our Operation Order about any friendly ships in this area," I muttered. "We were sup- posed to be informed."

"Do you think it might be a Jap?" Jim broke in.

"No telling." I picked up my binoculars, searched the port beam again. There was nothing to be seen.

"Hugh, has the SJ radar picked him up?"

"No, sir," Adams answered. "I had it searching over there but no luck."

"Radar's either not working or he's too far away," I mused, still trying to see the other ship.

"Can you still see him?" I asked.

"Not right now," Jim began.

"There he is," Hugh broke in. "Broad on the beam!"

Well, there's no point in giving him our broadside to look at. Put our stern to him, Hugh," I ordered.

Walrus swung steadily to the right until our stern was pointed in the direction of the other ship.

Dave Freeman was at the foot of the hatch to the conning tower. "Did you want me, sir?'

"Yes, Dave. Break out our Operation Order and also go through your latest dispatches. See ff there is anything m there about a friendly ship northwest of Oahu. We are a little more than a hundred miles away, I guess. If you don't find anything, draft a message to ComSubPac saying that we have contacted an unidentified ship gut here. Get Rubinoffski to give you our position coordinates."

"Aye, aye, sir!" He disappeared.

My eyes were getting slightly more accustomed to the dark- ness and I could see the horizon. Jim and Hugh on the bridge were more distinct now, but still I could not see the other ship.

Jim spoke. "Skipper, maybe we are running away from him.

If it's a Jap, it would be a sub wouldn't it? Couldn't it be one still on patrol after the Battle of Midway?"

"Could be," I said. "It would be a pretty long patrol though." Then to Adams: "Hugh, cut in the other two engines, and slow down to one-third speed. We don't want to get too far away from him, but I want all the engines ready."

Adams leaned toward the conning tower hatch without responding.

"Answer bells on four main engines," he ordered. "All ahead one third."

We had been proceeding on only two engines, the other two lying idle. Within seconds of Hugh's command there came a sound of machinery revolving as air was admitted to turn over one of the engines, then a klunk as the hydraulically operated exhaust valve was opened. The triumphant belch of our third diesel engine added its note to those of the other two. A second later the process was repeated, and four engines settled down to a quiet idling rumble.

About this time I caught my first glimpse of the other vessel.

A low-lying ship, broadside to us, barely distinguishable against the horizon and perhaps half as far away, three miles.

"He hasn't seen us, sir," Jim muttered. "He'd have turned one way or the other."

This seemed plausible.

"I'll bet this is a Jap submarine. He'd sure be a feather in our cap, wouldn't he, skipper!"

"He would be, if he turned out to be a Jap," I said. "If only we could be sure."

Hugh picked up the ship's blinker tube which was part of our night bridge equipment, peered over Jim's shoulder to read the chalked recognition signal marked on the black surface of the bridge windshield "T V U," he said. "Shall I make it, Captain?"

Hugh aimed the blinker tube at the other ship.

"God, no!" Jim almost shouted, "If it's a Jap that will alert him!"

"That's right, Hugh," I said. "We should not try the recognition signal on him unless ready to shoot torpedoes instantly if he doesn't come back with the right answer. That's the way to handle it."

"I didn't think of that," Hugh mumbled sheepishly, as he carefully put the blinker tube down again.

The outline of the other ship was becoming less distinct.

I was about to make mention of the fact when Jim spoke again.

"Looks to me that we are farther away than before, Captain."

I agreed. "Hugh, turn around and head for him. Use a little speed to get around and then slow down again."

Walrus was swinging to the left as Dave Freeman spoke up from the hatch below.

"Captain," he called. I came forward, bent over attentively.

"What did you find out?"

"Nothing, Sir. There isn't supposed to be any ship anywhere around here except us, and there's nothing in the skeds about one. I made up a message." He read from a paper in his hand, aiming a tiny red flashlight beam at it.

"URGENT FOR COMSUBPAC X, SMALL VESSEL SIGHTED NORTHWEST OAHU ONE THREE ZERO MILES X, COURSE THREE ZERO ZERO X, SPEED ONE TWO."

"How did you dope that out?"

"Rubinoffski said it would be a good guess, about the same as ours was.

That seemed reasonable. "Go on," I said.

"REQUEST CONFIRMATION NO FRIENDLY VESSELS THIS VICINITY X WALRUS SENDS X URGENT. FOR COMSUBPAC X."

"Good. How long will it take you to code that and send it out?"

"I woke up Keith to help, Captain. He's setting up the code now. We'll have it ready in about fifteen minutes and maybe have it off in fifteen minutes after that."

"That's a long time to wait, Dave. Do it as fast as you can."

Freeman dashed below. I stood up, again scanning the sea and horizon dead ahead. The indistinct outline of the other ship was a little closer now, still broadside, without any sip of having detected us.

"Jim," I said, "this may well be a Jap sub. We'll track it until we get an answer to our message. Then if it is, we'll go in and shoot him!"

"Why not get closer and see? If it is a Jap we can let him have it right away."

"We can't take a chance on its being friendly, Jim. If it's one of our own, a PC boat for instance, he might open fire on us."

Jim was not convinced. I had never seen him like this. The anticipation of combat had made a different person of him. He was all eagerness: "We've got the, drop on him. We can go in," he began, but I shook my head, and his face fell. He swallowed his disappointment with a strange look, quickly masked.

"Aye aye, sir. Do you want to go to battle stations now?"

It seemed a bit premature, but it was best to be safe.

"Yes," I said. "We had better."

The possibility of combat had started a nervous tingling in my backbone, too.

"I'll have to go below to sound the general alarm, sir. Shall I stay at my station in the, conning tower?"

"Yes, Jim, go ahead. I've got the picture up here."

Jim departed and in seconds the sound of the general alarm could be heard. This was the first time it had been sounded in earnest and the response in Walrus was electric. Within thirty seconds Jim's voice rang out on the ship's announcing system.

"The ship is at battle stations, Captain," he said. The blast of his voice on the bridge loud-speaker startled me. I was al- most afraid it would reach across the intervening two or three miles of water and alert the enemy, if such indeed he was.

By this time the other ship had drawn a little to the right.

We changed our course to the right accordingly. In a few minutes there came a call from the conning tower: "Radar contact, hearing three-five-zero."

"Range?" I called down the hatch.

"Three-five-double-oh," came the prompt answer." A small pip, sir."

"Jim," I called, "start tracking the target!"

The SJ radar was mounted at the top of a shaft secure to the forward part of the periscope supports, extending down into the upper part of the conning tower. It was thus right be- hind the Officer of the Deck's normal station, and it was possible to tell something about how the radar was working merely by reaching behind or leaning back against it. It had almost become instinctive to put my hand on it, when a bearing and range were being-taken, to satisfy myself that Jim in the conning tower was indeed getting the information needed for co- ordination of the approach party. It was apparent that he was.

In a few minutes Jim called up from below.

"Target course two-nine-zero. Speed ten. Recommend our course two-seven-zero, speed — fifteen, to close in."

"We can't close until we get the answer to our message, Jim.

Give me a course and speed just to stay in contact."

"Two-nine-zero. Speed ten!" There was a note of harshness in his voice, the barest suggestion of disaffection, as though his mask had slipped for an instant and been immediately replaced. Something I couldn't fathom had shown through.

The nights off Hawaii are beautiful. It rains frequently, but between the rains one has clear, star-studded skies and friendly seas. This was such a night. It was warm, humid, and dark, and Walrus rolled easily in the long ocean swells. As we in- creased speed our bow dipped into the successive seas and we felt a slight breeze on our faces. Back aft four clouds of vapor drifted gently away in the breeze and spatterings of water from the exhaust fell on the dock. Such a night was more fit for cruising in a sailboat or dancing on the deck of an ocean liner than for sudden death. I was struck by the similarity-in reverse-with the situation the German had caught us in, halfway from New London to the Panama Canal. Except that he knew beyond question we were an enemy, while here we were not so sure.

The two vessels, pursuer and pursued, ran steadily to the northwest. We, waiting for the all-important answer from Pearl Harbor; they unconscious of their danger. Finally, after nearly an hour, it came. Dave read it to me from the conning tower.

"URGENT FOR WALRUS X, NO FRIENDLY VESSELS YOUR VICINITY X, TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION X, COMSUBPAC SENDS X."

Now that the moment for attack had come I felt myself a little weak in the knees as I gave the necessary orders.

"All ahead full! Come left to two-six-zero! Stand by forward!"

The song of our engines back aft lifted in frequency. Their power roar came clearly to our cars. The breeze of our passage, increasing in intensity, began plucking at our hair, searching the gaps in our shirts. It felt wet and clammy. I was sweating, and an alien unwelcome thought had intruded: Could there be a rebuke, implied or intended, in the message from Com- SubPac?

Walrus swung to the left, steadied on the new course, and the enemy vessel began to grow rapidly larger. I placed my binoculars into the bracket on top of the Target Bearing Transmitter, or TBT, a waterproof instrument by which target bearings could be transmitted to the TDC in the conning- tower.

"Stand by forward," I repeated. Late or not, if we sank the enemy sub-for such it must be-any disapproval of our cautious attitude up to this point. would be forgotten.

Back came Jim's voice: "Standing by forward, Sir. Outer doors are open!"

"we will shoot a salvo of three," I said into the speaker at my side. "What's the range now?"

"Range two-five-double-oh!… Torpedo run three thousand!"

It was then that I realized we had made a serious error. In our anxiety to determine whether this was an enemy ship, and avoid being detected in the meantime, we had neglected to get into a proper firing position. One of the very first rules of submarine approaches, a cardinal principle, something I had known, had had drilled into me for years. When being approached from astern, the target's speed lengthens the distance a torpedo has to travel, and the submarine must consequently fire from closer range than it might otherwise choose.

Likewise, a longer-than-usual range is possible if the torpedo is fired from well forward of the target's beam, but it is harder to hit by consequence of the sharp angle. The best position, considering the angle of hitting with the torpedo, or "torpedo track angle," is such that the torpedo intersects the target at ninety degrees. In the situation Walrus was in, to get a decent torpedo run of approximately fifteen hundred yards we would have to shoot from a range of about one thousand yards, and the torpedo track angle would be obtuse, in from astern after a stern chase, the least desirable situation of all.

My mind went through the calculations again. Barring a radical course change to the right, hardly to be expected, there was no hope for improving our firing position. If we turned away now for another attempt a little later, we would only expose our broadside to the enemy and almost certainly cause him to see us. No; we had already cast the die. Poorly situated though we were, we had to go through with the attack on the lines already begun. We were essentially bows on to him, too close to turn, so close that our detection sooner or later was a certainty. AR we could do was to shoot soon enough, get our torpedoes on their way before the Jap lookouts spotted the tell- tale, bow wave and bows-on silhouette on their starboard quarter.

"What's the range now?"

"Two-two-double-oh. Torpedo run two-five-double-oh."

Perhaps we could compromise a little, shoot from fifteen hundred yards and accept a torpedo run of two thousand. This would be better than getting so close, one thousand yards, as to be in danger of being spotted.

Another minute. "Range!" I called.

"Two-oh-double-oh," came the answer.

I had been watching the other ship through my binoculars.

She was a submarine all right, with that ungainly, broken silhouette which could only spell Japanese. Jim had been right from the beginning. We need not have waited for a reply td our message. Had we only approached close enough we could have identified her by sight. No other ship, but a Jap sub of the, large ocean-cruiser I-class would look like this. She was a big ship, bigger than the Walrus, and not nearly so trim. I was about to ask for another range, it would have been the last one-when I realized she must have seen us. We were already abaft her beam, but even as I watched, her length shortened still further. I found myself looking at her stern.

"We're all ready below, Captain," from Jim. "Shoot any time, sir!"

Heavy with disappointment, I had to give him the answer.

"Don't shoot, Jim. Belay everything. Angle on the bow is now one-eight-zero."

The enemy submarine was harder to see, end on, just the silhouetted cut-up shape of her conning tower and bridge structure as she mounted the succeeding seas ahead, its reduction almost out of sight as she pitched into the hollows- and then I was looking only at the ocean. The gray-black silhouette had not remounted the next slow swell.

Hugh Adams noticed it a moment later. "He's gone, Captain! He must have dived!"

"That's right, Hugh," I said, still looking. Walrus ran on nearly half a minute before I caught on, and my hair lifted along the back of my neck. "Right full rudder!" I shouted into the conning tower. "All ahead flank!"'

The rudder went over to full right, the diesels roared as the annunciators went all the way up against the stops, and our stern commenced to scud across the undulating Pacific swells.

Walrus heeled to port, driving the port-side engine mufflers under water. They spluttered and splashed, threw a shower of spray into the air.

"What's the matter, Captain?" asked Hugh Adams.

Furious at the trap, I snarled back at him. "Why do you think he dived? He's ready for us now. He hopes we'll keep coming."

Adams stared, wide-eyed. "You mean…"

"Precisely!" I spat the word out. "He's looking at us this very minute. He's probably turned around and headed our way. We were almost close enough to shoot, remember, and so is he." I felt myself trembling with the reaction. From being the pursuer we had suddenly been converted into the pursued, and I had blundered right into it. If only we had carried out Jim's original impulse, gotten close enough to attack immediately, we might have carried off a quick surprise.

Now, only failure! The Jap had been more alert than we.

He had seen us soon enough, at sufficiently long range, turned immediately and dived, thus instantly taking the initiative right out of our hands.

We steadied Walrus on course northeast, almost directly away from where our attack had gone awry, ran on a good hour before daring to turn again toward the west. I felt sick at heart. It had been my first view of the enemy, and our first brush was hardly a drawn battle.

And, of course, there was the question of what to tell Com- SubPac.

Three days later we entered Midway Lagoon. We fueled ship, topping off our fuel tanks once more after the twelve- hundred-mile trip from Pearl Harbor, and we delivered. an even dozen sacks of mail to the eager Midway population.

When we departed that same day I had also made my first acquaintance with the large, foolish-looking "gooney bird' for which Midway had already become well known. The Lay- san albatross, as the gooney bird is ornithologically called, is a most graceful lovely bird at sea or in the air, but on land it is an ungainly, clumsy creature, the butt of jokes and the product of ninety per cent of the entertainment on Midway. This was the albatross which the Ancient Mariner had shot, I reflected, but it wasn't until we had left Midway over the horizon and one of them came gliding effortlessly in the ocean breezes, swooping and spiraling above us, circling ahead and astern, all without the slightest movement of its wings, that I could really understand the reverence in which the mariners of the old days held them.

Now began Walrus' first war patrol in earnest. It would take us twelve more days to reach Japan according to Jim's calculations, based upon running most of the distance upon the surface and spending the last few days en route submerged during daylight. We had approximately sixty full days at sea, two months to look forward to.

We passed through the Nanpo Shoto submerged on the ninth day, within sight of Sofu Gan, or Lot's Wife-a desolate rock rising straight out of the sea-and at approximately noon of the twelfth day the hazy outline of the coast of Kyushu could be seen dead ahead through the periscope, bearing due west.

We had yet to see an enemy plane, ship, or other kind of enemy activity since the submarine off Oahu. Somehow, I think, we had expected to find AREA SEVEN teeming with ships, crisscrossing, going in all directions, but such was not the case.

By the time the evening twilight had drawn to a close and it was nearly time to surface for the night, the coast of Japan was plainly in sight, low-lying on the western horizon. I had already come to the conclusion that the Japanese were aware of the possibility of American submarines off their coast, and were holding-their ships in port.

We began to make preparation for surfacing. We would not, of course, come up until it was dark enough to do so with minimum danger of being seen by any Japanese aviator fisher- man, or other craft which might happen to be in the vicinity.

At the same time, the sooner we came up the better horizon would there be for Jim to get his evening star sights. It was important to have our position accurate, after having been un- able to, navigate for fifteen hours or so, and it was also impor- tant to get our battery charge started as soon as possible in case it would be needed later. And finally, during a long day submerged, a crew of seventy men and six officers-seventy-six human machines breathing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide could greatly reduce the livability of the atmosphere inside the ship. True, we carried carbon dioxide absorbent, hermetically sealed in shiny, metal canisters, and we carried oxygen in bottles for air revitalization, but these were needed for emergencies.

The resolution of the conflicting requirements was to juggle the various pros and cons and to surface as soon as possible, Today, our first day within, sight of the Japanese coast, we waited a few minutes longer before surfacing, and when — we, finally started up nothing more could be seen through the periscope. I had donned red goggles twenty minutes before and was standing underneath the hatch leading to the bridge as I told Rubinoffski to sound three blasts on the diving alarm.

The third blast of the klaxon horn had not yet died away when I felt the jolt of high-pressure. air blasting into our ballast tanks, blowing water out. Walrus gave a convulsive shudder, inclined upward by the bow, and in a few moments we could hear the splashing and gurgling of water draining off the bridge.

Keith Leone was handling the surfacing procedure from the control room and now he commenced to shout depths up to me. "Four-oh feet,"-he sang out. "Three-five feet, three-oh feet."

"Crack the hatch," I said to Rubinoffski.

The Quartermaster leaped two steps up the bridge ladder, rapidly undogged the hatch hand wheel. Air commenced to blow out through the slightly open hatch rim and a few drops of water splattered in.

"Pressure one-half inch," came up from Keith, This meant that our barometer indicated one-half inch more pressure inside the ship than had been the case on diving. Barring great atmospheric fluctuation "topside," this would be approximately the pressure differential existing now.

"Two-six feet, sir. Holding steady," from Keith again.

"Open the hatch." I was right behind Rubinoffski as he completed undogging the hatch and snapped open the safety latch. The heavy bronze hatch cover, counterbalanced by a large coil spring, flung itself open with a huge rush of air as Rubinoffski released the latch, banging the side of the bridge and latching itself open with a loud bell-like thud. The two of us, carrying binoculars, were on the bridge less than a second later. By prearrangement Rubinoffski ran aft to survey the after one hundred and eighty degrees sector, while I concentrated on the forward half of the ocean.

Slowly, intently, I scanned the horizon; then the water between us and the rapidly fading demarcation between sea and sky; then the sky above, where a few stars glittered stonily from between the clouds. I heard Rubinoffski report, "All clear aft."

"All clear forward," I muttered, half to myself, then raising my voice, "Open the main induction; lookouts to the bridge. Start the low-pressure blow." The main-induction valve, just below the cigarette deck, opened with a thump.

Four lookouts, all previously prepared with adequate clothing to stand watch up in the wind-and-rain-swept periscope shears, and having become at least partially night adapted by wearing red goggles for some time beforehand, came dashing up on the bridge and took their places. Immediately behind them came Keith, similarly attired, and then Oregon, who, as Quartermaster of the Watch, went back aft to relieve Rubinoffski.

"Ready to relieve you, Captain," said Keith after a few minutes, making a hand motion that might have passed for a salute.

I gave him the customary turnover: course, speed, and the various other details of the watch. As I did so an, almost human screech came from below decks. One would have said that a wild animal was being tortured and was in mortal pain; its cry of agony, an undulating, wavering, high-pitched scream, piercing through the bowels of the ship. "There goes the turbo blow," I said. "Run it for five minutes. That will be plenty."

Walrus rode sluggishly on the nearly smooth sea. Her decks were almost awash and little ripples of water splashed in her superstructure above her pressure hull. Now as the turbo blow commenced to force large quantities of air into the ballast tanks, at just sufficient pressure to expel the water, thus saving our precious high-pressure air, Walrus slowly began to lift herself to a more seaworthy altitude. To bring the ship to the fully surfaced condition would require approximately fifteen minutes. Five minutes would get her high enough for the slow patrolling we proposed.

"Permission to come on the bridge." This was Jim. Keith had not yet relieved me so I still had the deck.

"Come on up," I said. Jim moved aft to our bulwarkless cigarette deck, joined Rubinoffski in whispered consultation.

The latter pointed skyward in several directions, and in a moment Jim was shooting the stars with the sextant he had brought with him.

"Permission to start a battery charge." This was relayed up the conning tower hatch by the messenger stationed there.

"Permission granted," I called back. This also was part of our surfacing routine. A main engine snorted and then another, and I could hear them loaded down as the life-giving amperes began to be forced back from their generators into our battery.

"Permission to dump garbage?"

"Granted," I said again. Up came Russo and two mess cooks, lugging three large gunny sacks containing the days accumulation of trash and garbage, each one of them weighted with crushed tin cans, broken or discarded tools, even a stone or two from the supply Russo had brought aboard. The sacks were unceremoniously pitched over into the water, floated aft as they slowly became waterlogged.

"Well proceed in toward the coast at slow speed, Keith," I said, "until Jim gets his fix. Be alert for aircraft or Jap vessels."

Keith nodded. "I relieve you, sir," he said. I moved back to the after part of the cigarette deck, leaned thoughtfully against the wire cable which had replaced our bulwarks. We had achieved our destination. We had come over eight thou- sand miles to war and a few miles ahead of us lay one of the main islands of Japan, southernmost Kyushu.

Kyushu is separated from the islands to the north and east, Honshu and Shikoku, by the Japanese Inland Sea. From the Pacific side there are two entrances to this confined body of water: the Bungo Suido between Kyushu and Shikoku and the Kii Suido between Shikoku and Honshu. Since the earliest times Japan's Inland Sea has been one of the island empire's main traffic arteries between the home islands and, of course, during the war it constituted a huge sheltered harbor in which their whole battle fleet could hold maneuvers if desired.

AREA SEVEN included the eastern coast of Kyushu, beginning with the Bungo Suido on the north and extending down, almost to the southern tip of the island. Our instructions were to examine the area; determine what, if anything, were the Japanese traffic patterns; estimate how often the Bungo Suido was used, whether naval units were in the habit of using that entrance. And our mission was also to sink any and all Japanese vessels we might encounter, and avoid being detected, attacked, or sunk ourselves.

We were still headed west. Up ahead, no longer in sight, was Kyushu. I stared unseeingly in that direction, then took my binoculars and made a slow sweep all the way around the horizon. It felt good to be topside, to draw in clean, whole- some air instead of the torpid atmosphere we had been breathing. My greedy senses drank in the freedom of the ocean.

There was a musty tinge to the air, an odor of wet, burned sandalwood, of unwashed foreign bodies. A seaman, near shore, can always smell the shore-it is the smell landsmen identify as the "smell of the sea." But it is not noticeable at sea, only close to shore, and it pervaded my consciousness this night. All night long we cruised, aimlessly about, seeing nothing, never losing the smell of Japan. By morning we had approached close enough to Kyushu to take up a patrol station about ten miles offshore where we hoped some unwary vessel might blunder into our path, and where the first of a series of observation posts on the Bungo Suido could logically be set up.

Jim and I had studied the chart. Inshore lay a bank of mod- erately shallow water, hardly deep enough to shelter us in the event of a counterattack. Jim had argued for going in closer, saying that coastwise Japanese shipping would rim in as shallow water as possible. I demurred, pointing out that we had the dual responsibility of watching the Bungo as well, and that we could always go closer inshore after a merchant vessel if necessary. The spot we finally selected was intended to satisfy both objectives, though Jim never did express final satisfaction.

We were finishing an austere lunch when the control room messenger appeared. "Captain," he said, "you're wanted in the conning tower. Mr. Adams says there's smoke." I dashed down the passageway, hearing the last words of his hastily muttered message over my shoulder as I ran. In a moment Hugh turned over the periscope to me. Sure enough, a thin column of smoke could be seen close inshore northwestward.

I watched it carefully to see which way it was going, finally accepted the fact that it was heading away. The smoke gradually became less distinct, faded out in the distance.

Twice more we sighted smoke that day, once more to the northwest and once to the southwest. In all three cases the ships were going away, not toward; and it would have been fruitless to have pursued them.

"Do you think they are slipping by us close inshore?" Jim asked me. I shrugged. There was no way of telling. "Maybe if we went in closer, close enough to see the coast distinctly.

"Too shallow," I said, but the eagerness I had noted during, the fruitless attempt on the Jap submarine was now dancing in Jim's eyes, showing through the considered awareness I had become accustomed to.

"Look, skipper, why don't we go in here?" He indicated a spot on the coast where the extent of shallow water was much less than elsewhere. "They couldn't get by without our seeing them if we went in here."

To fall in with his suggestion would have meant giving up our watch position on the Bungo Suido. The position we had chosen permitted us to cover one segment of the probable traffic lines from there. Several days in this position and several days in each of three others would, we had figured, give us some idea of traffic patterns.

"Jim, we've, only been here one day. Keep your shirt on," I said in small exasperation. "We've got twenty-nine days more in the area." But Jim persisted, pointing out eagerly the con- figuration of the coastline and the depths of water here and there to bolster his argument. On our area chart he had drawn the approximate location of the three ships we had sighted.

"Look, Captain," he said, "we already know they are going here," indicating with his finger. "We know they are running close, inshore. Our main mission is to sink them. After we knock off a couple." We might have argued longer had not the musical notes of the general alarm interrupted us.

Startled, I jerked up, caught Jim's eye and then with one move we raced to the conning tower.

"Bong bong bong bong bong," the doorbell chimes were still pealing out as, breathlessly, I confronted Dave Freeman.

Already the reduction of oxygen was becoming noticeable.

"A ship, sir, coming this way, a big ship." The periscope was down, evidently having just been lowered. I grasped the pickle, squeezed it as Dave spoke, started it up again. In a moment I was looking through it. There in the distance, exact- ly like our practice approaches in New London, were the masts, stack, and bridge structure of a large vessel. I could hear the warming-up notes of the TDC. Keith was ready for business.

"Bearing-Mark!" Down periscope!"

"Three-two-eight," read Dave from the azimuth ring.

Keith furiously spun one of the handles. "Angle on the bow?"

"Starboard ten."

"Estimated range?" I had not tried to get a range."

The ship was still well hull down, only her upper works showing. "Give it fifteen thousand yards," I said.

Jim had extracted the Is-Was from its stowage, was rotating the dials. Rubinoffski, garbed in his underwear with hastily thrown-on shoes and carrying his trousers, came clat- tering up the ladder. Off watch, he had been caught in his bunk by the call to quarters. Freeman relinquished the pickle to him, dashed below, bound for his own station. The Quarter- master hastily thrust his bony legs into his dungarees, managed to get them hooked at the top in time to grasp the periscope control button and raise it at my order. I spun the periscope around quickly, lowered it. "Nothing else in sight," I said, motioning for it to come up again. Another look, this time carefully at the sky. Clear, a few clouds, not much cover for aircraft, no airplanes in sight. Down went the periscope again.

I looked around, looked at Jim. He nodded briefly.

"Conning tower manned, sir." Quin was hastening on his headset, nodded also. The periscope started up with my thumb motion.

"Observation," I snapped "Ship is at battle stations, rapidly called out Quin.

I rose with the periscope. "Bearing-Mark!"

"Three-three-nine and a half!"

"Use forty feet. Range-Mark!"

Rubinoffski fumbled with the range dial lining up the pointers.

"One-four-oh-double-oh!" The scope dropped away.

"Angle on the how still the same. Starboard ten." Keith was spinning his TDC cranks with both hands.

"Any other ships in sight, Captain?" This was Jim. "No," I said, "no escorts."

"I have the dive, Captain, depth sixty feet." Tom had climbed up two or three rungs of the ladder to the control room, had his head at the deck level.

"Very well." I turned to Keith. "What's the course to close the track with about a thirty-degree angle?" Keith looked at his dials for a moment. "We're on it now, sir. Recommend no change. What kind of a ship is it, Captain?"

Jim had finished orienting the Is-Was, now crowded between Hugh Adams at the plotting table and Keith at the TDC. He looked at me with that same look of anticipated pleasure, that eagerness for combat that I had recently noticed.

"Can't tell yet. Buff superstructure, black stack, two masts. Some kind of a cargo vessel."

"Is he smoking?"

"No-no smoke at all."

"New ship then, Anyway, in good shape."

I nodded.

Up forward of the periscope hoist motors was the under- water sound receiver and control equipment for the sound heads under our bow. I leaned over alongside the earphoned sonar operator. His pointer was going around steadily and slowly. He shook his head at my inquiring glance'. I indicated the area on our starboard bow as the place for him to concentrate on, stepped back to the periscope, motioned with my thumbs.

"Zig to his right," I called. The angle on the bow, had changed, was now port twenty degrees, and I could see more of the enemy ship, a large new-type freighter. As I turned the periscope something, else caught my eye-a discontinuity in the horizon-another mast. It would indeed have been highly improbable that a large, valuable freighter should be coming out of port unescorted. I looked closely on the other side, then back again. There were two small masts, one on either side, both apparently abeam or a little distance astern. This would not be as easy an approach as I had for a short time been hoping. "He has two escorts, Jim,' I said.

"What kind?"

"Can't tell yet. They're a lot smaller and I can't see them.

Quin was watching me. He picked up the telephone mouthpiece, spoke into it briefly. I could visualize everyone in the ship getting the word: 'The skipper sees two destroyers up there!"

"Jim," I said, "have the ship rigged for depth charge.

Shortly before we fire we will go to silent running also."

"Right," said Jim, as he squeezed by me to relay the necessary instructions to Quin.

Several observations later the situation had developed more clearly. Our target was a single large merchantman with cargo hatches forward and aft and four large goal-post type derricks. She had a single low, fat stack rising out of an amid- ships deckhouse evidently fitted for passenger accommodations.

The ship had obviously come out of Bungo Suido and was headed south, perhaps bound for Guam or Saipan, making respectable speed and escorted by three old type destroyers.

One escort rode on either beam of the target and the third one, which I had not seen until some time later, was following astern.

I could feel Walrus tense up as the target drew steadily near her. He was zigzagging, presenting first one side and then the other. We were right on his base course and had only to maneuver for a shot as he went by. I could feel myself tense up as well as the crucial moment approached.

We closed off the ventilation system, the air-conditioning machinery, and all other equipment not absolutely essential to the progress of the business at hand. The sweat spurted out of my pores, ran saltily down my cheeks and into the comers of my mouth. I ran my hands ceaselessly through my moist hair, wiped them off on my trousers. Hugh Adams was bothered by sweat dropping off the end of his nose onto his carefully laid-out plot.

Through the periscope I could see the whole ship now, even her red waterline heaving in and out of the sea. I had directed Tom to run several feet deeper to reduce the amount of periscope exposed, leaving me just enough height to make observations between passing waves. The range had closed to about two miles when the target made another zig.

"Angle on the bow-starboard thirty-five," I sang out, as the periscope descended. "Keith, what's the distance to the track?"

"Two thousand yards, Captain."

"Torpedo run?"

"Two-seven-double-oh." Jim, detailed to the angle solver on firing, relayed this one for me.

"Are we ready to shoot, Jim?" Jim glanced upward at his check-off list. My eyes followed his. Every item on it but one — had been neatly checked off in grease pencil. "We're ready to shoot, Captain, except that outer doors are still closed."

According to the Pearl Harbor submarine base our torpedoes were prone to flood if left exposed in the torpedo tubes with the outer doors open for too long a period. It was advisable not to open them until just before firing.

I turned to Quin. "Open the outer doors forward."

"Open the outer doors forward," he echoed into his tele- phone transmitter. Up forward at the command the torpedo- men would speedily crank- open the heavy bronze torpedo tube muzzle doors. This was the last act in the preparation of torpedoes for firing.

I nodded for the periscope, crouched before it till it came up, rode it to its full extension, spun it around, lowered it.

"We're inside the screen," I said. "The near escort will pass astern, well clear." I failed to mention that the rear escort, a few hundred yards astern of the target, would lay no means pass clear. Within minutes after firing, he would be upon, us. No point in alerting or worrying our crew at this stage over something that could not be helped.

"We'll give him three torpedoes on a ninety track, or as near to it as we can!"

"Ninety track. Three fish spread!" echoed Jim.

"The next observation will be a shooting observation! Stand by forward!" My mind racing, I studied the slowly moving dials on the face of the TDC. We could already shoot at any time. It was only a matter of waiting until the situation was most favorable. The "correct solution light," a red F, was glow- ing brightly on the face of the angle-solver sector of the TDC.

The "torpedo run" was well within maximum range of the torpedo. It would only be a few seconds longer.

I could feel the taut expectancy of the ship, this was to be our first kill. In the forward part of the conning tower O'Brien, the sonarman, had put the propeller beats on the laud-speaker.

We could hear the "chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug," as the enemies screws came closer and closer.

Less distinct was the lighter, high-pitched beat of the nearest escort. "Thum, thum, thum, thum." The sonarman switched from one to the other, kept them both coming in. It looked about time.

"This is a shooting observation," I said again. "Up periscope!" The periscope handles met my outstretched hands.

I snapped them down, put my eye to the eye guard. "No change," I said. "Bearing-Mark!"

"Three-three-six."

"Range", — I turned the range knob-"Mark!"

"One-eight-five-oh."

"Shoot," I said, snapping the handles up as the signal for the periscope to start down. Quin had turned around facing the firing panel, had turned the switch of Number One torpedo tube to "On."

"Fire!" shouted Jim. Quin leaned on the firing key. Walrus shuddered. Over the sonar loud-speaker I could hear the torpedo whine out of the tube. Jim made an adjustment to the face of the angle solver with his right hand, held a stop watch in his left, watched it intently. "Fire Two!" he shouted.

Quin leaned on the firing key a second time.

Another adjustment by Jim, then "Fire Three!" and Walrus jerked for the third time. I motioned for the periscope again, took a quick look. Our torpedoes were running nicely.

"Torpedo run?" I called out, as the periscope was on the way down.

"One-six-five-oh." A quick calculation. A little over one minute to go. Up went the periscope again. I spun it around, dipped it, raised it again. One escort was passing astern. I hadn't given him much of an inspection before, he was an old type destroyer, Momo class as nearly as I could tell, with a well-deck forward of the bridge, and two stacks far apart.

The periscope dipped again and then went back up to the target. All still serene.

"How long?"

"Thirty seconds to go." I swung around once more, then back to the target, just in time to catch sight of a white-clad figure racing out to the side of his bridge. Then a stream of vapor shot from his stack, evidently his whistle. Too late, however. There was now no chance of avoiding our torpedoes unless they were improperly aimed. I swung the periscope all the way around. The destroyer which had just crossed our stern was heeling over radically I away from us, starting to turn toward with hard-over rudder. A quick look on our port beam. The rear-most destroyer was coming directly at us, showing white-water all along his waterline.

There was no time to linger. "Take her down!" I shouted.

There would still be a few seconds before the periscope went under, time, perhaps to see the torpedoes strike home.

I started to swing back toward the target, suddenly received a sharp blow on my head as the periscope yoke collar unex- pectedly descended upon it. I reeled backward, momentarily stunned, looked up to see Rubinoffski's consternation. He was squeezing the pickle, and the periscope base with the rubber, eye-pieces had already dropped out of sight into the periscope well. I could hear the rush of air in the control room as negative-tank flood valve was opened and Kohler yanked the tank vent. Negative would take in approximately nine tons of water, well forward of amidships, thus helping us to start down. I could feel Walrus' deck tilt forward gently. I rubbed my aching skull opened 'my mouth to curse at Rubinoffski, but never got the words out. Suddenly there was a tremendous stupefying roar.

Whrangg.

Our hull resounded like a tuning fork. The sensation could be likened to being inside a wash boiler and having a giant, beat on the outside with a sledge hammer. My ears rang.

Jim was shouting. "We've hit him! It's a hit!" He slapped me on the back. "You did it, skipper. You sunk the son-of-a-bitch!" Then he turned to Keith, pounded him on the back also.

"How about the other two fish?" I asked him.

Jim looked at his stop watch, shook his head regretfully.

"No luck there…" As he spoke, there came clearly a tinny, high-pitched Pwhyunng. I glanced, startled.

"That was timed for the third torpedo," Jim said, punching the winding stem of his watch, showing me its face.

Walrus' deck was tilted down even farther by now and she was clawing for the depths.

"What do you think that noise could have been?" I asked.

Keith answered: "Gosh, I don't know. Maybe an air flash, have you ever heard an air flash explode, Captain?" Jim and I both shook our heads. I would have discussed it more but a shout from O'Brien started a whole new train of thought.

"He's starting a run on us!" I leaped to his side, grabbed the extra pair of earphones. The enemy destroyer's 'pings' could clearly be heard, sounding just like our own destroyers.

They were coming in rapidly, too, and I could hear the "thum, thum, thum," of his propeller beats. The sonarman put his left hand on the gain control, ready to tune down the volume when the depth charges went off. I could see it shaking as he touched the knob.

WHAM… WHAM… The giant alongside us cut loose with three violent blows from his sledge hammer.

Walrus quivered and shook. Dust rose from the equipment and the deck. A piece of cork bounced from nowhere, made a peculiar "plop' as it landed on Adams' chart table.

I became aware of a new sound, a click which seemed to precede each depth charge. "CLICK, WHAM… CLICK, WHAM…" two more depth charges. Then there was a pro- longed swishing of water as though someone were hosing our side with a fire hose. The propeller beat, reduced in volume because of our having lowered the gain, suddenly dropped in frequency. O'Brien glanced up briefly. "He's passed overhead. That's 'Down Doppler.'" It was similar to the drop in pitch of a train going by at high speed.

'Maybe they'll go away now." This was Jim's voice. It did seem possible, for the destroyer's beat kept on without slack- ening or other change, toward the general direction of south- east.

"Search all around," I directed O'Brien. Obediently, he did so, holding the control handle over and causing the sound- head pointer to travel a complete circle. I, still had the ear- phones on and something, a discontinuity in the sound as he went by it some impulse-caused me to ask him to turn back to the northwest sector.

There it was again. A slight increase in noise level.

Nothing specific, no propeller beat, just an increased sound From that bearing. Walrus reached her maximum designed depth and now we slowed to minimum speed in accordance with our silent-running routine. We should be difficult for some- one else to hear, and, conversely, could hear better ourselves.

But the noise, if such it really was, could not be resolved into identifiable components. I motioned with my finger all around the dial. Obediently O'Brien set his equipment in motion. The propeller beats of the Momo-class destroyer which had depth- charged us were still to be heard, more faintly than before but on the same general bearing. He was-going away. There was no question of it. I could see O'Brien listen intently in its direction. Finally he looked up, uncovered one ear. "Captain," he said, "there are at least two ships over there. Two sets of high-speed propellers. Maybe more."

Jim had approached unnoticed. "Good," he said, "they've gone off."

"I'm not so sure," I muttered, half to myself. "This noise level…" I motioned to O'Brien, who went past the new sector again. When the sound head moved past the bearing rapidly there was no question about the increase in noise level, but when we turned directly on the bearing it was impossible to make anything out, or even to distinguish any difference.

Jim listened with me for some minutes. "What do you think it is?" he finally whispered.

"Don't know. Never heard anything like this before."

"Could it be the ship we sank?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe we should come up and take a look through the periscope."

For several more minutes we waited. Nothing more could be heard from the direction in which our Momo-class destroyer had disappeared. Nothing more could be heard in any direction, in fact, but the feeling of uneasiness persisted, the noise, if such it could be called, had not changed. If anything, it, was a bit weaker. Walrus stealthily slipped through the depths, every nerve taut, unable to see, not sure of what she heard. I ordered a course change, to put the area of high-sound level nearly astern, not exactly, so as not to mask it with the quiet swishing of our own propellers.

More time passed. It was over an hour since we had fired our torpedoes. Gradually our guard relaxed. To relieve the op- pressive heat and humidity I permitted the ventilation system and air-conditioning machinery to be started. It was quiet all around the sonar dial, except for our port quarter, where the faint noise level persisted.

"If there's anything up there, it's the ship we just sank!

Maybe that's the sinking ship we're hearing!" Jim's sustained excitement was infectious. I could sense the approval of every- one in the conning tower. Every eye turned upon me.

Jim spoke again, eagerness flashing from every facial ex- pression. "God, skipper! If we hurry we might be able to see him sink! We don't have to surface, just get up to periscope depth!"

The moment, after our moments of tension, was one of anticlimax. We had fired our torpedoes, heard what we had assumed was an explosion of one of them, plus another peculiar low-order explosion, and had withstood our first depth- charging. Besides, we had heard the screw noises of several ships departing from the scene of the attack, among them at least one positively identified as a destroyer. I was eager also to see the results of our first encounter with the enemy-and so I allowed myself to be convinced.

Control! Six-four feet! Bring her up flat!" I leaned over the control-room hatch, called the order down to Tom, whose head I could see just below.

"Six-four feet, aye, aye!" Tom acknowledged, looking up.

"Request more speed!"

"Nothing doing, old man," I responded, squatting on my haunches to speak to him more easily. "Bring her up easy.

We've plenty of time." If Jim's evaluation was correct, there was nothing to worry about up above; there would be no reason why we should not, come up with normal procedure, letting Tom have a bit more speed for better control. But more speed would mean more noise also, and more disturbance in the water. Some subconscious caution held me back, caused me to direct that the remaining torpedoes loaded forward be made ready for instant firing, though later examination of the events of the next few moments could furnish no clue as to why.

Gently Walrus inclined gently upward. With no more than minimum speed, it would take her a long time to plane up to periscope depth. After several minutes had passed we had only covered half the distance, and I could feel the impatience around me. As we passed the hundred-foot-depth mark the angle of inclination decreased still more; Tom was obey- ing my dictum to "bring her up flat." Two more minutes passed. The ship was at seventy feet, with zero inclination.

Having no speed for control submerged, Tom was afraid to come right up to sixty-four feet for fear that some unexpected variation in water density or temperature might cause us to broach.

Slowly, Walrus swam up the few remaining feet. I now regretted not having authorized more speed, for at sixty-nine feet we were still totally blind, the periscopes still four feet short of reaching the surface. I nevertheless ordered one of our two scopes raised.

When it was "two-blocked" all the way up, we were passing sixty-seven feet, and through it I could see, just over- head as though it were actually only a couple of feet above, the ripply surface of the ocean. Only two feet-as good as two hundred. As I waited, the wavy surface, which looked exactly as I had seen it many times, looking down from above, grew nearer, then farther, then nearer, as the Pacific swells passed over.

"What's the bearing of the noise now?" I spoke without talking my eyes from the periscope.

"It's shifted to the port bow, Captain!" Jim's voice.

"Put me on it!" I felt someone's hands laid on mine, felt the pressure. The periscope was twisted some considerable distance to the left, and I followed docilely.

Suddenly I was conscious of a flash of brilliant light; then it was gone, and the light through the periscope was darker than it had been before. In the split-second interval I had seen blue sky and clouds. I realized I had tamed the elevation control to full elevation, was looking nearly straight up, had missed the precious chance to garner a quick look on the port bow. Hastily I turned it down to the horizontal, determined not to miss the next chance.

The periscope popped out again, for a longer interval, in the hollow of a long swell. It was possible to see only a few feet, and only for a moment at that, until the wave in front of me engulfed the periscope eye-piece. Then we were out again, in the trough of the next wave. I caught a glimpse of masts above the crest of the wave in the direction in which I was looking, but nothing more. They seemed fairly close, but the momentary impression was too fleeting to make much out about them.

I waited another second or two, I would be able to see in a moment-the periscope popped out again: there was a wave in front of it, beyond which I could see the upper section of a mast. It might be the mast of our target at some little distance away, perhaps a thousand yards, or it might be the mast of another ship considerably closer. I tried to flip the periscope handle to the low-power position, found that it was already in low power.

The wave in front of me receded, the periscope eye-piece — topping it easily, and the source of the masts came clearly- and suddenly-to view.

It was a Japanese destroyer, broadside to us, and it was close, very close, nearly alongside in fact.

I snapped the handle into the high-power position, felt my- self catapulted almost into his bridge. There were white-clad figures all about his topsides. A quick glimpse of activity, several arms pointed our way-we could not have been more than two hundred yards from him, a hustle on the bridge, someone battling the wheel, someone else doing something to an instrument which could have only been annunciators; There was no time to do anything. No time to do anything at all except try to get away. We were caught, caught fair!

"FIRE!" I shouted. I banged the periscope handles up. My hair felt as though it were standing on end. The flesh crawled around my belly. "Down periscope! Take her down! Take her down fast!"

"What is it? What's the matter?" shouted Jim. Involuntarily my voice had risen in pitch, and my fright must have been evident. So was Jim's. Keith, Rubinoffski, and Oregon, at the wheel, likewise turned their startled faces toward me.

"Take her down! Take her down fast! All ahead emergency, Left full rudder!" The urgency in my voice brought instant obedience: Oregon heaved mightily on the steering wheel, whipped both annunciators all the way to the right, banged them three times against the stops. A whoosh of released air welled up from the control room. where Tom's action in flood- ing negative tank had probably been equally instinctive.

Through it all I felt-sensed would be more accurate-three solid jerks in Walrus tough frame as three torpedoes went on their sudden way.

We could practically feel the bow and stern planes bite into the water. The increased thrust of our screws heaved us forward and downward, but the movement of two thousand tons of steel is a slow, ponderous process.

"What is it, Captain? For God's sake, tell us what's the matter!" Jim was nearly beside himself.

"Destroyer! Waiting for us! Not over two hundred yards away! He'll be on us in seconds!"

"Do you think they saw us?"

"You're God dam right they saw us." The people on the Bridge were pointing at us!" I swore without even thinking about it or meaning to. "There were at least fifty men all over his topsides on special lookout watch, and they looked as though they all, every one of them, had a big pair of binoculars!"

"Is he headed for us?"

"Hell yes! We were so close I could even see them put the rudder over and ring up full speed!"

Careless of how it might sound, I had almost been shout- ing. Now I recollected myself, turned to Quin. "Rig ship for depth charge! Rig ship for silent running!" The yeoman's eyes were huge as he repeated the orders over the telephone.

They flickered to the conning-tower depth guage. It read sixty-five feet. It was hardly moving.

The sounds of slamming of watertight doors and bulkhead ventilation valves came clearly into the conning tower. No need to be careful about noise right now! Our straining propel- lers were making more than enough anyway, and besides, our torpedoes would give us away for sure, draw an arrow to our position at the apex of their wakes. No more ventilation. The conning tower again grew stifling and humid, but no one noticed. I crossed back to the sonar gear, picked up the extra set of headphones.

"Where is he?" O'Brien indicated the pointer in the sonar dial, nearly dead ahead, moving from port bow to starboard.

Our rudder was still at full left, and Walrus was now swing- ing rapidly. Turning toward had been the instinctive thing to do, and also evidently the best maneuver in the emergency.

We would let her turn a bit longer, then straighten out.

"What's our depth?" I looked at Jim. "Passing eighty feet!"

His face worked as he spoke, and he tapped the glass face of the gauge to make sure it was not stuck. It had only been about twenty seconds since we had started down, hardly time for Walrus to have gained much depth yet. We had achieved a small down angle, however, should begin to go deep-rapidly now.

I put on the earphones, immediately became conscious of the high-speed screws of our enemy, and his rapid, steady pinging. Gone also, now, was any attempt to quietness or concealment on his part. The screws were becoming rapidly louder. The pangs were continuous, steady, practically with- out interval. He was well on our starboard bow, coming in at high speed, perhaps hoping to ram.

"Rudder amidships!" Our compass card slowed its spin, steadied. This would increase our speed across the enemy track, tend to make him shoot his depth charges astern.

Perhaps our torpedoes would prevent him from attacking immediately, possibly one might even, by great good fortune, hit him.

Forlorn hope! The whole inside of the submarine was resounding with the enemy destroyer's propeller beats. The pings of his echo-ranging apparatus were fast, short, continu- ous, implacable. I could hear the echoes rap off our bull al- most as soon as transmitted, could even hear a double echo- the return bounce off him. We had reached ninety feet when the destroyer's roar attained an excruciating, violent crescendo of sound, and coherent thinking became frozen. He could not have been more than thirty feet away from where I was standing, dead overhead, roaring like an express train. My brain throbbed in the furious convulsion of noise. There was a screaming of tortured gears, the whine of high-speed turbines, the spitting, churning, tearing fury of his propellers, the blast of water-all combined into a frenzied, desperate, sudden drive to send us forever into the black depths of the sea.

"Here we are!" I remember thinking. "Here comes the granddaddy of all depth-chargings!" Walrus moved bodily in the water as the destroyer passed overhead. We could feel his initial pressure wave, and we also knew, by the abrupt change in the pitch Of the noise, the exact instant he passed over. Just before he did so, the bearing from which the sound had been coming in widened until it encompassed the entire three hundred sixty degrees around us. Ninety-one feet the depth gauges said. It was time, it was time, here it comes!

WHAM! A prolonged, crushing, catastrophic roar! The lights went out. I was thrown to the deck, grasped the periscope hoist wires with both hands. They were tingling, alive. The deck plates were rattling likewise. There was someone lying on the deck beneath me-as I felt for him, amid the convulsive shudders of Walrus great steel fabric, my feet were jerked out from under me and I was flung bodily on top of him. He felt wet, warm-wet, and he didn't move.

Scrambling to my feet, I realized the motion of the ship had changed. We were on the surface. The ship still had a large angle down by the bow, but our rocking and pitching could only be the result of being on the surface in the wash of the vessel that had just passed overhead. No doubt our stern was well out, high in view-a beautiful target; I was still hold- ing to the periscope wires, and to my horror I saw light at the bottom of the periscope well Then the explanation occurred: the top of the periscope, though housed, was also out of water, and light naturally streamed out of the other end. To confirm it I reached for the other 'scope, looked down into the well, saw light there also.

Still black as ink in the conning tower. On rig for depth charge the hatch between us and the control room had been dogged down, and there was no communication except by telephone, useless at the moment, of course. The whole interior of the submarine was a huge, sounding cavern, rever- berating and reflecting the uproar. If only we could see!

"Turn on the emergency lights!" I shouted. I might as well have whispered. The emergency lights should have come on.

Standard practice called for them to be turned on auto- matically by anyone, if the main lighting went out.

No need to look at the depth gauge anyway. "All ahead emergency" I had already ordered emergency speed, sub- consciously wanted to reinforce the order after the attack.

In the shattering uproar I bellowed as loud as I could. Quin might hear me, might be able to get through to the maneuvering room, or Oregon, at the other end of the conning tower, could ring for flank speed again three times. They were probably having a pretty bad time back aft, but "emergency ahead," under the circumstances existing, would cause Larto to open the main motor rheostats as far as they would go, put everything the battery could give into the propellers.

The noise was subsiding a little. I had no knowledge of how many depth charges had gone off, perhaps a dozen all almost simultaneously, and there was no telling, yet, whether Walrus had survived. The conning tower, we knew, was still whole. With all hatches and ventilation valves shut tightly, there could he no telltale increase in air pressure as water came rushing into another compartment. Since our stern was on the surface, a hole there might give no indication at all, or merely a loss in what slightly elevated pressure Walrus' atmosphere might already have. We'd find out soon' enough as we drove her down.

The destroyer's rush had carried him well past. I could hear his screws again-now on our port quarter. He had passed directly overhead. Our only hope' was that the depth charges had been set too deeply, that, although blown to the surface, we were not seriously damaged-but there was no time to think about damage already received. Four-inch shells would be whizzing our way within seconds. We had to get back under immediately!

There was an emergency Light switch near the ladder to the bridge. I collected myself, gropingly reached for it, fum- bled a moment, turned it. Dim lights came on at either end of the conning tower.

The conning tower looked as if a cyclone had struck it.

Hugh Adams' chart table, shaken loose from its mountings, had fallen to the floor. Hugh himself lay still on the deck.

Evidently he had been the one I had stumbled over. Keith was still at his station, frantically gripping the handles of the TDC and bracing himself with his foot on the comer of the angle solver. Jim was standing shakily beside him, while as a sheet, but apparently unhurt. But these were not the im- portant ones at the moment. Oregon was still at his steering wheel, and there seemed to be no damage in his locality.

Quin was sitting on the deck holding his left arm- 'Mere was an ugly gash in it from which blood was dripping onto his trousers. He seemed otherwise in condition to be of assistance, however.

"Quin!" I roared. "All ahead emergency!"

Painfully the yeoman reached up with his uninjured arm, gave the order into the telephone mouthpiece. Fastened to the side of the conning tower beneath the firing panel was the hand telephone for routine communication throughout the ship. I reached for it, pressed the button. "Control!" The response was immediate.

"Control, aye aye!" It was Tom Schultz himself an the other end, and I could remember the instant feeling of relief to discover that at least part of the ship was still functioning,

"We're broached, Tom. Can you get her down?"

"Trying, sir!"

"Have you got your vents open?" Possibly some of the gases from the underwater explosions could have come up into our ballast tanks and now, having broached, we would be bound to have air in some of them.

"Yes, sir " Tom replied again.

"We're going ahead emergency speed. Drive her as deep as you can. Get on over to twenty degrees angle if you have to," I told him. The order was superfluous, since Tom knew very well the seriousness of our situation, and the ship had already attained. an angle of fifteen degrees down by the bow.

The slanting deck was becoming difficult to stand on.

There was nothing farther I could do and no reason to hold up the telephone from other use by talking myself. I listened, however, and within a few seconds was rewarded by hearing, the reports of the various compartments. All had taken some damage from the knocking about, but none, apparently, was in serious trouble except the after torpedo room. The voice from there said simply, "We have a fire back here."

"Can you handle it?" I snapped.

"Yes, sir, we're handling it." I relaxed. We couldn't go to fire quarters. The men back aft had either to get the fire out by themselves or abandon the compartment. The main problem was getting Walrus into the safe haven of the deep depths.

The motion of the ship felt different, less jerky. I looked at the depth gauge. We were under again! The deck tilted down even more; I had to put my left arm around a periscope. barrel to retain my balance. The bubble inclinometer, similar to a curved carpenter's level, mounted beneath the depth gauge, showed eighteen degrees inclination down by the bow, more than Walrus had ever experienced before, or I either, even counting in S-16 and her Polish crew. I hoped we could take it, mentally resolved to drill at steeper-than-usual angles if we ever got the chance.

Quin was struggling to his feet, still clutching his, injured arm.

"Test depth, Captain?" he said through strained, bloodless lips.

This was from Tom. Our decision, made some time ago, was automatically to go to full-test submergence in situations like this. Tom would not have had to ask, unless he anticipated possibly exceeding it.

Our hull, we knew, had a large safety factor of strength.

This was, if there ever was to be, the time, we had to use some of. it. The answer I gave Quin brought a startled look to his-face before he relayed it.

Down Walrus plunged, the depth-gauge needle spinning rapidly. The conning-tower gauge went only to one hundred fifty feet. When it reached one hundred forty I reached over and closed the valve in the waterline for fear of breaking the delicate mechanism. We could hear the rushing sound of water streaming past us. The power we were putting into our propellers was beginning to take effect.

"Two hundred feet!" said Quin. Our down angle remained rock-steady.

"Two hundred fifty feet!" The angle was still steady. Tom was really carrying out instructions. Finally he began to ease her off, until, without slackening speed, the ship became nearly level. Her whole frame now shook and trembled as she tore through the water. Something carried away topside and I heard a rattling, banging noise for a moment. Then it stopped.

I bent over the sound receiver. O'Brien looked up, shook his head. He could hear nothing at this speed. I waited a few moments. We would run on like this for a couple of minutes, I thought, then slow down and try to creep away…

WHAM! Another depth charge.

Wham!… Wham!… Wham!… Three more. Compared to our initiation these were nothing to worry about, but they did disturb the water again. Maybe, added to what had gone before, they gave us the chance we needed.

"Right full rudder!" I called to Oregon. He put his full strength into turning the wheel and the ship leaned slightly to starboard, opposite to her list during a surface turn. The gyro compass card began to spin rapidly.

"All ahead one third." This would quiet our thrashing pro- pellers. With the speed we had already built up, the ship would coast a good distance. I picked up the telephone again.

"Tom," I called.

"Yes?"

"I didn't hear you blow negative. Is it blown?"

"It's blown!"

"Good! I want to slow down now, to as slow and quiet as you can run. We'll stay at this depth, and run as silently as we can. With the start we've had and the — uproar in the water back there, this may be our chance!"

A submarine's natural habitat is the deep, silent depths of the sea. The deeper she can go, the safer she is, and with the comfortable shelter of hundreds of feet of ocean overhead the submariner can relax. Deep in the sea there is no motion, no sound, save that put there by the insane humors of man. The slow, smooth stirring of the deep ocean currents, the high- frequency snapping or popping of ocean life, even the occasional snort or burble of a porpoise are all in low key, subdued, responsive to the primordial quietness of the deep.

Of life there is, of course, plenty, and of death too, for Neither are strange to the ocean. But even life and death, Though violent, make little or no noise in the deep-sea.

"So is it with the submarine, forced, for survival, to join those elemental children of nature who seek, always, for quietness. Noise means death. Quietness, in the primeval jungle of the sea, is next to slowness or stock-stillness, as a means of remaining alive. And deep in the black depths, where live only those deep-sea denizens who never see the light of the day, who never approach the surface, and for whom in reality, it does not exist, Walrus sought her succor.

Deep below the surface, at the absolute limit of her designed depth, her sturdy hull strained and bowed under the unaccustomed compression, her steel ribs standing rigid against- the fierce, implacable squeeze of millions of tons of sea water, inescapable, unyielding, Walrus struggled for her life. Her propellers were barely turning over, her sea valves and hull fittings were tightly shut against the deadly pressure, and no noise, no noise at all, could she make.

On the surface we could hear the sound of our adversary's screws moving about from one side to another as-if with a definite plan, as if trying to cover all the possible areas we might be. But there were no more depth charges, and after a while the screws themselves quieted down, and all we could hear was the same sibilant hum, the area of higher, but undistinguishable-noise level, which had presaged the destroyer's attack upon us.

But Walrus was not to be fooled a second time. We remained at silent running and maximum depth the rest of the day, and it was long into the evening before we secured from depth-charge stations. The Jap destroyer apparently became satisfied with the evidence of our destruction, for he never did resume the attack. Gradually his betraying noise faded from our sonar equipment. We did not, however trust ourselves to come back to periscope depth until long after sundown, and we did not surface until nearly midnight.

Our first day in the war zone had been long, hard, and nearly disastrous.

We took stock of our damage topside and below. Examination of the attack periscope showed the- top glass cracked and the tube flooded; no hope for it. Our SJ radar, inefficient though it had been, had been a comfort in that no surface craft could, get any closer than a couple of miles without alerting us. Now it, too, was gone. We had another periscope, slightly larger in diameter at the top than the attack periscope, but we had no other surface radar. Both losses were serious.

Superficial damage topside there was aplenty. All our radio antennae were gone and so were the stanchions to which they had been secured. There was a large hole in our main deck forward-approximately twenty square feet of wooden slats missing, testimony to the force and nearness of at least one depth charge. Our superstructure held a few dents, inconsequential, of course, and the three-inch gun on the main deck must have had a depth charge go off right on top of it, for the telescopic sights for both pointer and trainer were gone.

Below in the innards of the ship our four most important items of equipment were fortunately entirely undamaged. Our propellers and propeller shafts, which might have been bent or distorted by the force of the explosions, were, so far as careful inspection could tell, perfectly sound. The main engines had suffered no damage whatever; the battery seemed all right, although it indicated a very low resistance to ground and had a few cracked cell tops. A hot soldering iron drawn across the cracks, melting and resealing the mastic, and a thorough washing down with fresh water afterward, brought the insulation readings, our main concern, up again. And lastly, our torpedo tubes seemed to have apparently suffered no damage. But quite a few other items had been put out, of action for the rest of the patrol. The fire in the after torpedo room had been in the stern plane motor, mining it. Until we returned to port our stern planes would have to be operated by hand power-not an easy task. The trim pump, cracked right across the heavy steel housing and knocked off its foundation, was beyond repair; we would have to cross-connect the drain pump to the trim line and make — shift with it as well as we might. One air compressor was also cracked across one of its foundation frames and could not be used. The other was still intact; if we were careful it would provide us with enough compressed air to remain operations.

There were also several persons slightly injured, among them Quin and Hugh Adams, and we had one- case of smoke inhalation from the after torpedo room. None of the injuries was serious, however, and all the men were soon back to duty.

And after thoroughly looking the ship over, it was apparent we could stay on patrol.

During the remainder of that first night, from midnight to dawn, we worked feverishly against time to get things back in shape enough for Walrus to dive. The radar and the stern plane motor were probably our two most serious losses, and we wasted hours on both of them before admitting defeat.

But the ship as a whole was undamaged. We searched for evidence of cracks in her hull or dents where a too-close depth charge might have caved in her side. There were none of any kind, despite plenty of mute evidence of the closeness of the explosions. I wrote in our patrol report: Thorough inspection of the vessel indicates no further structural damage. The hull appears to have stood up very well. Our fervent thanks to the workers at Electric Boat who built this wonderful ship for us.

I meant every word of it.

It took us four days of steady labor, working submerged all day long, surfacing at night for battery charging and ac- complishment of such topside repairs as were necessary. One immediate problem was the fact that all radio antennae had been swept clean off the ship. Before we could communicate with our home base we would have to get up some kind of jury rig. The lifeline around the cigarette deck was comman- deered, as well as a few sections from one of the torpedo-load- ing tools and a spare hatch lanyard which we happened to have, and under Kohler's direct supervision, he being the only man aboard who had ever done any wire-splicing, a short, patched antenna wire was spliced together. During our second night of repairs we got it up and were able to receive messages, but it was apparent that we would not be able to send any until much closer to Pearl Harbor.

We had moved into a far corner of AREA SEVEN during the critical period of making repairs, and had seen no vessel of any kind, for which, under the circumstances, we were thankful.

Finally on the fourth day, weary from our almost incessant labors but well recovered, we stood back in toward the Bungo Suido, stationing ourselves in the second of the four positions we had selected for surveillance of that harbor. For a week more we remained in essentially the same locality, sighting nothing. Jim and I renewed our argument.

"Let's get in to the coast, skipper," he pleaded. "We know they're going by close inshore. It is quite possible that that Jap destroyer did not report us as a sure kill, and, if not, that could be their reason for not sending any more ships out this way."

Finally I gave in, and we proceeded cautiously to a place Jim had picked some distance south of the Bungo, where coast- wise traffic would have to make a jog to seaward to double a projecting point of land.

Our first day there also was fruitless, except for a number of fishing boats, which we kept clear of. On the second a small freighter hove in sight, chuffing a large cloud of dirty smoke from her single tall stack. Jim bared his teeth with a curious grimace when I described the target to him.

"Let me see, skipper," he begged. I stepped aside out of the periscope circle, motioning to him to take a look. I watched his face carefully as the base of the periscope came up and he put his eye to the eye guard. — "Bearing-Mark!" he said. "Range-Mark! Down scope!"

Rubinoffski dutifully read off the data, and Keith checked to see if it agreed with what the TDC generated. Jim grimed as he turned to me-a hard, tight grin.

"This fellow's our meat." His eyes were dancing as he reached for the Is-Was.

Our spot had been well chosen; the hapless vessel blundered into our trap and was saluted with a salvo of three torpedoes, one of which struck home. It was the first time I had ever seen a ship sink.

To my surprise there was something of sadness and grace about the submissive way the clumsy old freighter bowed her angular head under the waves, put her dirty stern to the sky and gently slid under. Several lifeboats, some debris, and half a dozen bobbing heads remained behind, — and as we moved clear the men in the lifeboats were busy hauling the survivors aboard. Only a few miles from shore, they would be safe by nightfall.

It was several days more before we sighted another vessel; it went by too rapidly and was too far out of range. Then a week passed and we saw another lone ship. As before we worked into position, fired a three-fish salvo. The torpedoes ran perfectly, as far as we could see, and the target saw their wakes only a split second before they got there. We saw the streak of vapor from his funnel, although to whom he might have been signaling was hard to determine and, for some un- accountable reason, the torpedoes missed.

Unexplained misses had been the subjects of some heated arguments among submarine skippers. Torpedoes which seemed to run in all respects exactly as they should, somehow frequently failed to hit the target. There were complaints that they were not running straight; that the gyros were not steering them correctly; that the TDC's were inaccurate; or that perhaps enemy vessels were not making the speed we thought they were. Another school of thought maintained the torpedoes were running below the targets; that Jap ships had been built with shallow draft for this very purpose.

I had heard stories of torpedoes being set to run at two feet below the surface and still passing beneath a destroyer.

It was hardly conceivable that such could be the case, but these were the facts and now Walrus had a case of her own to add.

Perhaps it was the cumulative reports of our activities in AREA SEVEN or perhaps the report of our near-hit by the last ship we attacked. At any rate, search as we might, we saw up more Japanese vessels, and during the latter part of Au- gust we passed through the Nanpo Shoto, heading eastward en route to base. "Base" in this case turned out to be Midway Island, and loud were the groans of disappointment from the crew when the location of our refit was announced.