Submarine!

9 Trigger

Trigger made her name with a rush. She began her career as a night fighter, and it was on the surface at night, retaining the initiative with speed and mobility, that her rapier-like thrusts wrought the greatest damage upon the enemy. In her ensuing four patrols she sank a total of nineteen ships and damaged four. Six times, single-handed, she engaged enemy convoys far outmatching her in escort vessels. By this time I was the only officer left of the original commissioning gang, and Trigger and I understood each other pretty well, although frequently she surprised me.

We didn’t have long to wait before Dusty Dornin took Trigger into action. On September 8, 1943, we left Pearl Harbor bound for Formosa, and maintained full speed all the way, not even submerging when passing Wake Island. Dusty’s philosophy was to carry the battle to the enemy at all times; make him show how good he was before we pulled the plug. And on September 23, having just arrived in our area, we sighted a fat target.

We are submerged off Formosa, patrolling what our calculations indicate should be a Jap shipping lane. For two days we have been here, and nary a sign of ships have we seen. Maybe we’ve guessed wrong. But not this time, for at about 1600 of the second day smoke is sighted. A convoy, running for Japan.

Battle stations submerged! We start the approach. This time, however, we are not lucky, for we are so far off the base course of the ships that we are forced to watch helplessly while they steam by well out of range. But we take a good look; six ships in two columns; in the near column three big fat tankers, the leader a new modern 10,000 tonner; in the far column three average-size freighters. What a plum! Never mind the plane we see buzzing above the convoy. These birds are our meat! We secure from battle stations, but follow at maximum sustained submerged speed, keeping our quarry in sight as long as possible, waiting for dark.

With the last rays of the setting sun we are on the surface, all ahead full on four engines, running down the track after the vanished convoy. No engines to spare for a battery charge. Give them all to the screws. Put the auxiliaries on the battery. You can’t get anywhere by halves in this business.

The chase is tense and thrilling. We have an estimate of target course and speed, but if he’s smart he’ll change radically at dark. Our game is to dash up and regain contact quickly, before he gets very far from his original track. If we miss him, we suspect he’ll have turned to his left, but that’s just a guess, and cuts down our chances 50 per cent. Best bet is to go like hell, which we do.

It pays off, too, for this particular son of heaven didn’t even bother to change course. We pick him up dead ahead, right on his old track — and he’s stopped zigzagging. This is murder.

And so it proves. We draw up on the starboard bow of the convoy, out of sight, then stealthily creep in. Slowly the biggest tanker lumbers into our sights. Angle on the bow, starboard seventy-five. Range, 1,500 yards. Bearing, 335. Target speed checks perfectly, at 7 knots. Surely this big Nippon Maru class tanker can do better than 7 knots. The Japs have tied him down with a bunch of slow boys — too bad for him! On he comes, filling our binoculars with his huge, heavily laden bulk. Looks good — looks perfect! We plan to fire three fish at the first tanker, three at the second, then spin on our tail and shoot four at the third one. They won’t know what hit them.

Standby forward! He’s coming on. Bearing — mark! We’re keeping the sights on him now — a few more degrees. Come on — come on — Fire ONE!.. Fire TWO!.. Fire THREE!.. Check fire! Shifting targets — second ship. Bearing — mark — set — Fire FOUR!.. Fire FIVE!.. Fire SIX!..

Left full rudder! All ahead full! Standby aft!

Trigger leaps ahead, swings steadily left. She has nearly one hundred eighty degrees to swing, and it takes a long time. She is only halfway around, broadside to broadside with the leading tanker, range about one thousand yards heading in opposite directions, when suddenly, cataclysmically, the darkness of the night is thunderously shattered with light. A sheet of brilliant white flame shoots 1000 feet into the air! The leading tanker must have had a load of aviation gasoline, for he has burst into incandescence.

Momentarily blinded by the terrific fire, we recover to see the whole scene as bright as day. On the deck of the doomed tanker scores of little white-clad figures rush helplessly across his decks to the bow, where the fire has not yet reached. It must be awfully hot over there. We shift our eyes to the second tanker and see a torpedo hit with a flash of flame right amidships. A fire starts, but he steers around the brilliantly blazing pyre of his leader and continues on his course. The second ship in the far column is hit with a soundless catastrophe. He folds in the middle into a big V and starts down. Evidently he caught a torpedo which missed the first or second tanker. We had figured on that, hoped it would happen. Three ships hit, two down for sure, in the first salvo!

In the meantime, the Japs obviously can see Trigger’s black hull, too, and their ready guns begin to bark. A few shells scream overhead, but not very close. They are probably too excited to settle down, and we ignore them, intent on getting our stem tube salvo off. But the third tanker pulls a joker and sheers out of line directly toward us. By this time we are running directly away from him, and he is coming, bows on, 700 yards away. We are still increasing speed, but so is he, and he’s gaining on us with his initial advantage of speed. A gun on his forecastle opens up, and this time the shells whistle fairly close. One or two drop alongside, not too close yet, but no doubt he’ll improve.

Maybe he thinks he has the drop on us; he cannot know that we have the drop on him too. We could dive, but Trigger is stubborn. Standby aft! Continuous aim. Angle on the bow, zero. Range, 700 yards. We’re starting to hold our own now, as we pick up speed. Fire SEVEN!.. Nothing happens. Fire EIGHT!.. Nothing. We must hit him! Check everything carefully. It must be the tumultuous wash of our straining screws throwing the torpedoes off. Fire NINE!.. Still nothing. Now we are in the soup. One torpedo left aft. It has to be good. He is coming much too close with his shells now. Give him one more, then dive! Fire TEN! “Clear the bridge!” “Honk, honk!” goes the diving alarm. “Dive! Dive! Take her down!”

Down we plunge, listening for that fateful crack which tells us he’s found our pressure hull with a five-inch shell before we could get her under. We pass forty feet and breathe easier. Startlingly a voice squeaks over the welcome gurgle of water and the drumming of Trigger’s superstructure: “Where’s the Captain?”

No answer. We look about. “Did anybody see him get off the bridge when we dived?”

No answer. Fear lays an icy hand over us. Just then a stream of furious curses shocks our ears and warms our hearts. There is Dusty, inside the periscope well, supporting himself on the edges by his elbows, struggling to climb back out, cussing a blue streak. He has reason to cuss, too, for the quartermaster has his big feet firmly planted on the skipper’s hands and is calmly and nonchalantly lowering the periscope! End of tableau.

About this time, as we pass seventy-five feet, a good loud WHANG reverberates through the water. We had almost forgotten the target in this novel emergency, but get back to business quickly. “Target’s screws have stopped!” This from the sound man. “Breaking-up noises.”

“Control! Sixty feet!” The order snaps out, and feverishly we get Trigger back to periscope depth, put up the ’scope and take a look. Wonder of wonders! There floats the stern of the tanker, straight up and down! So we surface, hoping to catch one of the two remaining ships with our last few torpedoes.

We find one. We track him. As usual he doesn’t see us — or so we think, until he opens fire with both his deck guns. While we think over this development, another ship — the only other ship — opens fire behind us. Then, as shells from both parties scream overhead, we realize the truth. They are shooting at each other. We are still undetected; so we make four separate attacks on this bird up forward, use up all six of our remaining torpedoes, and get only two hits. Finally we are forced to leave him, sinking slowly by the bow.

We find the last ship, too, but we can’t hurt him. So we turn Trigger’s bow east and shove off. As we go, we pass close by our first tanker, by this time nearly consumed, his steel hulk red-hot from end to end. In the distance another fire flares up and bursts into brilliant flame. We take a look there, and find to our delight the second tanker stopped, abandoned, and ablaze from bow to stern. We verify his complete destruction, and depart at last after one of the shortest patrols on record.

Score for the night’s work: three big tankers sunk, one freighter sunk, one freighter probably sunk. Total, five out of six, and a very unhappy good evening to you, Tojo!

Less than a month after leaving Pearl Harbor, Trigger was back at Midway, with a cockscomb of five miniature Jap flags flying from her extended periscope. The usual crates of fresh fruit, leafy green vegetables — lettuce and celery especially — ice cream, letters from home, and assorted bigwigs, were on the dock awaiting us.

This business of welcoming a submarine back from war patrol had been started as a sort of morale booster, and to say that it hit the mark is putting it mildly. After having been deprived of these things for about two months we were almost as avid for fresh fruit and leafy vegetables as we were for the mail — and it was not at all uncommon to see a bearded sailor, pockets stuffed with apples and oranges, reading letter after letter in quick succession, and munching on a celery stalk at the same time.

There was one submarine, however, which, so the story ran, was always welcomed somewhat differently. It seems that months before the war started, USS Skipjack (SS 184) had submitted a requisition for some expendable material essential to the health and comfort of the crew. What followed was, to the seagoing Navy, a perfect example of how to drive good men mad unnecessarily. For almost a year later Skipjack received her requisition back, stamped “Cancelled — cannot identify material.” Whereupon Jim Coe, skipper of the Skipjack, let loose with a blast which delighted everybody except those attached to the supply department of the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California.

This is what he wrote:

It is to be noted that Jim Coe was wrong in one particular — it had been only ten and a quarter months. But his letter, carrying in it all the fervor and indignation of a man who has received a mortal hurt, achieved tremendous fame.

We also heard that it had achieved rather remarkable results back in Mare Island, although this was mostly hearsay. But one result was extremely noticeable indeed: whenever Skipjack returned from patrol, no matter where she happened to put in, she received no fruit, no vegetables, and no ice cream. Instead, she invariably received her own outstandingly distinctive tribute — cartons and cartons of toilet paper.

Jim Coe, a most successful submarine commander and humorist to boot, is no longer with us. After three patrols in command of Skipjack, he returned to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to place the new submarine Cisco in commission. On September, 19, 1943, Cisco departed from Darwin, Australia, on her first war patrol, and was never heard from again.

Our orders said, “Refit at Midway,” which didn’t please us particularly since the only things of interest on Midway were gooney birds and whisky, the former of which became very boring after an hour or two. That evening at the Gooneyville Tavern I met Don Horsman, who had been repair officer during the overhaul of the month before. Don had been trying his best to get into a submarine on patrol, and I was glad to see that he had finally broken away from the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard.

We had much to talk about — mutual friends; his cute family of three little girls; and the performance of various items of equipment in Trigger which we had worried over together. In the midst of the conversation a thought struck me.

“Don,” I said, “what’s the dope on the Dorado? She should be due in Pearl any day now, shouldn’t she? We heard from Penrod that his wife christened the ship, and that his father was also there when she was launched. That was several months ago.”

The grin faded from Don’s moonlike face, and he put his drink down. “She’s down, Ned,” he said.

It didn’t hit me at first. “Down where?” I asked naïvely. “Didn’t they send her straight to Pearl?”

“I mean — down — gone. Penrod never even got to the Panama Canal. One of our own planes claims to have sunk a German submarine at the time and place where she was supposed to have been.”

I pressed Horsman for more details, and the noise and confusion of the first day back from patrol faded from consciousness. But that was all Don had heard.