Submarine!

10 Archerfish

Some of the stories of World War II can never be fully told. Some will live only in the hearts of men who took part in them, who will carry their secrets silently to their graves. Some stories will not be told at all, because the only men who could tell them lie at the bottom of the sea. And some are part of our naval heritage, and will go down in history with stories of Old Ironsides, Thomas Truxton and his Constellation, John Paul Jones and Bon Homme Richard, Enterprise, and many others.

Such a story is the story of Archerfish, the ship which broke the heart of the Japanese Navy.

The keel was laid for USS Archerfish in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on January 22, 1943. Exactly one year later she sank her first ship. And on November 28, 1944—but let’s start at the beginning.

The story really begins in 1939 in Yokosuka, Japan. The Japanese Naval Ministry was holding secret sessions. The probability of becoming involved in the European war was growing greater and greater; the probability of then finding their nation pitted against the United States was almost a certainty. How, then, to assure Japan of a telling superiority? How to fight that great American sea power in the Pacific? And how to do away with the London Naval Treaty, which limited Japan to an ignominious three fifths of the war vessels allowed the United States?

There was only one answer. The treaty already had been violated — tear it up. Start building in earnest for the war they know is coming.

Secret instructions were sent to the largest shipyard in Japan. Millions of board feet of wood came from the forest reserves, and thousands of carpenters were employed to build a gigantic yard. Houses for 50,000 people were requisitioned and these, too, were fenced in around the fenced Navy Yard. Finally, one day in 1940, an order was issued from the Commandant’s office: “From this date henceforth no one leaves the Navy Yard.” And so was born the battleship Shinano.

By the summer of 1942 she was not quite half finished. This super-battleship with two sisters Yamato and Musashi, was bigger than any war vessel ever before constructed in the history of the world. Bigger than Bismarck, the German behemoth of 50,000 tons. Almost three times as big as Oklahoma, lying bottom up in the mud and ooze of Pearl Harbor. Armor plate twenty inches thick. Engines of 200,000 horsepower. Guns throwing projectiles eighteen inches in diameter.

Then at the Battle of Midway, in June, 1942, the flower of the Japanese naval air force met destruction. Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu—all first-line carriers — were sunk. The attack on Midway was turned back, a complete failure. The Naval Ministry met again in secret session, and decided that completion of new aircraft carriers was paramount. So Shinano was redesigned. Some of the tremendous armor plate was removed from her side. Her huge barbettes, turrets, and eighteen-inch guns were never installed, and the weight thus saved was put into an armored flight deck made of hardened steel four inches thick. Under this flight deck were built two hangar decks, and below them another armored deck, eight inches thick. She was capable of storing 100 to 150 planes, and could land them and take them off simultaneously from an airfield nearly one thousand feet in length and 130 feet in width.

But all this took time, and as 1944 drew to a close, the need of the Japanese Navy for its new super carrier became increasingly acute. Finally, in November, 1944, Shinano was nearly completed. The commissioning ceremonies were held on November 18; a picture of the Emperor in an ornate gilded frame was ceremoniously delivered to the vessel, and she was turned over to her commanding officer.

Then the bad news arrived. Japanese strategic intelligence reports indicated that air raids on the Tokyo area would become increasingly severe, with a good possibility that the brave new ship would be seriously exposed at her fitting-out dock. There was even a possibility that United States Forces would discover the existence of the huge vessel and make a special effort to destroy her before she could get to sea. This could not be permitted. The Tokyo area was too vulnerable. The ship must be moved to the Inland Sea.

Now the Inland Sea is the body of water formed between the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. It has three entrances: two, the Bungo and Kii Suidos, into the Pacific, and one, Shimonoseki Strait, into the landlocked Sea of Japan. It is an ideal operating base for an inferior navy which must depend upon being able to hide when it cannot fight.

But Shinano is not ready to go to sea. True, she is structurally complete, her engines can operate, and she floats, but she is not quite ready. Her watertight integrity has not been proved. Air tests have been made of only a few of her hundreds of compartments. Many holes through various bulkheads have not yet been plugged. Watertight doors have not been tested, and it is not known whether they can be closed; furthermore, even if they can be closed, no one knows if they are actually watertight. Electrical wiring and piping passing through watertight bulkheads have not had their packing glands set up and tested. Cable and pipe conduits from the main deck into the bowels of the ship have not been sealed. The pumping and drainage system is not complete; piping is not all connected. The fire main cannot be used because the necessary pumps have not been delivered.

Most important of all, the crew has been on board for only one month. They number 1,900 souls, but few have been to sea together. Many have never been to sea at all, and none have had any training whatsoever on board Shinano. They do not know their ship. They are not a crew. They are 1,900 people.

But it is decided, nonetheless, that Shinano must sail to safer waters immediately. To do so she must pass out of Tokyo Bay, steer south and west around the southeastern tip of Honshu, and enter the Kii Suido, a trip of only a few hundred miles. But about half the trip will be in waters accessible to United States submarines. That risk she must take. Give her an escort of four destroyers, and send her at high speed so that the submarines cannot catch her. Make the move in absolute secrecy, so that there will be no possibility of an unfortunate leak of information.

The die was cast, and on the afternoon of November 28, 1944, Shinano set sail with her four escorting destroyers. Sailors and workmen crowded about her decks, and the gilded frame glittered in the late afternoon sunlight on the flying bridge. From within the frame, the image of the Son of Heaven beamed happily on this mightiest of warships.

Thus was set the stage for the greatest catastrophe yet to befall the hapless Japanese Navy. Work for four years building the biggest ship of its kind that has ever been constructed by man; put 1,900 men on board; install a picture of the Emperor on the bridge, and send her out through a few miles of water exposed to possible operations of American submarines.

There was nothing particularly portentous about the laying of the keel of Archerfish. She displaced 1,500 tons, or one-fiftieth the tonnage of the huge vessel fated to be her adversary. She was only one third the length of Shinano, and her crew of eighty-two men and officers was about one fortieth of the 3,200 estimated full designed complement of the Japanese ship.

Leaving New London, Archerfish zigzags southward through the center of the broad Atlantic, in waters infested by her enemy sisters. Do not think that a submarine is not afraid of other submarines. We are probably more afraid of them and more respectful of them than any other type of vessel would be. A submarine cruising on the surface is a delicious morsel. It almost always travels alone, and its only defense is its own vigilance. Zigzag all day and even at night, if the visibility is fairly good. Keep a sharp lookout and radar watch. Tell yourselves over and over again, “Boys, don’t relax. We are playing for keeps now.”

The weather becomes perceptibly warmer. Finally, land is sighted, and Archerfish slips through the Mona Passage into the Caribbean Sea. Here the waters are even more infested with German submarines than are the wide reaches of the central Atlantic. Archerfish puts on full speed and dashes across the Caribbean to Cristobal, at the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal. She arrives early in the morning and proceeds immediately through the great locks, and through Gatun Lake to the submarine base at Balboa on the Pacific end of the Canal.

No danger here from German subs. No time, either, for any rest for the tired crew, for they have lost the edge from their training and must be brought back “on the step” again. One week is all that is available. Archerfish is issued nine practice torpedoes, and fires them again and again. Target convoys are provided. Day and night exercises are conducted. Rarely does the crew turn in before midnight, and all hands are always up at 0500. Archerfish does not even stop for lunch, but instead distributes sandwiches to all members of the crew, making up for it with a good breakfast and a good dinner.

One week of this; then, her crew once again in fine fettle, Archerfish sails across the broad Pacific, on the final and longest leg of her journey to Pearl Harbor. She and her crew have had a pretty steady go of it. They have been training strenuously and incessantly for the past two months with practically no rest, but they cannot be allowed to relax.

They know that the competition in the far western Pacific is mighty tough, so they drill steadily, on every maneuver of which the ship is capable, except the actual firing of torpedoes. Archerfish cannot fire torpedoes, because she is transporting a full load of “war shots.” One of the most convenient ways of getting torpedoes to Pearl Harbor was to send them by submarine.

Finally land is sighted. A PC boat signals through the early dawn to Archerfish, “We are your escort,” and swings about to lead the submarine to Pearl Harbor. This is the last stop. Below decks all hands are feverishly cleaning up the ship and themselves. They intend to make a good entrance into Pearl; they are proud of their ship, and will not willingly allow her to suffer by comparison with any other in looks or efficiency.

Finally Archerfish gently noses into a dock at the submarine base, Pearl Harbor, where a small group of officers and enlisted men await her. Admiral Lockwood, the Commander Submarines, Pacific Fleet (also known as “Uncle Charlie”), is on hand to greet this newest addition to his forces. With him is an array of talent: the squadron commander, the division commander, the officer in charge of the repair department, the submarine supply officer, a submarine medical officer, an electronics officer, and a commissary officer.

The enlisted men are evidently a working party. As Archerfish approaches the dock, they scamper to catch the weighted heaving lines thrown by members of her crew. Pulling in swiftly on the “heevies,” they haul heavy hawsers from the deck of the submarine to the dock. Others stand by with a narrow gangway and, when the submarine finally comes to rest alongside the dock, bridge the gap between dock and ship with it.

The moment the gangway has been placed, Admiral Lockwood, followed by his train of experts, walks aboard to greet the skipper, who by this time has jumped down from his station on the bridge. Asking if there are any outstanding emergency repairs or other troubles, Uncle Charlie chats for a few moments. Like a man who has just had a new automobile delivered to him, he is interested in all the new wrinkles and gadgets on board. Then, bidding the skipper good-by until lunch, to which he has been invited at Uncle Charlie’s mess, the Admiral leaves the ship.

This is the opportunity the rest of his staff have been waiting for. Each one of them searches out his opposite number on board and makes arrangements for necessary repairs. In addition, there are several last-minute alterations which must be accomplished before the ship can depart. The workmen — all Navy men — who are to perform these operations are to a large extent already en route to the dock with their tools and equipment. By this method of making alterations virtually on the fighting front, so to speak, our submarines always went into battle with the very latest and finest equipment.

Meanwhile, the enlisted men who had come on the dock with the Admiral, and who had handled lines for the ship, have not been idle. Three or four bulging mail sacks, a crate of oranges, a box of nice red apples, and a five-gallon can of ice cream were brought down with them on a handcart. These they now passed over the gangway to the eagerly awaiting crew of Archerfish.

On December 23, 1943, while Shinano was still building, Archerfish departed Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol. Too bad she could not have stayed for Christmas, but orders must be obeyed, and operations seldom take notice of such things. Besides, her crew had been brought up to the fever pitch of enthusiasm. Christmas or no, she was eager to be on her way.

On January 8, 1944, Archerfish entered her assigned area, near Formosa. If any of her crew expected even this final lap of her 13,000-mile voyage to war to be a rest cure, they must have been disappointed, for every day of this two-week period was utilized for drill. Practice makes perfect.

To some extent a submarine is a weapon of opportunity. You cannot attack ships which do not arrive. If the seas are too rough, you have the devil’s own time keeping an efficient periscope watch, for if you run too close to the surface in order to increase your effective periscope height and see over the wave tops, you stand grave danger of “broaching”; that is, surfacing involuntarily as a result of wave action.

On her first patrol Archerfish and her disgusted crew fought heavy weather for two solid weeks, but finally she reported radar contact with four large and five smaller ships heading in the general direction of Formosa. The leading ship was attacked and sunk and Archerfish’s patrol report stated, “We had celebrated the first anniversary of our keel laying in right smart fashion.”

Months passed, and she was a veteran. The vast Pacific was her playground and her no man’s land. Then, as Joe Enright, her skipper, recorded in the fifth war patrol report of Archerfish, on November 28, 1944, she was patrolling submerged to the south and west of the western entrance to Sagami Nada, or outer Tokyo Bay. No ships had been sighted. No contacts of any kind (except fishing boats) had been made thus far in the patrol, which had begun twenty-nine days before.

At 1718 she surfaced, the visibility having decreased to such an extent that surface patrolling was feasible and desirable. With no premonition of the events which were to give him an enviable place in our naval history, the Commanding Officer ordered the regular routine of nighttime functions. A radar watch had of course been established the instant the ship broke water. Two engines were put on battery charge and one engine on propulsion at leisurely speed. Air compressors were started, and garbage was assembled, ready to be thrown over the side in burlap sacks. The crew settled down to the routine of alert watchfulness which is a concomitant part of night surface submarine operations in enemy waters.

At 2048 Fate finally uncovered her hand and brought together the characters she had been coaching for so long. Four years for Shinano and almost two years for Archerfish—time means little to the gods. How she must have sat back in her big, soft, easy chair, and chuckled. Having brought the two major characters of her play together, now she would leave it up to them, and see what would happen.

“Radar contact!” These words never fail to bring a shiver of anticipation to the submariner. From the size of the pip, the range, and the speed which the first few hasty moments of plotting show this target to be making, there is no doubt whatever in the minds of any of the crew of Archerfish that she is really on to something big. The word passes almost instantaneously throughout the ship, “Something big and fast!”

With the ease and sureness of long practice, tracking stations are manned. On the first word of radar contact, the Officer of the Deck had turned the bow of Archerfish directly toward the contact, and had stopped. This gave the plotting party an immediate indication of the direction of target movement. As soon as this had been determined, Archerfish roared off in hot pursuit, not directly at the target, but on such a course that she might have an opportunity of getting ahead of him. The main engine still on battery charge was replaced by the auxiliary engine, and all four great nine-cylinder Diesel engines were placed on propulsion. Within minutes after the initial contact, Archerfish was pounding along at full speed, 18 knots, throwing a cloud of spray and spume from her sharp knifelike bow as she hurried across the sea.

This is where the long, monotonous labor of patrol starts to bear fruit. Plotting and tracking the target is no simple matter. Every minute a range and bearing; every minute the singsong “Standby, standby, mark!” Every minute plotting parties plot the ship’s course and its position at the instant of the “mark”; then, from that point, they draw range and bearing, and thus locate the position of the enemy ship at the same instant. Your own ship twists and turns in the dual effort to gain firing position and to keep range to the target so that he will not sight her, or get radar contact on her, but keep close enough so that her radar will have no difficulty in keeping contact on his much larger bulk. After a few minutes of chase, the target’s course is determined to be roughly 210. The target’s speed is 20 knots; he is zigzagging, and by the size and strength of his radar pip is mighty big and mighty important. Radar also indicates four smaller vessels: one ahead, one on either beam, and one astern.

Joe Enright is climbing all over his ship like a monkey. First up to the bridge to be sure all is under control, then down to Plot to get an idea of what it is doing. Next, a quick look at the radar scope for a personal evaluation of what the operators have on there; then a quick look at the TDC; then back to the bridge. Then the whole thing over again.

The well-drilled crew are responding beautifully and solving the problem like clockwork, but all the information collected by his attack party must be transmitted to the Captain. It must be weighed in his mind; he must collect all the tiny details, any one of which might suddenly assume tremendous proportions. In no type of vessel is the Commanding Officer so personally responsible for the actual handling of his ship as in a submarine.

What is the state of moon and sea? It is better to attack with the moon silhouetting the targets instead of the submarine. But torpedoes run better if fired down the hollow of the waves rather than across them. The two considerations must be evaluated; the best decision reached. Not content with the mere reports of progress from junior officers and crewmen working below, the Captain has to be personally sure that they are not making mistakes. In his climbing up and down from control room to conning tower to bridge, it is necessary that he protect his night vision, as it would not do to have him partially blinded on the bridge when the crucial moment comes. Therefore, all below-deck control compartments are blacked out. No lights are allowed except the dim red glow of plotting party lights and the orange and green lights of the radar. All is silent in the control party, except the hushed reports which are continually going back and forth.

Archerfish is logging only 18 knots. This will not be sufficient. The call goes down from the bridge: “Maneuvering, make all the speed you can! All ahead flank!”

Watching their dials carefully, the electrician’s mates in the maneuvering room slowly increase the rheostat settings, and the thrashing propellers increase their speed another 20 r.p.m. The pitometer log registers now a little more than 18½ knots.

Again word from the bridge, “Control, give her a five-minute blow! Blow safety! Blow negative!” The scream and grind of the low-pressure air-blowing pump fill the interior of the ship. This low-pressure pump is used in the latter stages of surfacing when a large volume of air is required to complete emptying the ballast tanks of water. In this case, the intention is to blow out what residual amounts of water night remain or have leaked back in, in order to speed up the ship. Negative tank and safety tank are always kept full of water in order to carry out their designed purposes. Negative tank is so built that when it is full, the submarine properly compensated, and the ballast tanks flooded, the sub has negative buoyancy and will sink. Thus she dives faster. Safety tank, on the other hand, is used to give the ship quick, positive buoyancy, if she should need it. Altogether, these two tanks carry approximately thirty-six tons of sea water. Emptying them, while it decreases the safety factor with which the ship ordinarily operates, also decreases the amount of weight she had to drag around with her and hence increases her speed.

But in spite of these measures, Archerfish’s speed quivers around 19 knots or possibly a shade more. Still not enough. A third time from the bridge comes the order: “Maneuvering, give her all you’ve got! To hell with the volts and amps! Watch your motor temperatures, but give me more speed!” Shaking their heads — this is foreign to their training and upbringing — the electrician’s mates carefully manipulate their rheostats once more. By means of the engine remote-control governor linkage, the r.p.m. of the four huge main diesel engines have already been increased to the maximum, and they are racing just as fast as they possibly can. Doubtfully the generators are loaded a bit more, and the amperes flowing to the four straining motors increase a trifle. The propellers increase their speed by another five or six r.p.m. Archerfish has done all she can, and the pitometer log dial now indicates 19½ knots.

At about this point, approximately one hour after the initial contact, the patrol report states, “Saw the target for the first time, an aircraft carrier! From here on it was a mad race to reach a firing position.”

It is every submarine skipper’s dream to find himself in hot pursuit of such a target. The jackpot — an aircraft carrier! The biggest game of all! Archerfish, the huntress. Can she bring this monster down in his own environment?

The skipper is all over the ship again, and visits the control stations at frequent intervals. He calls for Lieutenant Rom Cousins, the engineer officer, sends him back into the engineering spaces with instructions to squeeze out every possible extra turn on the laboring screws. He sends Dave Bunting to be sure that all last-minute adjustments are made on his torpedoes. There might even be time to pull and check all fish. When you stick your neck in the mouth of the dragon in hopes of getting a shot at him, you want that shot to be good.

The Communication Officer comes in for his share of attention. Joe Enright jots down a message on a piece of paper and hands it to him. Gordon Crosby disappears into the radio room, codes the message, and then stands watch on the radioman as he transmits: “NPM V W3TU—K… NPM V W3TU — K… Radio Pearl from Archerfish, I have an urgent message.… Radio Pearl from Archerfish, I have an urgent message.”

Straining their ears, the radiomen listen to the welter of dots and dashes filling the ether. Radio Pearl is busy; a lot of ships are calling it, and it is receiving a steady stream of messages. Archerfish must wait her turn. The answer from NPM says, Archerfish from Radio Pearl, Wait.

But this won’t do. “NPM V W3TU 000 K.… Radio Pearl from Archerfish, this message is really urgent!” There must be some means whereby a ship with an excessively important message can demand and receive immediate attention. Only in this way can any semblance of communication and traffic discipline be maintained.

Radio Pearl comes back immediately with a procedure sign to Archerfish. “Go ahead, we are ready.”

NPM answers simply and very specifically, “R,” which means “Received, I assume responsibility, will forward this message to proper authority.”

By this time it is early morning at Pearl Harbor, but Admiral Lockwood has left orders with the duty officer to call him no matter where he may be, upon receipt of such a message. He hurries down to the office with his Operations Officer. It isn’t often that one of his submarines latches on to a prize of this kind. Together, with the large wall chart of the Japanese Empire before them, they lay plans to insure the destruction of Archerfish’s target. In less than an hour messages pour forth from Radio Pearl. The position, course, and speed of Shinano are given. All submarines which might be in a position to intercept her are ordered to proceed to various strategic points and there to lie in wait. Then a further message to Archerfish: KEEP AFTER HIM JOE YOUR PICTURE IS ON THE PIANO. The levity in this dispatch is not misplaced. Uncle Charlie knows his boys, and his boys know him.

On and on, on and on, straining every nerve, Archerfish pursues her quarry. The carrier is tracked at 20 knots. Archerfish can do no more than 19 or possibly a shade better. But the carrier is zigzagging. If Archerfish can detect his base course and parallel that, disregarding the zigs, she may be able to overtake him in spite of the disparity in speeds. But this is tricky, too, because on a zig toward Archerfish, the target group might approach close enough for one of the flank escorts to sight the laboring submarine. Conversely, a zig away might lead them out of radar range, where a course change would result in Archerfish’s pursuing in the wrong direction. So Archerfish cannot blindly charge ahead, but must conform to maneuvers of the target; she cannot lose him, nor can she let him get too close. With these considerations, resisting every move which might tend to increase the distance she must run, Archerfish doggedly sets about making an end around. Theoretically, it is possible to get around a target going faster than you are. It is possible, but mighty damn hard to do!

One hour before midnight the target group zigs toward, not enough to give Archerfish an opportunity to dive and attack on this leg, but sufficiently so that one of the flanking escorts approaches perilously near the submarine—6000 yards. Determined to take every conceivable, practicable chance to avoid being forced to submerge prematurely, the skipper orders all bridge personnel below, except for Lieutenant (j.g.) John Andrews, the Officer of the Deck. If Archerfish receives gunfire on the bridge, there will be only himself and Andrews up there to worry about.

But the escort ignores the submarine, and Joe Enright calls his lookouts back to the bridge.

At midnight the carrier force makes another big zig, to the west. Archerfish had expected that he was probably headed for somewhere in the Pacific, and therefore had chosen the left or southern flank of the convoy to trail from. A change of base course in the most probable direction, to the south, she hoped would drop the whole outfit into her hands. But such was not to be. The zig to the west puts the submarine even further out in right field, but doggedly she digs in and continues the chase.

For two and a half hours the pursuit goes on. Racing to crawl up the left flank of the task group, Archerfish finds that her top speed is just barely allowing her to pull ahead. But there is obviously no chance of attaining a firing position before dawn. Regretfully, the skipper composes another message.

The answer is prompt, ARCHERFISH FROM COMSUBPAC X KEEP AFTER HIM JOE X ALL SUBMARINES IN THE FORCE ARE PULLING FOR YOU AND ARE BACKING YOU UP.

They are keeping a sleepless vigil at the operations office of ComSubPac, fortified by much coffee and Coca-Cola. But their encouraging message is never received by Archerfish.

For at 0300 the sands run out for Shinano. Base course is changed again, this time to nearly due south, and incredulously Archerfish finds herself almost dead ahead of the target. Fate picks up her dice and stows them away.

“Right full rudder!” The submarine changes course rapidly, heeling to port as she does so. At last Archerfish heads for the enemy.

Ah-oooh — gah! Ah — oooh-gah! The diving alarm seems more piercing than usual. “Dive! Dive!” “Flood negative! Flood safety!” “Battle stations submerged!” A few men dash through the ship to their battle stations, but most are already there.

“Hatch secured, sir!”

“Shut the induction!”

“Green board, sir!”

“Bleed air in the boat!” “Eight degrees down bubble!” “Easy on the bow planes!” “Blow negative!” “All ahead one third!” “Fifty-five feet!” Expertly each man does his job, and Archerfish smoothly slips beneath the waves. Radar gets a final range as the antenna goes under water: 11,700 yards, closing fast.

“Up periscope!” The long, shiny tube hums out of the periscope well. Squatting on his haunches before it, hands poised to catch the handles the moment they emerge, Enright resembles an ageless devotee of some obscure occult religion. Perspiration stands out unnoticed on his forehead, his face is immobile, his eyes staring. You would say he is in a trance, and in a trance he is, for his eyes do not see the crowded darkened conning tower around him. His eyes and mind already are on the surface of the ocean, watching the enemy task group as it comes closer — and closer.…

Finally the periscope handles appear. Capturing and unfolding them with both hands, the skipper applies his right eye to the eyepiece and swiftly rises with the periscope to a standing position. He has become so accustomed to this procedure that he is entirely unconscious that he has performed quite a neat little stunt — for from the moment the periscope eyepiece appeared out of the periscope well he has been looking through it, has risen to a standing position with it, and has stopped rising smoothly as the eyepiece reached its upper limit. He slowly rotates the periscope from side to side, searching through the faint pre-dawn light.

“Down periscope! Target not yet in sight. What range do you have on the TDC?”

Since it still lacks more than an hour until dawn, the conning tower and control room are still darkened in order to make it possible to see through the periscope. The radar has been secured, and only the faint red glow of the TDC dial lights, the torpedo ready lights, and the sound gear dial lights are permitted. Dave Bunting consults the TDC range dial. “Range, eight oh double oh, Captain. Bearing two nine five.”

“Up periscope! Put me on two nine five!” The Captain snaps the command to his exec, “Bobo” Bobczynski, now functioning as Assistant Approach Officer. As the periscope comes up, the latter places his hands beside the Captain’s on the handles and swings the ’scope until the etched hairline stands at 295. The skipper looks long and hard, and infinitesimally rotates the periscope from one side to the other.

Throughout the ship the men are waiting for the answer to their unspoken questions: “Have we dived in the right place?” “Have we really outguessed him?” “Does the Captain see the target?”

Finally, in a low voice which hardly expresses conviction, and which certainly is far from showing the relief he feels, the Captain speaks. “I see him.”

The word flies through the ship. Men look at one another and smile, some a little shakily, but most, a tight-lipped grin of relief and pride. “We have him in the periscope!”

The Captain’s voice now comes a little stronger. “Bearing — mark! Down ’scope! No range yet!”

“Two nine five,” Bobo sings out the bearing. Bunting checks his TDC. Down below in the control room, Plot gets the bearing, plots it. There has been a temporary hiatus, while the ship pulls itself together for the final effort, but it is over now.

“Up periscope! Bearing — mark!”

“Two nine six!”

“Range — mark! Down periscope!”

“Six five double oh!”

“Angle on the bow. Starboard five degrees!”

Things are really clicking now. At 20 knots the target will travel the distance between himself and Archerfish in nine minutes and a few seconds. It is time to maneuver to gain a favorable firing position as he goes by.

“What’s the distance to the track?” The Captain can’t be bothered with doing this calculation himself.

Bobo does it for him by trigonometry, multiplying the sine of the angle on the bow by the range. He has what amounts to a slide rule to make the computation, and the answer is almost instantaneous. “Five five oh yards!”

Much too close! The submarine is also headed toward the target’s projected track. At minimum submerged speed of 2 knots, in nine minutes she will have traveled 600 yards, and will be almost directly beneath the target as he goes by. These thoughts and computations flash across Joe Enright’s mind in a split second, even as he gives the order to mitigate the situation. “Left full rudder! Left to course zero nine zero!” By turning her bow more toward the target, Archerfish will be enabled to fire torpedoes a little sooner, thus catching Shinano at a reasonable range; also, she will not close the track so quickly.

All this time Shinano is pounding on to his doom. As soon as Archerfish steadies on the new course, her periscope rises above the waves once more, remains a moment, then disappears. Range, bearing, and angle on the bow are fed into the TDC and plot. Her skipper’s mind is functioning like lightning. There are three things which Shinano may do: Continue on his present course, which will put Archerfish in the least favorable firing position, necessitating a sharp track shot ahead of time. Or, zig to his right, causing the submarine to shoot him with stern tubes. Most favorable would be a zig of about 30 degrees to his left, which would leave him wide open for a square broadside shot from the bow tubes.

“How much time?” rasps the skipper, motioning with his thumbs for the periscope to go up.

“He’ll be here in two minutes!”

The periscope rises out of the well. “Zig away, to his own left! Angle on the bow starboard thirty!” The TDC dials whirl as the new information is fed into it.

“Bearing — mark!”

“Three four eight!”

“Range — mark!”

“Two oh double oh!”

Swiftly the Captain spins the periscope, making a quick scan of the situation all around. Suddenly he stops, returns to a bearing broad on the port beam.

“Down ’scope! Escort passing overhead!”

The periscope streaks down. For the first time they are conscious of a new noise, a drumming noise — propeller beats — coming closer. With a roar like that of an express train, the high-speed destroyer screws sweep overhead.

“This is a shooting observation! Are the torpedoes ready?” Unconsciously, the Captain’s voice has become clipped and sharp. This is the moment they have worked for all night. He must not fail!

“Shooting observation. All tubes are ready, sir, depth set fifteen feet. Range one five double oh, angle on bow starboard eight five. We are all ready to shoot, sir!”

The cool, self-possessed voice of Sigmund Bobczynski surprises both himself and the Captain. There is no wavering, no lack of confidence here. A quick look of affectionate understanding passes between these two who have traveled so far and worked so long together.

“Up periscope! Looks perfect! Bearing — mark!”

“Zero zero one!”

“Set!”—from the TDC officer.

And then that final word, the word they have been leading up to, the word they have all studiously avoided pronouncing until now. “Fire!”

At eight-second intervals, six torpedoes race toward their huge target. Mesmerized, the skipper of Archerfish stands at his periscope watching for the success or failure of his approach. Forty-seven endless seconds after firing, the culmination of Archerfish’s efforts is achieved.

“Whang!” then eight seconds later, “Whang!” Two hits right before his eyes! But there isn’t time to play the spectator. That destroyer who just passed overhead will be coming back, and the trailing escort will surely join the party in short order.

A quick look astern of the carrier. Sure enough, here he comes, and less than five hundred yards away. “Take her down!”

Negative tank is flooded and the planes put at full dive. Over the rush of water into and air out of negative tank, four more solid, beautiful hits are heard.

The next thing on the docket after a torpedo attack is usually a depth charge attack, and this case proves no exception. But after their glorious experience, it will take a lot of depth charges to dampen the spirits of these submariners. The patrol report actually indicates surprise that the depth charging was not more severe, and merely states, “Started receiving a total of fourteen depth charges,” and a little later, “Last depth charge. The hissing, sputtering, and sinking noises continued.”

And what of Shinano all this time? Archerfish made but one mistake in her report. Her target did not sink immediately, as she believed, and, as a matter of strict truth, it would not have sunk at all had its crew possessed even a fraction of the training and indoctrination of its adversary, After all, Shinano was theoretically designed to survive twenty or more torpedoes. If she had been properly handled by her crew, and if she had been properly built, she could have made port in spite of Archerfish’s six torpedoes.

But water poured from damaged compartments into undamaged ones via watertight doors which had no gaskets; through cable and pipe conduits not properly sealed off and stuffing tubes not packed. The Japanese engineers attempted to start the pumps — and found they had not yet been installed, the piping not even completed. They searched for the hand pumps, but the ship had not yet received her full allowance of gear, and only a few were on board. In desperation, a bucket brigade was started, but the attempt was hopeless. The six huge holes in Shinano’s side and the innumerable internal leaks defied all efforts to cope with them.

And then her organization and discipline failed. The men drifted away from the bucket brigade by ones and twos. The engineers gave up trying to get part of the drainage system running. The officers rushed about giving furious orders — but no one obeyed them. Instead, fatalistically, most of the crew gathered on the flight deck in hopes of being rescued by one of the four destroyers milling around their stricken charge. Faint, pathetic hope.

Four hours after she had received her mortal wound. Shinano had lost all power, and was nothing but a beaten, hopeless, disorganized hulk, listing to starboard more heavily every moment, a plaything of the wind and the sea. There was only one thing left to do.

The Emperor, in his gilded frame, was removed from the bridge and, after being thoroughly wrapped, transferred by line to a destroyer alongside. Then the work of abandoning ship began.

Shortly before 1100 on the morning of November 29 Shinano capsized to starboard, rolling her broad flight deck under and exposing her enormous glistening fat belly, with its four bronze propellers at the stern. For several minutes she hung there, lurching unevenly in the moderately rough sea.

Here and there the figures of several men who had not leaped into the sea with the others stood upon the steel plates, silhouetted against sea and sky. Evidently they had climbed around the side and the turn of the bilge as the ship rolled over. Whatever their reasons for not abandoning the ship, they were now doomed, for none of the four destroyers still holding the wake dared approach closely enough to take them off. And the suction of the sinking vessel was certain to take them down with it.

Slowly the massive rudders and propellers started to dip under the seas splashing up toward them. A trembling and a groaning communicated itself to the whole giant fabric, and it began to sway noticeably, swinging the afterparts and the foreparts under alternately. Each time an end dipped, the sea gained a little, and the trembling and groaning increased.

Finally, during one swoop, the stern failed to reappear. Startlingly and suddenly, the bow rose partly out of water, displaying a single eye formed by one gigantic hawsepipe, as if Shinano desired a final look at the world she was about to leave. Swiftly then she slid under, stern first, and the last thing seen was the broad bulbous bow, like the forehead of some huge prehistoric Moby Dick, accompanied by the blowing, bubbling, and whistling of air escaping under water.

For several minutes there was considerable turbulence and bubbling to mark her grave, but Shinano was gone from the ken of men.

She had known the open sea for less than twenty hours.