Submarine!

15 Trigger

Trigger had shattered five convoys with Dusty Dornin at the conn, before he was relieved by order of Admiral King. Dick Garvey, now Lieutenant, USNR — next to me and Wilson, the senior man in point of service aboard — was detached at the same time. Fritz Harlfinger became her fourth master. We decided that because of my good fortune in having excellent night vision, I should function for him exactly as I had for Dusty — that is, on the bridge during night surface attacks, on the periscope when submerged. This was Wahoo’s system, which Trigger had adopted.

On Fritz’s first patrol, off the Haha Jima Retto in the Marianas, the worst beating of Trigger’s career — and one of the most severe experienced by any sub in our Navy — took place. About four hours before dawn we picked up a convoy, tracked it a bit, and prepared to “pull the Trigger” on it.

Radar indicated many ships. While we were still 20,000 yards ahead of the main body, we detected two radar-equipped escorts patrolling 10,000 to 15,000 yards ahead of the convoy. “What a stupid place to patrol,” we thought. “This will be a cinch.” So we dived under the escorts and passed safely (we thought) through the outer screen of the convoy. We later realized we had been detected by radar and the whole convoy alerted.

Returning to periscope depth, we are preparing to surface when more escorts are detected. Down we go again, passing under a second feverishly pinging screen. Five destroyers or more in that one, and they’re not merely carrying on a routine search. They’re hunting, and finally one of them gets a “probable contact.” He and one of his friends turn around and follow us, still a little doubtful, but — oh — so — right!

It is only a moderately bright night, so we leave the periscope up for lengthy intervals, confident it cannot be seen. For long periods we stare at those two chaps astern, zigzagging back and forth in their cautious search plan, slowly but surely tracking us down. We feel like the hare in a game of hare and hounds and it’s not funny. Inexorably the finger has been put upon us. We’re going to catch it no matter what happens — and so far we haven’t even seen the enemy convoy.

Gone are ideas of making a night surface attack. We’ll be lucky even to get in a submerged shot before the beating lying in wait for us catches up to us. Resignedly we stand by to take it — when, finally, the main body heaves into sight.

My God! We see through the periscope four columns of ships, five or more ships in each column. Tankers, freighters, transports, and auxiliaries, all steaming toward Saipan. And closely spaced around the mass of merchant vessels is yet a third ring of at least ten, probably more, escorts.

No time to surface and send a message — even if we could, with those hounds on our tail. No time even to prepare a message. No time to do anything except shoot.

On its present course the convoy will pass about two thousand yards ahead of us. The port flank group of escort vessels will pass almost exactly over us, one after another. We may get a shot, if conditions don’t change.

We’ll get some fish in the water, anyhow. Make ready all tubes! A big tanker moves up into position, will soon line himself up broadside for a shot from our bow tubes. Behind him is a solid phalanx of ships. If the torpedoes run straight, or run at all, we can’t miss. We plan to fire all six bow tubes, swing and fire all four stern tubes, and then take her down fast. Too bad, but we won’t be able to sit around to verify sinkings. We’ll be fortunate if we distinguish our torpedo hits from the unholy barrage of depth charges sure to follow.

Stealthily, silently, Trigger creeps into firing position. One minute to go, just about. Fritz takes the periscope for a moment, swings it aft for a quick look. Dismay on his sweat-studded face.

“He’s signaling to the convoy,” he mutters. “They must have us pretty well spotted by now. He’s sending ‘Baker,’ the letter ‘Baker’ over and over — That’s International Code for ‘I am about to discharge explosives.’”

Someone who recently read Horatio Hornblower murmurs, “For what we are about to receive, oh, Lord, we give thanks.” But it’s not funny.

Our tanker should be about in the spot now. Standby forward! I turn Trigger’s periscope back to give the firing bearings. We’re going to catch it, but we’re going to dish it out too.

But the periscope can see nothing. Helplessly I turn it back and forth in high power. “Something peculiar here. Can’t see anything. Mighty funny-shaped cloud there — looks like a ship…” I flip the periscope into low power, which gives greater field with less magnification.

“Wow! It’s a destroyer! He’s trying to ram! He’s just barely missed us — within twenty-five yards! He’s firing a machine gun through his bridge windows! They’re dropping depth charges!”

Thought: How long does it take a depth charge to sink to fifty feet?

“He’s by, now. There’s the tanker! Bearing — mark!”

“All ahead full! Take her down!”

“Fire ONE!”

“Rig for depth charge and silent running!”

“Fire TWO!”

“Fire THREE!”

“Fire FOUR! Secure the tubes!”

The air pressure inside Trigger suddenly increases as negative tank is vented, and down she goes. Four torpedoes are all we fire, for we don’t want depth charges going off and possibly exploding a torpedo warhead lying unprotected in a tube with the outer door open.

But no depth charges go off, despite the whole gang of Japs seen frantically working at the destroyer’s depth charge racks. We suspect he was caught a little by surprise, too, and either his release gear jammed, or he still had his depth charges secured for sea. At any rate, the first explosions we hear are the beautiful, painful, wonderful sounds of four solid torpedo hits: two, according to the time interval, probably in our tanker, and two in one or two ships in the next column over.

Then, for a moment we hear only the thrashing of many screws, in particular the set belonging to the little man who sent “Baker” by light. We are at 300 feet, but he comes in as if he could practically see us, and drops twenty-five absolute beauties on us. How Trigger manages to hold together we’ll never know. Her heavy steel sides buckle in and out, her cork insulation breaks off in great chunks and flies about. Lockers are shaken open and the contents spewed all over everything. Ventilation lines and other piping familiarly start to vibrate themselves almost out of sight. Light sheet-metal seams and fastenings pop loose. With each succeeding shock, gauges all over the ship jiggle violently across their dials, and several needles knock themselves off against their pegs. In spite of careful and thoughtful shock mounting, instruments are shattered and electric circuits thrown out of order.

During the height of the depth charge barrage the forward auxiliary distribution board circuit breaker emits a shower of sparks and a sudden crackling “phf-f-f-ft.” The electrician’s mate standing by hastily opens the “depth-charge ‘look-in’ switch”—and throws the circuit breaker out. All lights in the forward part of the ship go out, but the emergency lights, turned on at “Rig for depth charge,” and various hand lanterns strategically located, furnish sufficient illumination for essential operations. Electrician’s mates in the forward repair party quickly and silently turn to, working to locate and eliminate the trouble in the near-darkness amid the shattering noises of the depth charges, the convulsive whipping of Trigger’s hull, and the bouncing of the machinery. In a matter of minutes it is spotted, the offending water-soaked gear disconnected, and the forward board thrown back in. The lights come on again, and we feel a little better.

Finally the barrage is over and we listen while five more escorts detach themselves from the convoy and come back to look for us, signaled, no doubt, by the chap who had so vigorously counterattacked us. No more depth charges for a while, and we think that perhaps we’re going to get away with just a little beating. Hopes begin to rise, but no such luck!

The six Japs form a ring around us, and keep contact, moving with us so as always to keep us in the center. No matter which way we go, which way we turn, they keep up with us. Every half hour or so one breaks off and makes a run, dropping only a few charges each time — thum, thum, thum, THUM, THUM, THUM — WHAM, WHAM! WHAM! Now and then they vary their routine, and make a “dry run,” as if to say, “We know you’re there, old boy. Might as well surface and get it over with.” But Trigger sticks it out, long past dawn, past noon, until late afternoon.

We had dived at a little after midnight. Seventeen hours later we are still creeping along under continual harassment by our pursuers. All bilges are full of water to the danger limits. We have been bailing from the motor room to the after torpedo room for twelve hours, keeping the water out of the motors and reduction gears. The temperature has risen to a fantastic 135 degrees throughout the ship. Two or three men are near collapse from combination of nervous strain, lack of sufficient oxygen, and loss of salt from the system — though we all eat handfuls of salt tablets. We sweat profusely, and our clothes are drenched, our socks soggy, and our shoes soaked. In an attempt to lessen the nuisance of constantly wiping the sweat out of their eyes or off their bodies, many men knot rags around their foreheads or drape them over their shoulders and around their necks. The atmosphere is laden with moisture, which condenses everywhere. Bulkheads and vertical surfaces are simply beaded with water, perpetually running in sudden little rivulets to the deck. Our green linoleum decks are themselves a quarter of an inch deep in water already, and the constant moving about by men in greasy, soggy shoes has churned it up into a disgusting, slimy, muddy ooze through which we shuffle, oblivious to anything but the awful nearness of those menacing propellers overhead, the labor of breathing the foul air, and the terrific concussions of the unrelenting depth charges.

Three hundred feet below the surface, where the water is black and always cold, and the sea pressure compresses the hull with a force of 150 pounds per square inch, sustaining a total “squeeze” of about three hundred million pounds, Trigger fights for her life. Her sleek black hull, now tortured and strained, is heavier than the water it displaces by many thousands of pounds. This condition is due to loss of buoyancy caused by the compression of her hull and to the fact that her seams have been leaking steadily under the pounding she’s been taking-and the pumps cannot be run, for the noise would immediately betray her exact position. With bow and stern planes at full rise and herself at a ten-degree up angle, Trigger struggles to keep from sinking any deeper. Gradually, as the water inside increases and she becomes heavier, she is forced to assume more and more of an up angle, like a heavily laden airplane climbing under full throttle — only her problem is to maintain the same depth with minimum power.

That the water at 300 feet is colder than at the surface is a help, because it is denser, giving Trigger more buoyancy — but we’ve used up this “velvet” long ago. This difference in surface and deep-water temperatures should also hinder the Japs’ sound-detection apparatus, but so far as we can discern, it hasn’t bothered them much.

No matter which way we go, the deadly circle moves with us. We try several times to go through the gap in the circle left by the destroyer making the current attack, but that move apparently has been foreseen, for we are invariably blocked by not one but two sets of screws — those of the two vessels adjacent to the one making the run.

We wonder why the six escorts do not make a single coordinated attack on us. They have us so well boxed in that such an attack really would be a lulu! The thought grows that possibly they expect us to surface and surrender. If they keep up these tactics, and don’t sink us with a lucky depth charge, eventually we will run out of oxygen or battery power and be forced to surface.

But we lay our plans for that contingency. Trigger will never surrender. We’ll come up in the darkest hour of the night, at full speed, all hands at gun stations, and twenty torpedoes ready. It will be mighty dangerous for anything short of a full-fledged destroyer to get in our way.

The decision is made to surface at about twenty-one hundred, after sunset and evening twilight are over, and before moonrise. Our battery and oxygen would probably last us another twenty-four hours, but then we’d have to come up. This way, at least, we still can dive and hide, and if we can only get up for two hours or so we’ll be almost completely recovered, battery more than two thirds recharged, and ready for anything.

Such are the plans and arguments that pass through our minds that long and horrible day. Late that afternoon, however, fortune once more smiles our way. We realize that we have approached the southern edge of the circle, that the Japs have apparently temporarily lost contact, perhaps grown a bit careless, and that no depth charge runs have been made for quite some time.

We’ve tried it before, but here goes again. We head for the biggest gap in the circle, and slowly increase speed as much as we dare — which isn’t much. We listen with bated breath, hardly daring to breathe, plotting in those malevolent screws, trying to identify the bird who is supposed to cover the sector we’ve chosen for our escape route.

Here he comes! One set of screw noises slowly gets louder and begins to draw ahead. We shudder as he gains bearing on us. Surely he’ll pick us up, because he’ll be practically right on top of us! But — another smile from the blindfolded gal — all at once he stops drawing ahead. Now, as we cluster around the sound gear, we watch the telltale bearing pointer move aft, ever aft, till finally he passes across our stern! A guarded cheer breaks from the desperate men in the conning tower. We’ve broken through!

There is nothing to compare with the fresh, cool sweetness of the pure night air. It overpowers you with its vitality, reaches deep down inside you and sweeps away every remaining vestige of tiredness, fear, or unhappiness. It is frank, pure, undiluted Joy.

Three weeks later, after bumming some urgently needed repair parts from Tang at a midnight rendezvous, Trigger sank four freighters and one escort out of a convoy of five freighters and five escorts. With one torpedo left, she chased the remaining freighter and four escorts, snapping at their heels, till finally, for fear of grounding herself, she desisted. But she had the pleasure of knowing that all five ships had run hard aground, as verified by another submarine.

Harlfinger’s first patrol was my last in Trigger, for when we returned to port my orders were waiting for me, and I was relieved by my Naval Academy classmate, Johnnie Shepherd. Trigger was adjudged so badly damaged that she required a six-week repair period in a navy yard in the States, instead of the customary two-week refit.

When she headed west again, after a thorough overhaul, the old girl waved a cockscomb of thirty-six miniature Jap flags, a Presidential Unit Citation pennant, and a homemade blue flag with a large white numeral on it, emblazoning her claim to be number one submarine of the fleet, while at the top of her fully-extended periscope fluttered a rather weather-beaten brassière.