U.S.S. Seawolf: Submarine Raider of the Pacific

CHAPTER XI The Wolf Comes Home

THE LAST trip of the Wolf was a rollicking one. Card games were in full swing in Kelly’s Pool Room, and bull sessions went on at all hours. The Skipper dropped into the radio shack the second night.

“Eckberg, you’re due for a little rest in the States,” he said. “To insure that rest, is there any school you’d like to attend?”

I thought that over. If I knew anything, it was physics, and physics and electronics were becoming more and more important. Whole new worlds were opening up.

“I’d like to brush up on radio, sir,” I said.

He nodded. “Good!” he said. “Radio it is.”

In much the same fashion Captain Warder made the rounds of all the old-timers, telling them they were due for a rest. The word had gone around that he was due for another war assignment. It would take him off the Wolf.

The trip was routine, but cold. As we came farther north, we began to freeze. We’d been in tropical waters for a long time. We’d lived in a pair of shorts and little else for months. Bit by bit we began to pile covering on us. Pretty soon I was wearing an old leather jacket, and under that two sweatshirts, then a dungaree shirt, and then an undershirt. In my bunk I shivered under two woolen blankets. Loaiza was muttering constantly about the “frigid” weather, lamenting in Spanish, “I can’t stand it another minute.”

We were about halfway home when we began discussing our perennial question, what were we going to do our first night home. I knew what I’d do. First I’d telephone Marjorie. I’d talk to Spike over the telephone. He might even be able to say, “Hello, Pop.” I’d get a kick out of that. Then I’d drop over and surprise my brother Roy in his barroom.

About midnight some of the crew began to drift into the radio room. The shack normally held three men, if they weren’t too big, but before long six were in it somehow. How the bull flew! Every man was determined that the rest of the gang had to hear what he was going to do. We were given graphic descriptions, long and detailed. But after a while the men began to drift out. We were all impatient. None of us could stay in one place long. For the first time the Wolf was beginning to cramp us. We were focusing on the world outside, and that world was terribly big. Only Maley and I were left, and idly I brought out our old song book. There it was, little the worse for wear. And there was the song, “Begin the Beguine.” The book fell open to the page. I mused over the words. I thought, How many times I’ve opened this old book to that page and these words diverted my mind from things that wouldn’t let me relax. “Begin the Beguine,” whether I knew the words or not, was an old friend of mine. And pretty soon I was humming it, and Maley joined me, and we were both singing at the top of our lungs. We were happy. Nobody complained, but now and then an alarmed head was stuck in. The Wolf’s crew was relaxed. Not so long ago one peep out of us, and protests rained about our heads. We’d been under tension. Everybody had been living on nerve—all save Captain Warder, I think. Somehow he knew the secret of relaxation.

In my own case the tension of these last twelve months was to stay with me for a long time after I came home. Marjorie was to be unhappy, Spike afraid to talk to me, because I was so irritable. For weeks after, I’d wake up at two and three in the morning, walk around, smoke half a dozen cigarettes, and try to fall asleep again. For a long time I couldn’t sleep more than three hours at a time.

We were still singing when Lieutenant Deragon poked his head around the corner. We shut up. We must have been pretty loud to bother him. He came into the doorway a minute later, arms akimbo, looked at us, and finally announced:

“Eckberg, I have listened to you moan and groan that damn thing for about a year now. That in itself is all right, but every time you tackle it, it becomes worse. Now either learn the words or shut up.”

I’d already shut up, so I just grinned at him.

The Wolf moved on. The night of the fifth day out, I strolled into Kelly’s Pool Room. Dishman, Zerk, Swede, and a few other men were in there, with John Street the center of attention. They had been discussing the Wolf’s toll of Jap ships. John was sitting there, chewing on a pencil, a pad of paper in front of him.

“O.K.,” he was saying, “here’s the way I figure it.”

I sat in. I’d heard a hell of a lot of those ships go down.

He was adding the totals. “Comes out to over a dozen ships known sunk, and maybe half a dozen damaged. That’s not bad.”

“Not bad!” I said. “Hell, it’s wonderful.”

“You want to remember,” Dishman put in, “most of these we got were men-of-war. The Wolf did okay. There’s nobody got anything to say against her.”

The Wolf came in sight of the Golden Gate. The word came down from the bridge and ran through the ship like wildfire. Requests to go topside were flying up to the conning tower. The reply came, “Nobody allowed on the bridge.” It seems we had a rendezvous with a ship which was to escort us into the Gate. As soon as we passed the Gate, deck hatches were opened.

“Let the boys up on deck,” said the Skipper, “but pass the word that it is cold up here, and they’d better put on all the clothes they have.”

There was a mad rush to the hatches. We were making good speed, and when I came up, the wind almost took my breath away. And the cold. The wind whistled down the deck with numbing effect. The first thing I saw was the mountainous Golden Gate. It looked somber under a dreary gray sky. I could see the pencil-white line of surf, and in the distance, the outline of familiar sights. My mind was in a whirl. Here was the good old U.S.A.! God, I was glad to see it! I stood there and stared. Here was home. Here was a place I hadn’t seen for twenty-five long months. I thought, What in hell ever made the Japs think they could overrun my home? Why, every man, woman, and child would have used clubs to keep them away if they had to. The Japs might have caught us by surprise at Pearl Harbor, but this was home. No Jap would ever dare to try anything here. I don’t think I ever had such sense of pride and love for my country as I had on the deck of the Wolf that cold day, cruising slowly over the slate-black waters into port.

Suddenly we stopped. I thought, What now? In peacetime we could expect to be held up by customs officials and agents of the Department of Agriculture. If one of these inquisitive fellows was coming aboard, I’d gladly volunteer to throw him into the bay. We certainly had no agricultural produce on the Wolf. We didn’t have enough fresh fruit to feed an ant.

A speedboat dashed out to us. A young Navy lieutenant clambered aboard. We must have looked bedraggled and woebegone compared to this pink-cheeked young officer. We were bundled up in sweaters, our underwear was hanging out of our shorts, we were unshaven, our noses were red, our cheeks sunken, and we had six- to nine-inch beards. What was this stranger aboard for?

“Why, he’s the pilot,” somebody said.

A pilot? We resented that. Our Skipper managed to bring us through all sorts of hell without a pilot, didn’t he? He could bring the Wolf in here with his eyes closed. In a few minutes we got under way again. The air was full of planes now. It seemed strange to stand on deck and not hear the order, “Take her down.” Subconsciously we expected to be strafed any minute. We proceeded up that bay, and now it seemed the entire water front was celebrating our arrival. Whistles were blowing, flags were flying, and overhead the planes were dipping in salute.

For us? I couldn’t get it. None of us on deck could. Why, the Wolf, so far as the man on the street was concerned, was a ghost. She was a submarine that had been commissioned one December day, before the war, and then vanished, except for a brief note here and there. All anyone knew was that the Seawolf had done herself proud. How did that Navy announcement read?… “a cruise that would go down as one of the epic stories of submarine warfare”?

Then we woke up. A battered cruiser was coming into harbor at the same time. We stared at her. Somebody said, “Hell, that’s who they’re welcoming, not us.” We felt a little silly, and a little hurt, too. Didn’t anyone know we were coming in, too?

At first we didn’t recognize the Navy Yard. It seemed expanded to four times its size. We steamed past all sizes and shapes of ships we’d never seen before. We stared at one ship that was the craziest-looking vessel we’d ever seen.

“What’s that, a garbage lighter?” someone asked.

“It’s a scow,” somebody else said.

Then the word was passed along: “It’s one of those invasion barges.” We were mortified to think we didn’t know what an invasion barge looked like.

“Don’t you guys know there’s a war on?” someone cracked.

The Wolf finally neared the sub dock. She glided in. We were home.

Now Deragon stepped out in front of the crew. “Boys,” he said, “I’m working to get leave parties arranged. All rate thirty days’ furlough. We expect to be here from two and a half to three months. Half of the crew goes first, then the other half.” He stopped. “The rest of the time,” he said, “we’ll work like fools getting the Wolf back to sea.”

I was frantic to get to a phone to call Marjorie. She hadn’t heard from me since our last stop in Australia more than two months before. Finally I was able to dash across the gangplank and touch the earth of the States again. I got on my knees and kissed the ground. I thought I was alone in the darkness, but a woman saw me and giggled.

I ran a half-mile to the barracks and didn’t stop until I came to a telephone booth. Half the Wolf’s duty section was there.

They were all supposed to be on board; but, like me, they couldn’t wait to get in touch with their families.

I went over to the Navy Yard canteen and got $10 worth of change, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Then I sat in line for the telephone. Nobody said a word. I was fourth. I went into the booth. It was hot and smelled of cigarette smoke. I plunked my money on the board under the phone.

“Get me Chicago,” I told the long-distance operator.

“I’m sorry,” her cool voice came back. “You will have to wait six hours.”

“Six hours! Why?”

“There are important calls going on,” she said.

“They can’t be any more important than mine,” I said. “I want to tell my wife I’m alive and back in the States.”

She said: “Sorry, sir, but that is classified as a personal call.”

I slammed the receiver down, picked up my money, and walked out. The others had the same experience. I walked away almost ready to bawl. Here I hadn’t been home in two years. I hadn’t heard my wife’s voice in all that time. I hadn’t seen my youngster. I was terribly homesick. Halfway back to the boat I decided to send Marjorie a wire. I turned on my heel and sent the wire from the same telephone booth.

The next morning we went about town, and we were really introduced to a new United States. We stood and stared at lady welders, lady truck drivers, and wondered what in hell had happened to the country.

That afternoon a committee of the crew went out and bought a wrist watch and some luggage as a gift for the Skipper before we moved off the Seawolf.

When it came time for me to open my locker and take my personal belongings on shore, I knew I was saying good-by to the Wolf. It had been more than just a steel structure to me. I’d lived and died a thousand times on this ship. Men whom I admired more than any others I know, had lived and worked with me on this ship. I knew every bulkhead, every odor. She held no secrets from me. I walked through her before I took off my stuff, letting my mind wander over all the Wolf had done: the evacuations of men and matériel; the High Command, the aviators, ammunition, depth charges, Christmas Island—a thousand places, a thousand thrills.

After dinner the word went through the ship, “All hands on the barge.”

Captain Warder came over the gangway. We stiffened to attention. He was wearing all his decorations, but he looked unhappy.

“Boys,” he began, “you know it is a custom in submarines when the Captain is relieved for him to make a little farewell speech. It is something every skipper dreads. Well, I’ve come to say good-by. I have new orders. I am to be relieved. I’ll be back out there before any of you. There is no use going into details about what I think of you.”

He stopped. We saw tears rolling down his cheeks, and some of us were beginning to sniffle, too. “Sincerely, I have been very fortunate,” he continued. “Here, I believe, is the best submarine crew ever gathered together. I know the man who is taking this ship out, and although many of you are leaving the Wolf, I want those of you who are remaining aboard to give him the same unswerving loyalty that you have given me. He is a good man, and he knows his submarines. Now I’m going to shake hands with every one of you and say, ‘Good luck and a pleasant cruise.’”

There was a lump in my throat. My eyes smarted. I knew if I stayed there much longer I would start bawling. Then Sousa stepped out.

“Captain,” he said, “we hate to see you go. Speaking for the men and myself, we have been very fortunate, too, having you for a captain. As you know, it is also a custom in submarines when a captain is being relieved and the crew does not like to see him go, to give him some token of their feelings. We would like to present you with this watch, which we had engraved coming from us, your crew, and this luggage which we thought you might need.”

“Thank you,” said Captain Warder, and his voice trembled.

“Thank you all, boys.”

We lined up and shook hands. When he came to me, he said:

“Good-by, Eckberg, and good luck.”

I managed to choke out, “Good-by, Captain, I hope I can serve with you again some day.”

He gripped my hand hard. “Nothing would please me more, Eckberg,” he said.

He was escorted to the gangplank by Lieutenant Deragon.

They shook hands, then Captain Warder slapped his executive officer’s shoulder, turned, and waved to us. He walked over the gangplank to the dock and was gone.

He had brought his ship and his men safely home.