Buchanan, a wiry thirty-seven-year-old with twenty years in the Navy, fifteen of them in the Silent Service, nodded at the other officers and slid into an empty chair at the tiny table.
Lieutenant Amos P. Youngman, USNR, the executive officer of the
Sunfish
, pushed a silver coffeepot and a heavy china mug across the table to him. He was tall, thin, balding, and wore glasses, which gave him an intellectual look.
Before helping himself to coffee, Chief Buchanan made three gestures toward the skipper with his right hand. He balled his fist with the index finger extended upward. Then he turned his balled fist downward and described a circle. Finally, he balled his fist with the thumb extended upward.
Houser correctly interpreted the gestures to mean that the
Sunfish
was on position, making wide circles on battery power a hundred feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, and that everything was hunky-dory.
Commander Buchanan returned the thumbs-up gesture.
“You may be wondering why I have asked you in for this little chat, Chief,” Houser said.
Buchanan smiled at the one officer who was not a submariner. His name was Major Homer C. “Jake” Dillon, USMCR.
“I'm afraid to ask,” he said. “Where is the Marine Corps taking us this time?”
The
Sunfish
's last three combat patrols had all been to Mindanao. They had gone like clockwork, but Chief Buchanan was a devout believer in odds. The more times you did anything, the greater the odds that something would go seriously wrong.
“All we're going to do is run around in a circle,” Major Dillon said. “We should be back at Pearl Harbor before it gets dark.”
“As I recall, the Marines are pretty good at running around in circles,” Chief Buchanan said.
This prompted another hand gesture, this one from Major Dillon. He held his balled fist upward with the center finger extended.
Captain Houser chuckled.
“In ten minutes, Chief,” he said, sliding a sheet of typewriter paper stamped
TOP SECRET
across the table to Buchanan, “at 0715, we're going to take the boat to periscope depth. Then, presuming we don't find ourselves in the middle of a Japanese fleet, we are going to surface and Sparks will transmit the following identifierâCode Group Oneâon that frequency, for a period of five minutes. He will simultaneously monitor the specified frequency, listening for the phrase specified. If within five minutes he receives the phrase specified, he will transmit what is described on that as âCode Group Two.'”
Chief Buchanan took the sheet of typewriter paper and read it carefully before looking at the skipper for further orders.
“Copy the data,” Captain Houser ordered. “That Top Secret goes right back in the safe.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Buchanan said, took a small, wirespiral notebook and pencil from the pocket of his khaki shirt, and wrote down the radio frequencies and code groups.
“I think, Major Dillon,” Captain Houser said, “that your obscene gesture to Chief Buchanan has so intimidated himâhe is, of course, such a gentle personâthat he's not even going to ask what this is all about.”
“The hell I'm not,” Buchanan said.
“With a little bit of luck, Chief,” the third submariner in the wardroom said, “a Catalina somewhere within a hundred miles of our position will be able to get a radio fix on us, and there will be a rendezvous at sea.”
The third submariner was Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis III, USN, a tall, good-looking member of the Naval Academy's class of 1940, and now aide-de-camp to Rear Admiral Daniel J. Wagam, one of the more powerful members of the staff of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific. Lewis was on Chief Buchanan's very short list of very good officers. Before he had become Admiral Wagam's aide, he had served aboard the submarine
Remora
. Among other hairy patrols,
Remora
had three times run the Japanese blockade of the Philippines to Corregidor, taking in desperately needed medicine and evacuating the Philippine gold reserves as well as nurses and blinded soldiers and Marines. He had also been on the
Sunfish
on her first trip to Mindanao, had gone ashore with the Marines, and stayed with them until evacuated later by the
Sunfish
.
“We're practicing personnel movement?” Buchanan asked, sounding a little surprised.
The
Sunfish
had twice met with seaplanes on the high sea, transferring to them people evacuated from the Philippines.
“That, too,” Lieutenant Lewis said, waited for that to sink in, and then went on. “Following is Top Secret, Chief, to be shared with no one without my, or Major Dillon's, specific permission in each case.”
Buchanan nodded his understanding, but Chambers waited for him to say, after a long moment, “Aye, aye, sir,” before going on.
“The plan is that the
Sunfish
will rendezvous with two Catalinas in the Yellow Sea, a hundred miles northeast of Tientsin, China. She will then refuel these aircraft so they may complete their mission.”
“Where are they going?” Buchanan asked without thinking.
“That'sâ¦right now, Chief, you don't have the need to know,” Captain Houser said.
“The Gobi Desert, Chief,” Major Dillon said. “They are going to set up a weather station in the Gobi Desert.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“My sentiments exactly,” Dillon said. “But that's what we're going to do. Some Marines from the Peking Legation, guys retired from the Yangtze River patrol, the 4th Marines, the 15th Infantry stayed in China, roaming around the desert. We're trying to get some people into them now. With radios.”
“Jesus Christ!” Buchanan repeated.
“I decided you had the Need To Know, Chief,” Dillon said. “We're really not running around in circles. This is damned important.”
“I meant no offense, what I said before, Major.”
“I know,” Dillon said. “I didn't take any. Let me get back to the keeping this a secret business. This operation has to be kept quiet, no matter if this rendezvous/refueling works or not, and not just for the next six months. And it's the sort of thing the men are going to want to talk about. If the Captain gives them a speech, thatâno offense, Captainâjust makes it a better story. So you're going to have to keep the cork in the bottle, Chief.”
“Yeah,” Buchanan said thoughtfully, and then remembered to say, “Aye, aye, sir.”
The order is understood and will be obeyed
.
“How do you plan to refuel the airplanes?” Buchanan asked.
“We haven't figured that out yet,” Dillon said. “All suggestions will be gratefully accepted.”
“That's going to be a bitch,” Buchanan said.
“According to Lieutenant Lewis, you submariners can do anything,” Dillon said.
“Captain,” Lieutenant Youngman said, “it's 0712.”
“Thank you, Mr. Youngman,” Captain Houser said. He reached behind him and pressed a lever on a communications box.
“This is the Captain speaking,” he announced. “Bring her to periscope depth.”
Four men were in the conning tower: Captain Houser, Major Dillon, Lieutenant Lewis, and a sailor serving as lookout and talker. All had large Navy binoculars hanging from their necks. Chambers Lewis had an electrically powered bullhorn in his hand, and Jake Dillon had a clipboard. The clean, fresh, early-morning air was very welcome, although they had been running underwater for only eight hours.
The
Sunfish
was making a slow, wide circle across the calm, deep-blue Pacific.
“This would be as good as it gets, Jake,” Captain Houser said. “It's winter in the Yellow Sea. It's not going to be nearly as calm as this.”
“Yeah,” Dillon said, as much a grunt as a word.
“Captain,” the lookout said. “Aircraft dead astern.”
Everyone turned to face the stern, binoculars to their eyes. A Catalina, at perhaps 2,000 feet, was making a slow descent toward the water.
“Chief of the boat to the conning tower,” Captain Houser ordered.
“Chief of the boat to the conning tower, aye,” the talker parroted into the microphone strapped to his chest.
Buchanan appeared through the hatch less than a minute later. He looked dubiously at Lewis's bullhorn, which he was seeing for the first time.
“The fewer radio transmissions, the better,” Lewis said, answering Buchanan's unspoken question.
“Are they going to be able to hear you? Over the sound of their engines?” Buchanan asked.
“That's one of the things we're going to find out,” Dillon said. “Option Two is running a telephone line out to the airplane in a rubber boat.”
“What rubber boat?”
“Today, the one on the plane. If we do thisâ”
“When we do this,” Lewis corrected him.
“
When
we do this, there will be rubber boats aboard the
Sunfish
,” Dillon finished.
Buchanan had a thought as the Catalina approached the surface of the sea. “Give me the mike,” he said to the talker. “And go below.”
The talker's face showed he didn't like the order, but he raised the microphone over his head and gave it to Buchanan, who lowered it in place on his chest.
“What you say when you go below and they ask you what's going on up here,” Buchanan ordered, “is âI don't have a clue.' And I want you to keep your guesses to yourself. Understood?”
The talker nodded his head.
“That's what they call an order, sailor,” Buchanan said firmly, but not unkindly.
“Aye, aye, Chief,” the talker said, and started down the hatch in the conning tower.
The Catalina touched down and then stopped. The pilot shut down the port engine, then revved the starboard and taxied toward the
Sunfish
. A sailorâNavy enlisted aircrewmen were known as “Airedales”âappeared in the forward gun position of the Catalina with an electric bullhorn.
“Ahoy, the Catalina,” Lewis said into his microphone.
Almost immediately the Airedale put his bullhorn to his lips. “Ahoy, the Sunfish.”
“I'll be damned, he heard you,” Dillon said.
“Welcome to the Pacific Ocean,” Lewis called cheerfully.
“Ahoy, the
Sunfish
,” the Airedale called again.
“Wave if you hear me,” Lewis called.
“Ahoy, the
Sunfish
,” the Airedale called again.
“Shit,” Dillon said.
“We can hear him, but he can't hear us,” Buchanan said. “We're getting drowned out by the sound of his engine.”
The Catalina was now a hundred yards off the
Sunfish
.
Lewis called, “Shut down your engine!” and waited a moment, then made a cutting motion across his throat.
“I don't think I would want to shut down my engines on the high seas off China,” Captain Houser observed.
“The wind is going to blow him away from us,” Buchanan said.
“Well, then we won't collide with him,” Captain Houser said.
The Catalina pilot shut down his starboard engine. Immediately, just perceptibly, the wind began to turn the Catalina's nose, which had been pointed directly at the
Sunfish
's conning tower.
“Shit!” Jake Dillon said again.
“Welcome to the Pacific Ocean,” Lewis called.
“We're going to have to stop meeting like this,” the Airedale called back. “People will talk.”
“You couldn't hear me before?” Lewis called.
“No, sir,” the Airedale called back.
“Not over the sound of that aircraft engine,” Buchanan said. “Damn!”
“Put the rubber boat in the water,” Lewis called. “When it's in the water, it might be a good idea to start an engine and maintain your position.”
“Understood,” the Airedale called back.
“What happens now, Chief,” Lewis said, “is that the rubber boat is going to bring us two hundred feet of half-inch hose. We'll need two people on deck to take the end of it and tie it to the
Sunfish
. I volunteer. Can you give that talker microphone to somebody else?”
Buchanan replied by speaking into the talker microphone.
“Talker to the bridge,” he ordered.
The talker appeared so quickly that it was evident he had been waiting at the foot of the ladder to the conning tower bridge.
“You and Mr. Lewis are going to climb down, meet that rubber boat,” Buchanan ordered, pointing toward the Catalina, “which will have some hose on it, and tie the end of the hose to one of the conning tower ladder steps.”