Authors: Larry Colton
They went out for dinner at Mona’s Nite Club—veal cutlets and mashed potatoes—and a lot of close dancing. She invited him to spend the night. Because her aunt and cousin shared the small studio apartment with her, he would have to sleep on the couch. That was fine with him. He was just happy to be with her again. She was as affectionate as he remembered, and she still had that flirty way that got him excited.
For the next six weeks, he came to see her on every weekend pass he got, taking the one-hour bus ride from Mare Island into San Francisco, then a twenty-minute walk to her apartment. They even began to talk about marriage.
On December 4, 1941, her parents drove down from Medford for a visit. Barbara summoned her nerve to tell them that she and Bob were dating again, and that she was in love, and that they’d talked of getting married.
“Over my dead body,” her father replied.
On Sunday morning, December 7, Bob awoke late at his brother Darrell’s house in Medford. Home on a four-day pass, he’d come to tell his father and Cora that he planned to marry Barbara after he completed his stint in the Navy.
Getting dressed, he listened to the big band sounds of Tommy Dorsey on Mutual Radio. The programming was interrupted with a terse two-sentence announcement: “The Japanese have attacked U.S. Navy ships at Pearl Harbor. Enemy ships have been reported close to our shores.”
He spun the radio dial, searching for more news. All servicemen on leave anywhere in America, he learned, had been ordered to return immediately to station. He wouldn’t be able to see his dad and tell him about his plans with Barbara. By early afternoon, he was boarding a bus in his Navy blues to head back to California.
Settling into his window seat, he braced for the long ride, resolute in his country’s purpose.
On her way to work the morning of Monday, December 8, Barbara stopped at a newsstand, paid a nickel, and bought a copy of the
San Francisco Examiner
. The headline bannered the news:
U.S.—JAP WAR!
Later that day, along with the whole nation, she listened to President Roosevelt’s historic “a day which will live in infamy” speech.
For the people in San Francisco, the impact of the sneak attack was especially sobering. The vulnerable West Coast was now confronted not only with the reality of America being at war but also with the task of preparing for the very real possibility of an enemy invasion.
San Francisco quickly moved to a war footing, but confusion and invasion fever reigned. Within hours of the first word from Pearl Harbor, sentries recruited from the California State Guard, armed with guns and bayonets, were posted on the Bay Bridge and the San Francisco waterfront. Checkpoints were established, and cars were inspected for Japanese occupants before being allowed to pass. Any Japanese was detained for questioning. From San Jose to Marin County, a blackout was quickly put in place. The California State Automobile Association put up 3,000 signs in the area, ordering headlights dimmed. Traffic slowed to a crawl, worsened by accidents caused by cars and trucks driving with only parking lights on.
Air-raid signals blared and searchlights scanned the skies. The Army
base at the Presidio was darkened. A few miles away in San Francisco Bay, however, Alcatraz was lit up like a ballpark; officials worried that darkening the prison would encourage escape attempts. Heavy-duty antiaircraft guns were installed next to the Golden Gate Bridge, and guards patrolled for possible sabotage. A three-mile-wide submarine net was stretched across the opening of the bay. Civilian defense officials designated certain buildings as public air-raid shelters, and signs indicating their locations were quickly posted. Civilian patrolmen started a training course for defense against chemical attack, and 16,900 gas masks were sent from Washington, D.C., to equip the city’s protective services and civilian defense workers. Commercial fishing fleets were placed under the protection of the U.S. Coast Guard, and Japanese-American fishermen were forbidden to practice their trade. At the phone company building across from Barbara’s office, sandbags were piled two stories high.
At Barbara’s apartment, her aunt taped butcher paper over the windows in compliance with the blackout and filled the tub with water in case the Japanese bombed the reservoirs and contaminated the water. Her neighbors joined together and demanded that local merchants dim their store lights like everyone else. On December 11 a front-page story reported that two squadrons of Japanese bombers had flown over the Bay Area the night before. The story even carried a map detailing the route the bombers had taken, one squadron passing over Mare Island and then heading north toward Mendocino County, the other group circling over San Jose before disappearing to the southwest. The story turned out not to be true, but still, it jangled everyone’s nerves even more.
Eager to do her share, Barbara volunteered with the Red Cross Emergency Team and was assigned to put gas masks into boxes for distribution throughout the city. Bob was confined to his base, and it took several days for him to get a call through to Barbara. He didn’t waste words.
“Let’s get married,” he proposed.
“When?”
“Now. As soon as you can find a church?”
She accepted his proposal.
With so many sailors and soldiers about to ship out for the war, young couples all over America had decided to speed up their wedding plans; churches all over San Francisco were booked solid. It took Barbara several calls to find a church and minister, but she finally set up a ceremony at San Francisco’s Trinity Church at nine thirty at night, December 16, 1941. Then she called her parents to break the news.
“No, no, no” were the first words out of her father’s mouth.
But when she persisted, her parents reluctantly agreed to return to California for the wedding. How could they stand in the way of their daughter marrying a man about to risk his life for his country? Bob also called his dad and stepmother, and they too agreed to attend.
Barbara took care of buying the rings as well, spending $30 out of her savings for two simple gold bands. She’d also bought a new black and gray knit dress and matching pillbox hat for the occasion. She was nineteen; Bob was twenty.
With their parents in attendance, they were married as planned, although Barbara’s father had made it clear he didn’t approve. Not only were they too young, he thought that with Bob shipping off to war in a few days, this was no way to start a marriage. Plus, he was still having trouble letting go of the feeling that Bob wouldn’t be able to provide for his daughter. But the outbreak of war and the photo images of the death and destruction at Pearl Harbor had created a national will and unity of purpose, and a respect for the men going off to defend the American way of life, especially in a branch of the service as dangerous as submarines.
Beneath all of Bob’s big smiles and excitement about getting married, he also felt a sense of inadequacy—he hadn’t been able to afford the rings; he didn’t have enough money to pay for the reception dinner at Vanessi’s in North Beach; he couldn’t afford to provide his new wife a nice apartment while he was gone; he didn’t earn enough so that she didn’t have to work. Maybe his new father-in-law was right; maybe he wasn’t good enough for Barbara. It helped that she told him otherwise, and that she loved him
for his heart, and good looks, and sense of humor, and not his money. But still, Bob worried. He was also worried, of course, about going to war and dying, but he knew it was his duty, his responsibility. He took some solace in knowing that his Navy pay would double in wartime and that he’d be able to send most of it back to Barbara.
On January 9, 1942, the
Tuna
departed San Francisco on its way to Pearl Harbor. Bob was on the deck straining to catch a glimpse of Barbara as it sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. She’d promised to be there to wave good-bye, but her boss wouldn’t let her off work. She cried most of the day.
Three weeks later, Bob was on the deck again as the
Tuna
left Pearl Harbor on its first patrol. It had just enough room to slide by the stern of the battleship USS
Nevada
, aground across the channel. Bob was shocked by the devastation to the ships in Pearl Harbor, and he worried that the
Tuna
was not sufficiently ready for battle.
The crews of the submarines making up the Pacific and Asiatic fleets, including the
Gudgeon
with Chuck Vervalin, now shared a deep mistrust for the Mark XIV torpedo and the Mark VI magnetic exploder, believing the torpedo ran deeper than designed and the magnetic exploder was defective, causing it to explode prematurely. There was little information on how to adjust or repair the device. The skippers had been instructed to set the torpedo to run deep beneath the keels of the enemy and let the exploder take care of the rest. But because of the shortage of torpedoes, no live tests had been conducted prior to sending subs out on patrol. Reports from the early patrols had substantiated the concerns. In the first three weeks of the war, American subs had fired ninety-six torpedoes, with only three hits. Several captains urged Admiral Withers, commander of the Pacific Fleet, to give orders to deactivate the exploder and fire the torpedoes for direct contact hits. Admiral Withers refused, reminding the captains that there was a critical shortage of torpedoes at Pearl Harbor and that they needed to trust their weaponry. The submarine force had no choice but to place blind faith in this order and the new weapon.
John DeTar, the captain of the
Tuna
, wasn’t happy with the decision.
Like several other skippers, he toyed with the idea that once he left Pearl Harbor and reached the combat zone, he would deactivate the exploder and shoot for contact, which he hoped would improve the possibility of an explosion. If necessary, he would swear his men to secrecy and doctor the reports to justify using more than one torpedo.
For this mission, the
Tuna
was assigned to patrol off the east coast of Japan and in fact to go right into harbors. Bob tried to hide his nervousness. He’d heard the concerns about the torpedoes. He also worried about the crew’s readiness for battle; they were undertrained and inexperienced. Worse, he lacked confidence in DeTar: instead of sleeping in his quarters, the captain slept on a mattress in the conning tower; he strutted around with a pistol strapped to his side; he strictly rationed the crew’s use of fresh water even though he had two distillers on board; he forbade the men from taking showers and ignored their complaints; and when the hydraulic system malfunctioned, more than once, he accused someone on the crew of trying to sabotage him. Bob didn’t know if it was possible, but he was already thinking about requesting a transfer after this patrol.
Every day, he sat in his yeoman’s cubicle, staring at a framed photo of Barbara.
It was very dark as Barbara walked up Pine Street in her high heels; the streetlights were turned off because of the blackout. She was returning from the Red Cross office, where she’d gone after work to help pack boxes with emergency medical supplies. She’d watched teams of volunteers in a mock emergency medical drill, and the images of bandaged patients and men in helmets played on her nerves. The danger of an attack now seemed even more real, especially following numerous reports of Japanese warships off the California coast. It was February 2, 1942.
As she neared her apartment, she was looking forward to sharing her big news with Fern and Margie. She’d been to the doctor earlier in the day and gotten the word that she was pregnant. She was thrilled, and would write Bob that night to tell him he was going to be a father. She hoped he’d
get the news before heading off on patrol. She would write her parents as well, not sure if they’d be happy about the news.
She also wrote her cousin June back in Medford:
Oh, it’s so awful to have him gone, June. He’s been gone only three weeks but I miss him terribly. I received two letters from him Saturday and another two today, which is the first I’ve heard from him. All of them were written while he was in Pearl Harbor and sent by clipper. I don’t know where he is now though. It’s awful not knowing, but guess I’ll have to get used to it
.
The crew of the
Tuna
was on edge: DeTar’s disturbing behavior, repeated malfunctions of the hydraulic system, lack of confidence in the torpedoes, and the numbing fear of being on a mission to penetrate deep into enemy waters all took their toll. Moreover, the trip across had taken longer than scheduled, and DeTar had kept the ship submerged much of the way, including at night, despite orders to the contrary. He continued to maintain his strict rationing of drinking water.
Upon reaching the coast of Japan, DeTar guided the ship into a harbor—one suspected of being mined—close enough that he could see people ashore through the periscope. Bob heard a scraping against the port side of the boat; it was a cable from a mine.
DeTar kept the ship in the harbor for twenty-four hours, with nothing accomplished other than rattling the crew’s nerves. As they headed back out to sea, DeTar spotted a freighter in the distance. He closed to within 3,500 yards and fired three times, in direct defiance of orders. All three shots missed.
As they tried to flee the area, a Japanese destroyer moved in quickly and began dropping depth charges, at least twenty of them, one explosion after another shaking the
Tuna
, knocking out the lights and twisting the hull. Bob and the rest of the crew held on in terror.
One of the blasts damaged the propeller, causing it to squeak; now if
they tried to run, the destroyer overhead would hear them. DeTar’s only option was to wait it out and hope the destroyer would eventually leave. But for the next twenty-three hours, the destroyer stayed, dropping more depth charges.
Barbara hurriedly opened the special-delivery letter from her mother, sure it was in response to the letter she’d sent announcing she was pregnant.
“Your father and I …,” it began.
That phrase was always a signal to Barbara that she was in trouble. In the letter, her mother spelled out the reasons she thought it was not the right time for Barbara to be having a child—she was too young; her husband was at war, with no guarantee of returning; a child needed two parents; money would be a problem; there would be plenty of time later to have a child.