Authors: Larry Colton
To the starboard side, Tim noticed one of the bags with the ship’s documents just bobbing like a cork in the water. It had floated too far from the ship to reach from the deck.
“Somebody’s got to go out there and bring it back,” said Fitzgerald.
“What about sharks?” someone asked.
Tim stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”
That Tim was the first to volunteer didn’t surprise anyone. In his short time on the
Grenadier
, he had already gained a reputation as the first to run his mouth and the last to back down. He dove into the water and started swimming. Neither he nor anyone else on board had seen the sea snakes swimming nearby. Poisonous sea snakes.
It took him a minute to reach the bag. From his spot in the water, he could still see the sub, but not the enemy ship in the distance. Pushing the bag in front of him, he turned and headed back toward the sub.
Halfway there he glanced to his left and spotted one of the snakes, five feet long and swimming parallel to him. He grabbed the bag, trying to shield himself. The snake moved closer.
Tim didn’t know that sea snakes are air breathers and that although they can swim under the surface, they must come to the top for air. Mostly, they inhabit tropical waters and feed primarily on fish. Although not normally aggressive toward swimmers, they will attack if provoked, their hinged mouths able to open as wide as a man’s thigh. Unless treated with anti-venom, their bites can often be deadly. Frantically, Tim continued swimming toward the ship, the bag still with him.
The men on deck watched helplessly, one eye on their crewmate, the other on the Japanese ship. Several of the men held rifles brought up from below deck; two had machine guns, but no one wanted to risk a shot with Tim and the snake swimming too close together. Then, without saying a word, Second Mate George Stauber, the lookout who had first spotted the dive-bomber and yelled out the warning to the captain, stepped toward the edge of the ship, a pistol holstered at his side. Raised in Ohio, he had scored high marks at the shooting range.
He drew his six-shooter from his holster, extended his arm, and without seeming to aim, fired at the sea snake. It was a perfect shot, hitting the snake right in the head, blowing it to pieces. A few seconds later, Tim scrambled out of the water and back onto the ship, tossing the mailbag onto the deck. More weight and more holes were added and it was thrown back into the water, where it sank immediately.
“Jap plane coming out of the northwest!” yelled Bernie Witzke.
Everyone turned to look, and there, about a mile away, another Japanese dive-bomber was coming right at them. Tim spotted the two 100-kilogram bombs tucked under its wings. The
Grenadier
was a sitting duck.
Tim scrambled for cover behind the conning tower while the gunners took their position at the 20mm. The men with rifles and machine guns crouched into position. “Hold your fire until he’s closer,” ordered Captain Fitzgerald.
The single-engine plane swooped in, taking a run up the port side. When it was a quarter mile away and at 65 degrees elevation, Fitzgerald thundered the word for the two 20mm and two .30-caliber machine guns to open fire. A solid wall of fire erupted from the sub’s deck, tracers streaking across the bright morning sky. The plane fired back. Tim heard the sound of bullets ricocheting off the deck and the clinking of bullets hitting the plane.
Chuck swung his rifle into position. He’d shot a lot of rabbits and squirrels as a kid, so he knew he needed to aim in front of the plane. He fired, the gun’s report echoing a foot from Bernie Witzke’s head. “Hit the goddamn Jap, not me,” yelled Bernie.
Chuck fired again. The plane was low and close enough that he could see the pilot’s face. With so much fire bursting from the deck, he couldn’t be sure if his shots scored a hit. He glanced up toward the conning tower, where Captain Fitzpatrick was firing away with his pistol like a gunslinger.
The plane suddenly pulled its nose up sharply and changed course to the left, going around the stern to get into position for a run on the
Grenadier
’s port side. The gunners all held their fire until the plane was close enough again, then let loose with another fusillade, the machine guns wildly blasting away.
“He’s dropping his bombs,” Tim shouted.
Standing nearby, Lieutenant Toulon quickly surveyed the trajectory. “They’re going to miss, they’re going to miss,” he yelled.
The bombs drifted over the ship and exploded 200 yards off the
Grenadier
’s starboard side. The plane wobbled momentarily, then veered to the left, heading toward land. Fitzgerald ordered the men to cease firing.
Tim took a deep breath. The Japanese ship was still bearing down on them.
Fitzgerald ordered the men below deck one more time, instructing them to bring up as many mattresses as possible and toss them over the side. Tim wondered why, but did as instructed. Grabbing one end of a mattress, he glanced over and saw Bob Palmer furtively pull a bottle of pills out of his duffel bag and stick it in his pocket. Maybe it was for some kind of allergy, thought Tim.
With the mattresses in the water, Fitzgerald gathered the men around him again. He glanced at the approaching ship, then at the faces of his men, many of them, including Tim, still not old enough to vote.
“Prepare to abandon ship,” Fitzgerald instructed, voice cracking.
The last order of business was to pass out the life preservers—belts that fit around the waist and inflated when the cord was pulled. With not enough to go around, the stronger swimmers were instructed to go without. Tim didn’t take one. The rifles that had been brought up on deck and used to fire at the plane were thrown into the water.
As Tim and the rest of the crew prepared to jump overboard, Fitzgerald ordered Chief of Boat Whiting below deck to open the vents. Down below, Whiting first hurried into the officers’ quarters and found a Victrola and a stack of records that had not been damaged. He hustled to the ship’s PA system and pulled a record out of one of the sleeves, then set it on the turntable.
Upstairs, as the men readied themselves to go overboard, they heard the music—Glenn Miller’s theme song, “Moonlight Serenade.”
Tim remembered he and Valma had listened to that song the first night that they met in Perth, and the exhilarating rush he felt at having just met someone so beautiful.
He crouched, ready to jump overboard.
O
n his last trip below deck, Gordy pulled two pearl-handled knives from his footlocker. He’d bought them in Borneo when the
Sculpin
stopped to refuel after fleeing the Philippines. He also pulled out a ring his mother had given him for good luck when he left home in Yakima. Reluctantly, he tossed the ring and knives back into the footlocker and climbed up to the deck.
With the sound of Glenn Miller wafting through the tropical air, he jumped into the water, surprised at how warm it was. He wasn’t wearing a life belt. A rubber life raft, loaded with cigarettes and sandwiches, was lowered into the water behind him.
Finally, with all the men off the ship and into the water, Fitzgerald gave the word to Whiting to open all vents.
Treading water twenty yards away, Gordy heard a whooshing sound, then watched Whiting and Fitzgerald jump off the ship and swim away.
It took just seconds for the
Grenadier
to begin capsizing. First the stern went under, then the shears and conning tower, and finally the bow, all in stunning silence.
Gordy felt sick. In the short time he’d been part of the
Grenadier
crew, he felt closer to these men than to the men on the
Sculpin
. Now their home was on its way to the ocean floor.
Turning, he saw the Japanese ship, now less than a mile away.
“They’re going to shoot us,” someone yelled.
The men swam in different directions, figuring they’d be harder targets if they spread out. Wearing just his dungarees and a T-shirt, Gordy swam toward the rubber raft; Trigg, the black mess cook, whose court-martial papers had gone down with the ship, was the only man in it. Trigg waved him away. “There’s not enough room,” he yelled.
Bob Palmer also approached the raft, and he too was shooed away.
“God damn nigger!” Bob yelled, dog-paddling away.
Within ten minutes of the
Grenadier
going under, the crew and its officers were spread out over a square mile, half clinging to mattresses, the rest floating with their life belts. Nobody seemed in peril of drowning, and no sharks had appeared, at least not yet. The sea snakes were keeping their distance.
On a mattress nearby, Lieutenant Hardy, an Annapolis grad and liked by everyone on the crew, clung to the side with one hand; in the other he held a water-soaked copy of
Reader’s Digest
that he’d stuffed in his pocket before jumping overboard. He opened the pages and began reading the jokes from “Humor in Uniform” to the four other men clinging to the mattress. At first they looked at him as if he was nuts, and then they started laughing.
A shot fired from a deck gun startled Gordy. He waited for more shots, but none came. Then the ship turned and heaved closer. It was a merchant ship that had been converted into a corvette, a highly maneuverable armed escort, lighter than a destroyer. Its flag with the rising sun of the empire was clearly visible.
The ship completed another turn, and then the engine stopped. Gordy was one of the men closest to the ship, and he looked up and saw a rope ladder swing down over the side. On the deck, two Japanese seamen standing behind mounted machine guns signaled him and the others to start climbing up the ladder.
Gordy waited for an order from Fitzgerald, but unable to spot him, he swam to the ship, followed by several other men, and more swimming in
that direction. He reached up and grabbed the bottom rung, then started his climb up, his arms weary from his two hours in the water.
As Gordy reached the top of the ladder, a Japanese seaman grabbed his arm and jerked him over the ship’s rail and onto the deck. He scrambled to his feet, now face-to-face with a seaman and his rifle and bayonet. As he glanced around at the other Japanese, his first thought was how short they all were.
The Japanese seaman moved toward him, jabbing the air with his bayonet, barking orders in Japanese. Gordy stood frozen, not understanding the instructions. The man continued yelling, then swung his rifle, the butt smashing Gordy in the shoulder, knocking him to the deck, the bayonet now an inch from his nose.
The seaman motioned him to stand up and take off his clothes. Gordy removed his T-shirt and dungarees. The guard signaled him to keep going. Gordy took off his Skivvies. Totally naked, he glanced at his crewmates, who were also being ordered to strip as soon as they climbed aboard. They did as instructed, heaping their clothes into a big pile. The guards stood around them, bayonets pointed at the men.
They were ordered to sit in rows, officers and crew together, knees to their chests, arms on knees, heads down. The sun was now full in the cloudless sky, and it was hot, very hot.
Gordy thought about his mother. How long would it be, he wondered, before she found out that he’d been captured? Would the Navy inform her, or would she figure it out when his letters stopped coming? But mostly he wondered what the Japs were going to do with them. By his count, there were six guards, with rifles and fixed bayonets and two mounted .50-caliber machine guns, all aimed at the crew. Maybe the Japs would decide their prisoners were too much trouble and were going to shoot them and throw their bodies overboard. But that seemed unlikely. No American submarine crew had ever been captured, so this would probably be a big deal for the
Japs, not only a great propaganda tool but also a chance to gain information about the strategy and technology of American submarines.
Soon the ship headed full steam toward Malaysia (then called Malaya). Sitting in the middle of the crew, Captain Fitzgerald watched the guards, and when they turned their backs, he spoke in a hushed voice. “Don’t give them any information,” he instructed. “Just name, rank, and serial number. If they ask the name of our ship and where we’re stationed, tell them it’s the USS
Goldfish
and that we’re stationed in San Francisco, and we’re on a photoreconnaissance mission.”
They’d been on board for an hour, maybe more. The deck of the main hatch they sat on was blistering hot, and they were starting to get sunburned. Gordy was beginning to get the idea that this ragtag crew of Japanese seamen didn’t know what to do with them. Captain Fitzgerald stood up and identified himself as the ship’s commander. He was taken at gunpoint down below.
Within minutes, Gordy and the rest of the crew heard him scream in pain.
The ship continued its course. For Gordy and others, it had been more than twenty-four hours since they’d eaten. In the early afternoon, a tin of cigarettes was passed around, each man getting one cigarette, lighting it off the nearest man. When they were finished, a guard collected and counted the butts, making sure nobody had stashed one away.
After several hours, they each received one cup of water and another cigarette, as well as a hardtack biscuit. Most devoured the biscuit quickly, but Gordy saved his, figuring he’d need it later. After a while, a guard brought up a five-gallon bucket to use as a toilet.
Late in the afternoon a guard motioned for the men to put their clothes back on. Rummaging through the messy pile, Gordy knew he’d have no chance of finding his own 30-inch-waist pants. He settled on a pair with a 34-inch waist, cinching a belt tight, its excess length hanging halfway to his knees.
As the sun disappeared below the horizon, a guard ordered the men
to lie down on the deck. Gordy hadn’t slept in thirty hours. Exhausted, he quickly fell asleep, awakening just before dawn as the motion of the rolling ship stopped and the engines went into reverse. The ship shuddered; it had pulled into a harbor.
Still lying down, Gordy heard voices coming from a dock. He rose to his knees to look, but a guard shoved him back to the canvas hatch cover. Other guards, more emboldened, moved between the rows of men, randomly selecting men to slap across the face or hit in the back with their gun butts.