Submarine! (16 page)

The range closes quickly—2000 yards; 1,500 yards—sound has been listening intently to the target's screws coming in and speeding up as he does so, but, like all good sound men, he trains his gear from side to side to check on all sectors. Suddenly he sings out, “Fast screws bearing zero nine zero, short-scale pinging!”

This can mean only one thing, but there is no time to look now. Keep calm, keep cool, one thing at a time, this bird up ahead is coming on the range. Get him first and worry about the other later.

One thousand yards. Standby forward! Standby one! Angle on the bow ten port, increasing. Wait a second until he has come to the limit of his weave in that direction and is starting back. Angle on the bow port twenty, range, 700 yards. He stops swinging.

“Bearing—mark,” snaps the skipper. “Standby!”

Sam Logan on the TDC makes an instantaneous but careful check of his instrument and observes that the generated target bearing on the TDC is exactly the same as the periscope bearing.

“Set!” he snaps back at his skipper.

“Fire!” Logan takes up the count at the TDC, spacing his torpedoes deliberately so that they cannot possibly run into each other and so that they will diverge slightly as they race toward the destroyer. One after the other two more torpedoes stream out toward the careening destroyer.

“Right full rudder, all ahead full,” Dealey hurls the orders from the periscope as he stands there, his eyes glued to his instrument, watching for the success or failure of his daring attack.

Suddenly he shouts, “Check fire!” Almost simultaneously a heavy explosion is felt by everyone in the submarine. There is no need to pass the word to explain what that was. They have heard plenty of torpedo explosions by now.

With full speed and full rudder
Harder
has already started to gather way through the water and turn away from the destroyer. Dealey continues watching, however, and is rewarded by seeing the third torpedo smash into his stern. Clouds of smoke, steam, and debris rise from the stricken enemy high over the tops of his masts. He is so close that he continues coming, although his directive force and power are both gone, and
Harder
must get clear.

Suddenly there is a tremendous explosion, far more violent than the others. The submarine trembles from stern to stern and the noise is almost deafening. Surprisingly, there is less cork dust and debris tossed about inside in spite of the seemingly much-greater-than-usual shock. The destroyer's magazines have let go at a range of 300 yards, and within a minute after first being hit, his gutted, smoking remains sink beneath the waves. From time of sighting to time of sinking has taken nine minutes.

But what about this other set of screws on the starboard
beam, which Sound has been nervously reporting for the past two minutes? The skipper starts to swing his periscope to that bearing but is interrupted by the sound man's cry:

“Fast screws close aboard! He's starting his run!”

With her rudder hard over,
Harder
rushes for the depths. She has not quite reached her maximum submergence when the first depth charges go off.

This new chap is pretty good, too, and he doesn't waste many. Twisting and turning, always presenting
Harder
's stern to the Jap and endeavoring to make away from the area of the attack, Sam Dealey matches wits with the enemy. After four long hours he manages to shake him loose, and the submarine returns to periscope depth. Then, for the first time in more than six hours, Dealey has a chance to leave the conning tower.

In less than an hour he was back at the periscope with two more destroyers in sight. As Dealey scanned the horizon he sighted a third one, then a fourth—then a fifth, and then a sixth! All six were in line of bearing headed for
Harder
!

When Sam Dealey reached this point in his patrol report, he could not resist inserting the comment: “Such popularity must be deserved.”

It is on record that
Harder
's captain was now torn between two emotions: the desire to go after the enemy and tangle with them in hopes of getting one or two more, and a much more prudent and sensible decision to beat it. In the end, the latter judgment prevailed.

But all was not over yet. Two days later, shortly before dawn,
Harder
was detected and bombed by a plane, the bomb exploding close aboard as she was on her way down. It is strongly suspected that the subsequent sighting of two destroyers to the westward shortly before noon was a result of a report made by the pilot. Once again, what with air cover and the glassy smooth sea which existed in the locality,
Harder
decided to play it safe and evade.

But not so that night. Shortly after sunset, while the submarine is running on the surface off Tawi Tawi, one of the
bridge lookouts sights two destroyers dead ahead. Now the conditions are a little more to Dealey's liking, and the odds not so uneven.

The battle stations alarm is sounded again, and in a few minutes the submarine slips silently beneath the waves. The destroyers are on a line of bearing, and Dealey hopes to get them both with a single salvo.

Twenty minutes after being sighted the two destroyers pass in an overlapping formation across the bow of the submarine at a range of about one thousand yards. This is the moment Dealey has been waiting for. He plans to shoot at the nearest destroyer. Any torpedoes that miss will have a chance of hitting the second target.

“Standby forward.”

They do not have long to wait. Four torpedoes, evenly spaced, run toward the enemy. Dealey stands staring through his periscope. The first torpedo passes just ahead, and misses. The second torpedo hits near the bow, and a few seconds later the third hits under the bridge. The fourth torpedo misses astern.

At this juncture Dealey swings his ship with hard right rudder, getting ready for a setup on the second destroyer if that should prove to be necessary. The first destroyer, now burning furiously, continues on his way but slows down rapidly as simple momentum takes the place of live power from his propellers. Behind his stern Dealey can again see the second vessel, just in time to see the fourth and last torpedo crash into him. It is instantly apparent that no additional torpedoes will be needed for either ship.

Gripping the periscope handles, Dealey swings the 'scope back to the first destroyer which by this time is only 400 yards away, broadside to. He is just in time to observe another explosion take place amidships in the unfortunate ship. The destroyer's decks buckle in the center and open up with the force of the blast, just under the after stack. Momentarily everything is blotted out, but Dealey gets the impression that the stack has been blown straight into the air.

In a moment the force of the explosion hits
Harder
with
sufficient strength to make her heel over. But Dealey swings back quickly to the second destroyer, observes an even more powerful and, in the gathering darkness, totally blinding explosion from under his bridge. The explosion in the first destroyer had probably been a boiler reached by sea water; that in the second was evidently his magazines.

Within a matter of minutes both ships have disappeared, and
Harder
is once more on the surface, sniffing about at the scene of destruction, and then clearing the area at high speed in the event that planes might be sent from Tawi Tawi to investigate the sudden disappearance of two more tin cans.

Next morning
Harder
was a few miles south of Tawi Tawi, reconnoitering the anchorage. At about 0900 two destroyers were sighted, evidently on a submarine search. Perfectly willing to oblige them, Sam Dealey commenced an approach. The enemy's search plan evidently did not include the spot where the submarine lay, and they passed on over the horizon.

In the late afternoon a large Japanese task force, consisting of several battleships and cruisers, was sighted, escorted by half a dozen or more destroyers and three or four aircraft circling overhead.
Harder
was out of position for an attack, but it appeared that here was an opportunity for a contact report which might enable some other submarine to get into position to trap the task force later on.

While watching the largest battleship, which appeared to be one of Japan's two mystery ships—huge 60,000-ton monsters—Dealey saw him suddenly become enveloped in heavy black smoke, and in a few moments three distant explosions were heard. It was possible that one of our other submarines already had made an attack.

Suddenly a destroyer darted out of the confused melee of ships and headed directly for
Harder
. Perhaps her periscope had been sighted!

Battle stations submerged!

At maximum full speed the destroyer's bow is high out of water. His stem squats in the trough created by his own
passage, and black smoke pours from his stacks, to be swept aft by the wind of his passing.
Harder
turns and swings her bow directly toward the onrushing vessel; lines him up for a shot directly down the throat.

Things are deathly quiet in
Harder
's conning tower. There is no problem to solve by TDC or by plotting parties, except the determination of the approximate range at which to fire. The target's bearing remains steady. The torpedo gyros remain on zero. The target's angle on the bow remains absolute zero, and he is echo ranging steadily, rapidly, and right on.

The range closes with fantastic speed. Dealey makes an observation every thirty seconds or so. The periscope is almost in continuous motion. The sweat peels off his face, drips off the ends of his fingers as they grip the periscope handles—everything else in the conning tower is stock-still, as though time had ceased to function, except for the range counters on the TDC, which steadily indicate less and less range.

Range, 4000 yards. Only a few minutes to go. The sound man, intently listening to the approaching propeller beats, reports, “He has slowed down.”

Through the periscope it is obvious that he has indeed slowed down. His bow wave is smaller, and he now appears to be digging his bow deeper into it as the stern rises somewhat.

From the sound man: “Turn count fifteen knots!”

Wily fellow, this. He knows he is approaching the submarine's position, and plans to search the area carefully.

On he comes. Still no deviation in course, headed directly for the submarine's periscope. Probably he has seen it, and he no doubt plans to run right over it as he drops his depth charges. Not being a submarine man, he probably fails to realize that that periscope has been popping up and down in nearly the same place entirely too precisely and entirely too long. Perhaps he doesn't realize that the submarine is obviously making no attempt to escape.

In
Harder
's conning tower the range dials on the TDC
have reached 1,500 yards; target's speed is 15 knots, angle on the bow zero, relative bearing zero, torpedo gyros zero.

“Standby to shoot! Up periscope!”

The periscope whines softly as it rises out of its well. At this moment another report from Sound: “Fast screws! Close aboard starboard beam!”

Another ship! Destroyer, of course! The thought flashes through Dealey's mind with a small shock. He has been so intent on laying a trap for this fellow dead ahead that he has neglected to look about for others who might be coming.

“Too late to worry about him now,” Dealey mutters to himself, squatting before the periscope well. Aloud he says, “To hell with
him!
Let's get this son of a bitch up ahead.”

“Bearing—mark!” The periscope starts down. “No change,” barks out Dealey, meaning that the situation is exactly as it should be.

“Set!” from Sam Logan on the TDC.

“Fire!” from Lynch. As assistant approach officer, Frank Lynch is responsible that all details of the approach have been correctly executed and the proper settings made on the torpedoes. The ship lurches; one torpedo is on the way. Sam Logan deliberately waits five seconds, then he turns a handle on the face of the TDC a fraction of a degree to the right and quietly says again, “Set.”

“Fire.” A second torpedo speeds on its way. Logan turns the handle again, this time to the left.

“Set.”

“Fire.”
Harder
shudders for the third time as a torpedo is ejected.

There is no time to waste looking around. Not even time to try to identify the source of the extra set of screws on the starboard beam.

“Take her down! All ahead full! Right full rudder.” If the torpedoes miss,
Harder
will have two minutes to gain depth before the destroyer is on top of her.

Lynch has a stop watch in his hand. Logan is intently watching the face of his TDC, where a timer dial is whirling around.

The suspense is unbearable.
Harder
has already tilted her nose down and is heading for the protection of the depths at full speed, but she has not, of course moved very far yet.

“How long?”

“Forty-five seconds, Captain! Should be hitting any second now!”

“Fifty seconds!” You'd think Logan was timing a track meet.

“Fifty-five seconds!” And precisely as the words are uttered there is a terrific detonation. One torpedo has struck home.

“Sixty seconds!” Logan is still unperturbed. At that instant another terrific explosion rocks the submarine.