Authors: David Capps
U.S.S. Massachusetts, Pacific Ocean, Off the Coast of Oregon
The battery-powered emergency lights flickered to life in the torpedo room, bathing everything in a red glow. Tiffany groaned as she put her hand over the sharp pain on the left side of her rib cage.
Broken,
she realized. She was crumpled against torpedo tube two, her legs folded under her, with her back toward the room. Her eyes darted around the room as she turned, searching for her crew.
Caleb Johnson was ten feet away on the starboard side of the room, lying on his side, back toward Tiffany. He wasn’t moving. Hector, Patrick and Gusman were struggling to stand up. The rest were at least moving. She winced in pain as she slowly stood and stumbled over to Johnson. She gently rolled Johnson over onto his back, expecting the worst. His eyes blinked.
“Oh God,” he mumbled. He looked up at her. “What the hell happened?”
“Two torpedoes, head to head,” she said.
“Oh yeah,” he replied as he lifted his left hand to his head. “Where’s all the water coming from?”
Tiffany had been so intent on her crew that her mind had blocked out the hissing sound from the spraying sea water coming from torpedo tube one. She saw Hector grab the damage control kit and rush over to the source of the water. She looked back at Johnson. “You okay?”
“I think so.”
They both got up and headed toward the blasting streams of water emanating from torpedo tube one. Johnson grabbed the two-handed wrench that was used for manual override for many of the automated functions on the torpedo tube. He placed the socket over the square end of the drive rod that connected to the outer door gear train. It wouldn’t budge. “Hector, give me a hand.” Hector grabbed one side of the wrench while Johnson put both hands on his side. “Ready?” They strained to turn the drive rod, but it wouldn’t move.
“Try opening the outer door,” Tiffany suggested. “Maybe we can unjam it.” They got a turn and a half out of the drive rod before it stopped moving. “Now try closing the door,” she said.
The drive rod jammed at the same place. “Not going to work, ma’am,” Johnson reported.
* * *
Captain Jacobs opened his eyes and tried to focus his mind on the condition of his boat. He rolled to his hands and knees and staggered as he attempted to stand. Leaning against the bulkhead he began to assess the damage. The electronic tactical display was dark and had a deep crack that ran from the upper left corner diagonally down to the bottom of the screen near the lower right. He worked his way over to the command platform and pressed the intercom button. “Damage control, con, report.” He released the button waiting for a response. The only thing he heard was the ringing in his ears. “Damage Control, con, report,” he repeated. Still nothing.
The
Massachusetts
started to tip slowly toward the front. Jacobs saw Silverton struggle to his feet and look around, his eyes coming to rest on Adams, who was lying crumpled against the forward bulkhead. Silverton bent over Adams and shook him. “COB, COB.” He checked for a pulse and looked at Jacobs. “He’s alive, but unconscious.” More of the men in the control center started to move and gradually return to their stations. Silverton stood, held on to the side bulkhead and made his way over to the command platform. “Captain, you’re bleeding.”
Jacobs reached up with his left hand and touched his left cheek. When he looked at his fingers they were dripping with bright red blood. Silverton staggered over and opened the First Aid kit. He pulled out several gauze pads and put them on the gash on Jacobs’ scalp.
“It’s not too bad,” Silverton said. “But head wounds bleed like a bitch. Just keep some pressure on it.”
“The intercom isn’t working,” Jacobs said. He looked around. “Nothing is – main power is out.” He pointed to a young man who was one of the first to stand up. “Seaman, Karpinski.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Break out the Sound Powered Phone. See who else is doing the same thing.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” he replied. Karpinski opened a cabinet under the display console, removed the headphone and mouthpiece from the box, put them on his head and plugged the connector into the receptacle. The Sound Powered Phone system didn’t depend on any outside power system. The operator’s voice vibrated the microphone, which generated an electrical signal that powered the speakers in the headphones in the system. “This is the control center,” he said. “Anyone there?” He listened. “Sir, reactor room and engineering reporting in, minor damage, no water, trying to reset systems.”
“What about the torpedo room,” Jacobs asked.
“Torpedo room, report in,” Seaman Karpinski spoke into the mouthpiece. He waited. “Torpedo room, report in.” He looked at Jacobs, “No response, Sir.”
The
Massachusetts
was starting to tip more toward the front. “We’re taking on water,” Jacobs said. He pointed to three men now standing in the control center. “You three, damage control, head below, do not open any watertight doors without checking through the glass first. Close doors behind you. Find out what’s going on in the torpedo room.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” they answered. They looked through the small glass window in the forward watertight door, rotated the wheel and cracked the door open. Stephanos was on the other side of the door.
He stepped into the control center as the three men went through. “Without power we can’t tell what’s working and what’s not.”
Jacobs turned to Seaman Karpinski. “Find Lieutenant Kent. Get him to the torpedo room, and find out how long before we get power from the reactor room and from engineering.” Seaman Karpinski talked into the Sound Powered Phone and listened.
“Reactor room is functioning, turbine spinning, generator is currently off line. They’re checking fuses. Engineering reporting multiple blown fuses, main distribution panel is damaged; main bus bars are shorted and fused together, rerouting wires to the auxiliary panel, estimate ten minutes before they can try to restore power, Sir.”
* * *
Tiffany watched as Hector held the medium round wood plug in his left hand and the drive mallet in his right. The two sight glasses in the torpedo tube door had blown out, leaving two oval holes in the door. As he tried to position the plug in front of the stream of water the force of the flow blew the plug out of his hand and sent it careening across the room. He looked up at her.
“The force is a lot stronger than in the training room,” she said. “We need to improvise.”
Caleb Johnson grabbed a pry bar and stuck it into the top sight glass hole and lifted up on the bar. The water blasted upward into his face.
“Plug the bottom half!” he shouted.
Hector took another wood plug and lined it up with the lower half of the sight glass hole, smacking it into place with the mallet. Johnson repeated the maneuver with the bottom hole. Hector slammed the plug into the hole – that cut the flow to about half of what it was but the water was still getting deeper in the torpedo room much too rapidly. The water was now knee deep.
“What about the wide crack wedges?” Tiffany asked.
Hector pulled a wide wedge out of the kit and lined it up with the hole.
“Too wide!” he shouted over the sound of the spray.
Johnson withdrew a pocket knife from his pocket and carved the edges of the wedge down. “Try it now.”
Hector drove the wedge in on top of the round plug. It held.
“More wedges,” Tiffany shouted.
Within a few minutes the flow of water had slowed, but the gaps between the round plugs and the wedges still allowed a continuous flow of water into the torpedo room.
Tiffany heard a loud banging from the watertight door. She rushed over and looked through the small glass window. She saw Lieutenant Kent on the other side of the door, worry etched in his face. He held up a Sound Powered Phone set. She nodded and snatched the device from the lower drawer of the tool storage drawers, put the head set on and plugged it into the connector.
“Open the door!” he shouted into the phone.
She shook her head. “Too much pressure.”
She heard, “Torpedo room, this is the control center, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Get the Captain on the phone.”
“Lieutenant, what’s going on?” It was Captain Jacobs’ voice.
“When our torpedo hit the incoming torpedo, Sir, the outer door was still open for the guide-by-wire. The explosion jammed the outer door. We can’t move it. The inner door on tube one is broken and we’re taking on water. We already have three feet of water in the lower level. Pumps are not working. We’re driving wood wedges into the holes in the door. It’s slowing the rate of water coming in, but we can’t stop it.”
“Can you evacuate?” Jacobs asked.
“No, Sir, too much air pressure on the door. The torpedo room has the largest volume on the boat. If it fills with water the boat becomes too heavy, not enough volume left to maintain buoyancy. We would lose the boat, Sir.”
“Okay, Lieutenant, we may have auxiliary power in ten minutes, that should give you power for the pumps. Maybe that will help.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Grimes said, “what is our depth right now? None of our displays are working.” She could feel the pressure increasing. Water pressure increases at approximately one half pound per square inch for each foot of depth.
“Passing 700 feet, lieutenant, we’re sliding down by the bow.”
“We’re too deep for anybody to get out of the sub, Sir, we have to stay in here and fight this leak. No choice, Sir.”
“Once we get power, we’re going to try to blow main ballast; see if that gets us up where we can get out. Hold tight Lieutenant.”
“Aye-aye, Sir.” She looked around the torpedo room. With the forward tip of the
Massachusetts
the damaged door was now three feet under water.
* * *
As the main power came back on, the lights in the control center flickered to life. “XO, blow the negative tank and the forward auxiliary tanks, leave the rear auxiliary tanks where they currently are.” The negative tank was centrally located and was used to control the internal volume of the submarine, which, in turn, controlled the buoyancy of the boat. A greater air volume inside the negative buoyancy tank displaced more water, which increased the buoyancy, making the sub float higher in the water. The auxiliary tanks were used to balance the sub front to back and side to side. Blowing compressed air into the tanks forced the water out into the ocean. The constant tilting of the sub toward the front slowed, as did the slide into the depth of the Pacific Ocean.
“Give me a three-second high pressure blow on all main ballast tanks. Let’s see how the boat responds.” Jacobs said. The sound of high pressure air rushing through the steel pipes echoed through the boat and then, at the three-second mark, abruptly stopped. It felt like being on an elevator as the
Massachusetts
started to rise. Then the sub began tilting strongly toward the front, and the rise quickly turned into a sinking motion.
“Front main ballast isn’t holding air, Sir,” Silverton reported. “Probable damage from the explosion.”
Jacobs pressed the button on the intercom, “Engine room, con, can you give me reverse thrusters?”
The reply came over the intercom, “Con, engine room – we’ll give it a try, Sir.”
“The Pulsejet Propulsar isn’t really designed to move us backwards very fast, Sir,” Silverton said.
“Well, going forward is only going to drive us deeper. Any other ideas?”
Silverton thought for a moment. “No, Sir,” he replied.
“Torpedo room, con, Lieutenant Grimes, how are you doing in there?”
“Pumps are running, Sir, water level looks stable, but everything has shifted forward, so it’s a little hard to tell exactly. We can’t work on the tube door, Sir, it’s four feet under water.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Jacobs replied.
The
Massachusetts
continued to tip toward the bow. Jacobs looked at the depth gauge. They were slowly rising. That was good news. Less pressure outside meant the water coming into the torpedo room would slow. It might give the pumps a chance to catch up and get more water out of the torpedo room. If that happened, they might be able to level the boat somewhat.
Chairs and other loose objects began sliding across the deck in the control center as the angle of tipping increased. “Downward angle now at 15 degrees, Sir,” the helmsman reported. “Depth is 680 feet.”
“Release the Emergency Buoy,” Jacobs ordered.
“Emergency buoy released and on the surface, Sir; beacon is transmitting.” The beacon sent out a radio distress signal identifying the sub and its location. All they could do now was wait and see what happened.
U.S.S. Massachusetts, Pacific Ocean, Off the Coast of Oregon
Lieutenant Tiffany Grimes surveyed the damage to the torpedo room. Tubes and pipes were split and broken; water sprayed from multiple directions. Her crew had done all they could do to the torpedo tube door, now it was time to work on stopping the other leaks. Tiffany waded into the cold sea water, ducked under the surface and explored the damaged door with her fingers. Thirty seconds later she came back up.
“The whole door is bent,” she said. “Do you think we can get it to open?”
“Right now we have six small holes in the door,” Caleb Johnson replied. “Opening the door would turn that into a twenty-one inch diameter hole. Sea water would pour right in. How is that going to help?”
“I was just thinking, if we can get close enough to the surface, the pressure would lessen. At some point the air in the torpedo room would compress and counter balance the pressure from the sea. We could remove one of the other tube doors. Once the pressure stabilized, no more water would come into the room. We would have to work under the water, but if we could remove the damaged door, we could replace it with a good door. That would stop the leak, and then we could pump the water out of the room.”
Caleb put his fingers to his lower lip, obviously thinking about what she said. “How deep would the water be?”
“That’s a function of how deep we are,” she replied. “At a hundred feet…”
“We need only fifty pounds per square inch pressure to stop the water,” he finished. He looked at the damaged door. “We could pull the hinge pin right now. The locking ring will hold the door in place. All we’d have to do is turn the locking ring, pull the damaged door, put the new door in place and turn the locking ring back into place. Theoretically, it would work.”
“But we can’t do it against the flow of water through the torpedo tube – we won’t be able to hold the door in place,” she said.
“Right,” he replied. “The pressure has to balance first, and then the flow stops.”
“We can stand, what, two hundred pounds per square inch pressure?” she asked.
“Yeah, maybe a little more,” he replied. “Increasing the pressure isn’t the problem.”
“It’s
decompression
, I know,” she said. “But two hundred pounds per square inch in here means we can replace the damaged door at anything above four hundred feet.” She climbed the incline back to the water-tight door and pressed the intercom button.
“Con, torpedo room,”
“Go ahead Lieutenant,” Captain Jacobs said.
“Captain, we may have a possible solution, but we’ll have to flood the torpedo room in order to replace the damaged door. We’re going to need to be above 400 feet in order to try it.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Jacobs replied. “But flooding the room will cost us all of our buoyancy. We wouldn’t be able to maintain our depth.”
“Then could we route air under pressure into the torpedo room? If we can counterbalance the water pressure we can stop the water from flowing. Once that’s stable, we can replace the inner torpedo tube door.”
“Lieutenant Kent? Are you hearing this?” Jacobs asked.
“Already on it, Sir,” Kent answered.
Tiffany examined the tubes that lined the bulkhead in the torpedo room, noting how each tube was painted a color to identify what it carried. She spotted the light blue tube and read the tag attached to it. “I’ve got a P8-127 pneumatic tube here.” She traced it along the wall. “And a connector that I can get to.”
“Perfect,” Lieutenant Kent replied. “I’m closing the line from here. Go ahead and remove the connector.”
Tiffany picked up a crescent wrench and unscrewed the connector, and then yanked the line away from the bulkhead. “Line is open,” she said. Compressed air loudly hissed into the torpedo room.
“How long do you think this is going to take?” Caleb Johnson asked.
She looked at the double-story front section of the torpedo room, quickly running the numbers through her mind. “Depending on our depth, four to eight hours.”
“Okay, gentlemen,” Caleb Johnson said. “Let’s pull that hinge pin on the damaged door and take the door off tube number four. Move it!”