Gerold Frank - U.S.S. Seawolf - Submarine Raider of the Pacific

I heard the freighter zigzagging, seeking frantically to escape. She knew we were stalking her. This Maru was doing about 120 degrees zigs. I told the Captain, and he called back:

“Eckberg, I’m getting ready to fire. She should be on the port bow now. Got her?”

The Captain upped the periscope and took a look. He said, “Oh, Christ! Down periscope! Take ’er deep!”

We went down fast. I heard the screws of this Maru coming at us. Then she was over us. It was like standing under a trestle while a freight train rumbled overhead. She was still zigzagging and had no idea where we were.

The Captain again put the Seawolf on the course to the Gulf’s mouth. He left the conning tower and went to his room. For the next four hours I listened intently for the freighter, but she was gone. The Wolf was moving south at a rapid pace. My eyes were tired. I took off the earphones. Maley was absent-mindedly doodling on a scratch pad.

“I’m going to hit the sack,” I told him.

He nodded. “O.K., Eck.”

Lamberson was asleep in his bunk next to mine. He woke up as I got in. “Where the hell are we, Eck?” he asked drowsily.

“On the way out of this damn gulf,” I told him.

He yawned loudly and turned on his other side. “I don’t want to be on the next sub that pokes her nose into this gulf,” he said. Then, after a minute, he sat up restlessly and began rubbing his eyes. “Guess I’ll play a little solitaire.”

He climbed down, got a deck of cards, and sat on an overturned water bucket. He used a chair for a table.

“Hope we go east, Eck,” he said. “That means home, and will I be glad to see it!”

I had closed my eyes, trying to force myself to sleep. My nerves were still tingling from the long stretch I had just completed.

I fell into uneasy sleep. It seemed as if I had closed my eyes for only a few minutes when the alarm went. When I hit the deck seven feet below my bunk, it jarred me awake. I raced up the three steps through the watertight hatch to the officers’ quarters, squirmed down the narrow passageway. It was like a subway rush. Crew members were pushing each other along. I had to buck this human tide. Finally I reached the after end of the forward battery, then the control room. There wasn’t any talking. Each man had a job to do and we didn’t waste time in talking. I took over sound.

The Captain’s voice broke the silence. “This ship has something on the forward deck that I can’t make out. He apparently doesn’t see us, he’s not zigging at all. This will be a big day if we can get him. Sound, can we pick him up yet?”

I said: “Yes, Captain, I have him now.”

“Very well!” said the Captain. “This is a 5,000- to 7,000-ton freighter, two goal posts, stack amidships, looks like coal-burner, estimated speed nine knots, course, three five zero. The decks are loaded with what looks like invasion barges… The crew is in white uniforms, well disciplined. This is probably a Jap naval reserve ship. We’ll plunk him.”

I gave sound bearings, and in a few minutes the approach party gave him the bearings for firing. “All right, Willie,” he said, “stand by to fire. Ready, Henry?” Bringelman was at the Captain’s right shoulder with his hands on the solenoid controls ready to push the firing buttons.

Henry answered: “All set, Captain.”

Then the order came, “Fire!”

I caught the fish as they left the Wolf , The Captain said, “I can see them. One’s going to hit…!”

I heard the terrific blast.

“There’s no running around,” the Skipper said. “They don’t seem to be panicky. Everybody seems to have a destination. She’s listing to starboard. There’s a group of them forward, trying to clear the invasion barges, trying to save them. They won’t have time. They are going to go too fast. Yes, they have abandoned the idea. These people are cool, calm, and collected. Right now they are throwing everything that will float over the side. There’s no time to launch any lifeboats.”

I interrupted. “Ship coming up the starboard quarter, sir.” Her laboring screws sounded like a minesweeper.

“O.K., Eck, we’ll have a look,” the Captain said. “Hell, it’s those anti-sub vessels again. Converted minesweepers.” He paused. “Is that all they can get out here?” he asked. “That’s an insult to my ship and crew.”

There was a distant boom: the Jap was clumsily dropping depth charges.

We went deep. I could hear the ship breaking up, and finally her boilers exploded.

We stayed down the rest of that day. Everybody was exhausted. The torpedomen, who had been reloading and reloading, were asleep on their feet. Gus Wright had made sandwiches all day long. He was carrying coffee to me every half-hour or so.

We surfaced that night with normal routine. We were still in the Gulf. Again I slept badly. The day’s excitement was too much. I woke about 3 a.m. Swede was on watch in the control room.

“What are you doing up, Eck?” he asked.

“Not sleepy, I guess,” I said, and downed some of his coffee.

“Sleepy, hell,” he said. “What’s worrying you is worrying me and everybody on this boat. We are inside the Gulf, that’s all, and we’ll feel better when we get way outside.” He was right.

It could not have been three minutes later that Franz yelled from the conning tower: “Stand by to dive!”

Swede jumped to his controls. For a huge man, he was as quick as a cat. I took off for the sound room. I couldn’t find a thing.

Ensign Casler was the officer of the deck, and had picked up a smell of smoke. He couldn’t see anything, but didn’t take a chance and ordered a crash dive. Diving and cruising submerged upset our schedule, since we couldn’t make the speed submerged that we could on the surface. We’d hoped to reach the entrance by dawn, then submerge. But it was only an hour until daylight now, and so we continued submerged. About an hour after my morning watch was over, I was back in the engine room, playing my favorite Froggy Bottom record.

Suddenly there was the cry of “Battle Stations.” I grabbed at the machine to stop it and shattered the record. I ran to the sound room ready to kill every Jap in Japan. My favorite record lying in a thousand pieces! I got in the sound shack.

“Another target,” Paul said. “Too damn far away to tell what it is.”

Captain Warder had his periscope up. “Well, boy,” he said, “I rather wish we weren’t on a time schedule. This is like a picnic. I can’t tell yet, but this looks like an old freighter. Might not be worth a fish.”

Then I caught her screws. She was a coal-burning freighter, making slow speed.

A few minutes later Captain Warder caught sight of her. “She’s not so small, at that. About four thousand tons. Loaded to the gunwales. We’ll plunk this baby, too.”

We went in for the kill. I caught the screws of anti-sub vessels again. They were about three to five miles away. We came to the firing point. “Fire!” I heard the dull thud of the first explosion.

“We really cracked her this time, men. I can’t see anything for smoke,” came the Captain’s voice.

We headed out toward the open sea. We moved out of the Gulf and could relax at last.

I grabbed a nap that afternoon. Then I went back in the sound shack working on “Begin the Beguine.” I must have been loud.

Zerk stuck his head out of the after-battery hatch.

“For Christ sake, knock off the goddamn noise, damn it!” he yelled.

I yelled back: “Go on back in your hole, you ant-faced baboon!”

Before I knew it the whole battery was shouting, “Shut up, can it, keep it quiet.” They accused Zerk of making noise. I kept quiet. Zerk explained hotly that he was only telling me to keep quiet. “I wasn’t making the noise, it was Eckberg!” He came out into the passageway. They shouted him down. “Shut up, damn it, Zerk.” He went back mumbling.