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

“We don’t have to dive for that baby,” came a moment later. “It’s a PBY.”

We felt like cheering below. We were in home waters now. We wanted to be topside, and we wanted to be up there badly.

For many weeks I hadn’t seen sunlight or tasted fresh air. I must have looked the way I felt. “Like a dirty turkish towel,” was how Maley put it. I knew I had lost weight. My pants hung so loosely. I had to use new holes in my belt to keep them up. But we tried to forget about topside and set to work cleaning up the Wolf . Our cruise had been a real success. Pearl was the nearest to home we had been in two years. We worked and thought of home again. Family photographs suddenly came to light once more. We reread old letters.

In the mess hall one night I was talking to Rudy Gervais. He was in love with a girl in Connecticut. He had a curious sensation of being far too old for her—suddenly. She was young; he felt old as the hills.

“The last time I saw her I was just a kid,” he complained. “Now I’m not a kid any more. She still is. How are we going to hit it off?”

“Aw, you’re still a kid,” I told him. “Don’t worry, she’ll be more than glad to have you.”

“I don’t know,” he said. I looked at him. Shave off that beard, and he still would be taken for eighteen.

The eve of hitting Pearl, some of us below went up on the bridge. A handful of us went up at a time. When I came up, there were three figures standing by the rail. One was Lieutenant Syverson.

“Good evening, Eck,” he said. “Come on up.”

Then we stood there silently. No one spoke. We couldn’t see the land. Moonlight shimmered on the water. It was a perfect night. The Wolf left a sparkling phosphorescent trail. It was a damn pretty thing to see. We all breathed deeply, and then, one by one, went below.

It was November, almost a year since the Jap attack. We had been out at sea nearly twelve months.

We sat around in a circle in Kelly’s Pool Room that night, and we talked about Pearl. It was just 2,200 miles from home. I looked around at the men. We weren’t the same men who had left Cavite a year ago. Sully had flicks of gray in his beard. Deep lines were etched in Maley’s face. I had lost a lot of weight. Hank Brengelman’s Santa Claus face wasn’t roly-poly any more. Only Pop Rosario looked the same. He might have been thirty and he might have been fifty.

We talked about Pearl Harbor. How would she look? I remembered when I first saw it in 1929. There were only nine buildings and a couple of piers.

Sully exclaimed: “Damn it, Eck, there couldn’t have been.”

That started an argument that lasted for hours. Finally, about 2 A.M., I went to bed.

We had early reveille and were met by a destroyer escort to take us in. The order from the bridge was one we hadn’t heard for a long time: “Station the channel watch.” We were in Pearl.

Every few minutes somebody would yell: “Christ Almighty, look at that!” or “Look at those guns!”

The word finally came, “Secure the radio watch.” Then: “If you are in the uniform of the day, come on deck.”

This meant clean dungarees, shorts, shirts, and white hat. I had been prepared for this hours ago. I climbed topside, emerged from the conning tower, and stood transfixed. I was stunned by the sight and sound.

The Seawolf was slowly gliding into Pearl Harbor. But what a different spectacle than when we had last been here two years ago! It was unbelievable. The sky above us was darkened by huge, sausage-like barrage balloons. The harbor on both sides of us was a staggering scene of destruction, as though a tornado had twisted across it, overturning ships, snapping crane booms like matchsticks, splitting buildings in half. We passed piled-up fragments of planes, their wings jutting out grotesquely; ships splotched with huge holes, keels and hulls of nameless vessels. There was the screeching of moving derricks, the scream of air hammers, a bedlam of engines roaring, machines pounding, men at work.

The Seawolf moved slowly past a gigantic overturned hulk. Against its immensity, the men swarming over it appeared no larger than ants. Somebody on deck murmured in an awed voice: “The Oklahoma!” and I stared at it. To our right as we moved into dock lay a light cruiser with a damaged superstructure; on the left, we were passing Ford Island. It looked as though a hurricane had wrecked it. Trees were splintered, structures leveled to the ground. Directly ahead of us now was the submarine base. I had never seen so many submarines tied up before. Anti-aircraft guns bristled from every roof overlooking the harbor; sandbags were piled high in front of every building.

You could be sure of this: history would never record a second surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Quite a crowd waited on the dock to welcome us. I saw faces I hadn’t seen for months. There were shouts of, “Hello, Skipper, how was the trip?” and “Good hunting, Captain?”

We tied up. Lieutenant Deragon made an announcement to the crew. “We are now in Pearl Harbor,” he said formally. “The Captain expects to fuel up, take on supplies, and leave here the first possible moment. There will be free beer for the entire crew with the exception of the duty section.”

We cheered that.

Lieutenant Deragon went on: “The beer is at the swimming pool. You men know where that is. You owe a vote of thanks for it to Commander Stephens, executive officer of the submarine base.”

Captain Warder, smartly dressed in a new khaki uniform, as trim a naval officer as ever stepped on a deck, appeared from below.

Deragon concluded: “Now what we have done on this last patrol and where we have been is no one’s business but our own. You men are free now. Go ashore and enjoy yourself. But be ready to leave at half an hour’s notice. Now, I think Captain Warder has a few things he’d like to say.”

Captain Warder stepped forward. He was all smiles. “Boys,” he said, “this might sound repetitious. The only excuse I make for it is that I am sincere. I am proud of you all. We have made a fine record. We have a wonderful ship. To my way of thinking, we have the best submarine crew in the United States Navy. My thanks goes out to every one of you.”

We stood there listening, and we liked it.

“I am now on my way to Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters,” he said. “If we can possibly do it, we will leave tomorrow. I know you are eager to get home, and so am I. Now, have a good time. I’ll see you all up at the swimming pool.”

We found ice-cold beer at the pool. The crew of the Seawolf relaxed. We lolled about, lying on the grass, taking it easy on the deck chairs, and letting the sun and air get at us. Captain Warder appeared an hour later, sank into a deck chair, and paid his acknowledgments to a glass of cold beer. A few minutes later Commander Stephens joined him.

Old Pop Mocarsky, who hadn’t smiled in a year, marched up and stood in front of the Captain. He turned to the crew.

“How’s the beer, boys?” Old Pop shouted. “O.K.?”

“O.K.! Pop,” we shouted back. Captain Warder rose to his feet, put a hand on Pop’s shoulder, and looked at all of us.

“Pop,” he said, “the beer is fine. I’m fine, and you look fine. Today the whole world’s fine.”

After the party a group of us looked in at the ship’s service store. There we saw the first American girl we’d seen in nearly two years. She was standing behind the counter, sorting handkerchiefs, and she was small and blonde, and pretty. She came up to wait on us. We stared at her. A red flush crept into her cheeks.

“What are you men looking at?” she said finally, trying to fight off a smile. “Do you want to buy something or not?”