Battle Stations: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 3) Page 8

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DAYLIGHT RUN

  Sandtiger barreled toward the center of AREA ONE in broad daylight.

  The orange morning sun set the sea afire. The sea opal and emerald. Japan a mere smudge on the horizon to port.

  Charlie had no attention to spare for sightseeing. However striking, the vista was hostile territory. The water home to warships. The clouds perfect hiding places for planes that might come howling out of the sky.

  From his position on the bridge, he scanned the view with his binoculars. He kept the same reduced number of lookouts but shortened their watch to two hours. Sandtiger was running the gauntlet. He wanted the men to have fresh eyes at all times.

  So far, so good. They hadn’t had to dive yet.

  The lookouts were quiet. None of the usual banter that usually involved home, women, or riding each other’s ass without quarter.

  Everybody was on edge today.

  One of the sailors called out: “Plane, far, bearing two-eight-oh, elevation four-triple-oh, crossing the stern.”

  “Very well,” Charlie said. No threat.

  They’d spotted four planes, all at a far enough distance to cause little worry. Three ships as well, all on the horizon.

  Liebold emerged from the hatch with two fresh lookouts. “Permission to relieve you.”

  “Granted,” Charlie said.

  The sailors went below as the new lookouts scrambled up the shears.

  “You’d better get down below too,” Liebold said.

  He was right, but Charlie wanted to stick around. He hated the idea of being below decks. Up here, he could see the enemy coming and act.

  Sandtiger had been moving in daylight for two hours. Just one more hour, and they could travel submerged the rest of the way if necessary.

  “You still sore?” Charlie ventured.

  “Leave it alone.”

  “I will if you quit moping. We need you, Jack.”

  “What do you want from me? I modified the lousy torpedoes. Every single one.”

  Charlie shook his head. He couldn’t break through. He hated being on the outs with Liebold. The man had been the closest thing he’d had to a friend on Sabertooth. He started for the hatch, squinting in the sun’s glare.

  And jumped.

  A black dot in the sun, growing larger.

  “Dive!” Charlie shouted into the intercom. “Clear the bridge! Move!”

  The men slid down the ladder into the control room. Charlie spun the center wheel to dog the hatch. “Hatch secured!”

  He dropped into the conning tower as the boat angled down.

  “Plane, approaching, maybe five miles!”

  “Take it easy,” Moreau said. “Control, take her down, emergency.”

  Sandtiger clawed toward her test depth of 300 feet.

  Charlie grabbed a handhold and looked up. The plane had been far away but it moved a lot faster than the boat. Recon planes traveled at speeds topping 200 miles an hour.

  Many carried bombs big enough to smash a hole in a submarine.

  Right now, the plane might be zeroing in on the swirling bubbles that marked Sandtiger’s plunge into the sea.

  “Recommend evasive action, Captain,” Charlie said.

  “Steady as you go,” Moreau replied.

  Percy: “Passing 100 feet, Skipper!”

  Charlie checked his watch. The plane would have crossed the five-mile distance in forty-five seconds. It should be overhead by now.

  “Maybe he didn’t have any bombs,” he guessed.

  “Or didn’t see us at all,” Percy said.

  “Maybe the little bastard saw us and marked our position with smoke for bombers,” Moreau taunted. “Maybe he radioed the nearest naval base, which is now firing tin cans at us. You can maybe yourself right into a straitjacket.”

  Percy smiled. “Maybe we should focus on what we know?”

  Moreau sat in his old lawn chair, which sagged under his weight. “’Atta boy. A plane showed up. We dived. It don’t change a thing.”

  Taking a cue from the captain, the sailors visibly relaxed at their stations. For the next half-hour, though, nobody said anything unrelated to his job. Nixon came to relieve Percy in the conning tower. Again, Charlie stuck around.

  Moreau hauled himself to his feet. “Control, bring us back up to periscope depth.”

  Down in the control room, the planesmen turned the large brass wheels that angled the boat. Sandtiger rose toward the surface and leveled off.

  The captain raised his thumbs. He hugged the periscope as it rose from its well, slowly rotating for a good look all around.

  “We’re clear,” he said. “Down scope. Rig to surface. Let’s get back at it.”

  “Recommend we keep the negative ballast tanks partially flooded,” Charlie said. “It’ll slow us down a bit, but we’ll be able to dive faster.”

  Moreau threw him the stink-eye. “Jack’s got the watch, Exec. Nixon’s doin’ the plotting. You’re in everybody’s way. Go do it somewhere else.”

  Charlie grudgingly went to the wardroom for a cup of coffee. Percy sat in one of the chairs with his feet propped on another, strumming his banjo.

  “Man, you look like a coiled spring,” the communications officer said.

  “We’re running the Sea of Japan in broad daylight. Every officer should stay on duty in case something goes wrong. I should be assistant diving officer now.”

  “The Old Man likes to keep it lean.”

  “Does he have to gamble with everything he does?”

  Percy lit a Lucky Strike and dropped it in the ashtray next to him. “Remember when I asked you what you like to do for fun? This is when that thing comes in handy. You’ve got to hang loose to make it in the boats.”

  Rusty had said almost the exact same thing to him on the 55.

  Charlie frowned as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “I guess.”

  “I play banjo. The captain plays poker. Nixon builds shit like that contraption in the control room that makes ice cream that tastes like diesel. Who the hell knows what Liebold does with his time.” He chuckled. “Sticks pins in dolls, maybe. You? All I ever see you do is work. You got to blow off some steam, man. Honestly, sometimes you make me nervous.”

  For Charlie, the harder part of serving as XO wasn’t doing his duty; it was letting it go. “How about you teach me to play a song on that banjo?”

  Percy grinned. “Man, I got something better. An instrument far more worthy of an officer and a gentleman.”

  He pulled a shiny object from the breast pocket of his wrinkled Aloha shirt.

  A harmonica.

  The 1MC popped. Charlie stiffened.

  Moreau: “Dive, dive, dive!”

  Percy said, “Hey, I’m teaching you. Pay attention. First thing is make a note. Anybody can do that. Pick any of these holes and blow in it …”

  Charlie learned the harmonica while the submarine surfaced and dived like an underwater rollercoaster.

  At last, when Sandtiger reached sight of the convoy’s track, she dived again.

  And waited for dark.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BLOOD IN THE WATER

  At sunset, Sandtiger surfaced and raced to the hunt.

  West by northwest on a parallel track to the convoy, bearing 300° True.

  The approach had begun. At 0130, the attack would begin.

  The hours rolled past. In the conning tower, the officers and sailors performed their duties with tedious precision. For Charlie, this was the anxious time. Not just because of the imminence of action. Nor the possibility every man here might meet his maker by the end of the night.

  During the approach, vital equipment broke down. Planes suddenly zoomed overhead. An escort zigged instead of zagged. Commanders with long hours between life-and-death decisions second-guessed themselves.

  Charlie had experienced it himself during his brief command of Sabertooth. A leak had nearly prevented the boat from diving in the track of Japanese warships. If Jane hadn’
t steeled his nerve, he wouldn’t have attacked at all.

  Topside, the radar swiveled on its mast, sweeping the sea for contacts. The radarman hunched in the green glow of the PPI scope. Concentric rings delineated ranges from a hundred to 1,000 yards. Bearing lines radiated from the center.

  Blips winked to life on the cathode tube screen. Ships along with relative sizes, positions, and distances. An instant snapshot of the tactical situation.

  As far as anybody knew, the Japanese didn’t have radar. Like the bathythermograph, an amazing invention. That was how Charlie had been able to attack Yosai on seas blanketed by sea fog. With radar, the submarines might make a decisive contribution to the war—if the Navy produced a torpedo that worked.

  “Radar, contact, eight ships bearing three-double-oh,” the radarman called out. “Angle on the bow, starboard thirty. Speed, ten knots. Range, 18,000 yards. Two flanking escorts, six troopships in two columns of three. Targets are closing.”

  Percy updated the plot with his grease pencil. “They’re pretty much where they’re supposed to be, Skipper.”

  Two smaller blips, the radarman added.

  Redhorse and Warmouth, trailing the convoy to port and starboard.

  “Looks like the gang’s all here,” the captain said. “Distance to the track?” The target’s track being its projected course.

  “Nine thousand,” Charlie said.

  An easy calculation. If the angle on the bow was thirty degrees, the distance to the track was one-half the range. Moreau knew that, but captains often checked their officers and themselves by asking.

  Moreau looked at the time. “We’re gonna do an end-around.”

  In football, a trick play. The quarterback does a handoff to a receiver crossing the backfield, who then runs or throws it.

  In submarine warfare, it described new doctrine pioneered by fighting captains like Moreau. If a submerged submarine was too far away from her target, she surfaced once he’d gone over the hill. Then she ran on the surface ahead of him and submerged in his track, ready to shoot when he approached.

  “Message from Redhorse, Captain,” the yeoman said.

  “Merci beaucoup, Yeo.” His lips moved while he read. Bad news, Charlie sensed. The captain moved to the plotting table. Charlie, Nixon, and Liebold joined him there. He slapped the paper down. “The commodore has a battle plan.”

  Moreau swept his finger across the plot. “Rickard wants us to go far ahead of the convoy. Redhorse and Warmouth will attack, sink some of ’em, and draw off the escorts. The rest of the ships will run for Seishin. Right into us.”

  Charlie nodded. It sounded good to him. The survivors would be easy pickings.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Liebold said. He liked the idea too.

  “Uh-huh. You say, ‘aye, aye,’ like I gave an order. Did I do dat?”

  The torpedo officer stiffened. “No, Captain.”

  “Rickard didn’t give me an order either. He made a suggestion. We’re attacking.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “’Atta boy.” Moreau crumpled the message in his fist and left it on the table. “Charlie, call the men to general quarters.”

  The words galvanized the officers and sailors. Charlie removed the mike from the 1MC call box and keyed for public address. “Battle stations, torpedo!”

  The helmsman gripped the general alarm handle and pulled it out and down. The gonging alarm reverberated through the boat like a surge of electric current. Everywhere, hands rushed to stations.

  Charlie readied himself for his duties as assistant approach officer. Liebold took his place at the TDC, which whirred as it warmed up. Nixon joined Percy’s tracking party. During combat, he’d serve as assistant diving officer. He’d run the conning tower while Moreau and Charlie fought on the bridge.

  The telephone talker said, “All compartments report battle stations manned.”

  “The crew is at general quarters, Captain,” Charlie confirmed.

  “Very well,” Moreau said. “Yeo, when we’re on station and set up to attack, radio Rickard’s boat. Confirm, ‘message received.’”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” the yeoman said.

  “Oh, and tell him I said, ‘Nuts.’”

  The yeoman walked away puzzled. The men laughed at their stations.

  Charlie checked the time: 0105. He put on his windbreaker and red goggles and strung his binoculars around his neck. He was ready to mount to the bridge.

  The radarman called out new bearings. The convoy steamed ahead at a leisurely pace without zigzagging. Blissfully ignorant that American submarines targeted them. Unaware blood was in the water, the sharks circling.

  “Less than 500 miles from dis very spot, Tojo’s snoring in his bed,” Moreau said as if thinking aloud. “Dreaming about eating sushi in Washington.”

  Hideki Tojo had served as the Japanese Empire’s prime minister since October 1941. He’d ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. Along with Hitler, he was one of the two most hated men in America.

  “He’s about to get a rude awakening, Skipper,” Percy said. “Least we can do to him for dragging our asses all the way out here to the other side of the world.”

  “Hell of a thing,” the captain muttered, adrift in his thoughts.

  He should wonder. Since the start of the war, the submarines had sunk some 400 enemy ships. In exchange, America had lost seventeen boats and the thousand officers and sailors who manned them. With aggressive new doctrines, skippers, and fleet boats and technology, the tide had begun to turn.

  Moreau suddenly grinned. “Dis could be a very good night.”

  Charlie tingled with the same sense of the sweep of history. He remembered his duties and checked the clock again. “Permission to go topside, Captain?”

  “Yup.” The captain pulled on his windbreaker. “I’m right behind you.”

  Together, they mounted to the bridge, where the quartermaster and his lookouts kept watch.

  “We don’t have eyes on them yet, Skipper,” Smokey said.

  Charlie brought the binoculars to his eyes and peered into the darkness. Another cool clear night. The seas reflected starlight and the beam of a waxing crescent moon. Across these serene waters, Sandtiger charged the enemy on growling engines. Batteries warm and full of juice, battle stations manned by a well-drilled crew, torpedoes ready for loading. The situation was developing fast now. The approach neared its terminus of violent action.

  One by one, the Japanese ships popped into view.

  Charlie called out: “Contact!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WOLF PACK

  Charlie jammed his binoculars into the target-bearing transmitter bracket. Mounted on a swivel base, the TBT sent bearing information directly to the TDC. Using it, submarine commanders could direct surface attacks from the bridge.

  The leading troopships steamed dead ahead. Big black shapes on a dark gray sea. Small bow wakes. The lead escort prowled far off the starboard bow.

  “Conn, Bridge,” Moreau barked. “Give me a range on the lead transports.”

  “Three thousand!” Nixon replied over the intercom.

  “Stay on the ship in their starboard column. Keep the ranges coming.”

  Overhead, the radar antenna spun on its mast, updating the conning tower.

  “I’ve got the TBT on that ship,” Charlie said. “Angle on the bow is port ten and opening. Speed, ten knots. He’s a big ocean liner.”

  “That’s our bow shot. We’ll fire a spread of four fish. We’ll hit his running buddy with another four from the stern tubes.”

  Charlie described the ship in as much detail as possible. The high freeboard, large single smokestack, tall masts. It stood tall and proud on the water, a regal ship. Moving at reduced speed so the convoy’s slower ships could keep up.

  “Hikawa Maru class,” the captain said. “Twelve thousand tons. Used to run the Japan-Seattle line before he got turned into a troop ferry.”

  Nixon: “Range, two-nine-double-oh.”r />
  Charlie turned the TBT toward the other lead ship, which had a taller prow and bridge castle. Angle on the bow, starboard ten and widening as the range closed. Moreau had aimed Sandtiger almost directly between the convoy’s columns.

  “Terukuni Maru class,” the captain said. “Twelve thousand tons. This is quite the operation the Japs have goin’ on. Conn, Bridge! Reduce speed to one-third. Nixon, where’s dat tin can to starboard?”

  “Range, three-five-double-oh, Captain.”

  The old Momi destroyer steamed on, oblivious. For nearly two years, the Sea of Japan had been safe from the threat of American ships.

  For the Japanese, tonight was just another routine ferry run.

  “Forward room, make ready the tubes,” Moreau said. “Order is one, two, three, four. Set depth at fourteen feet. High speed. Stand by on five and six.”

  A slight tremor vibrated through the hull as the outer torpedo doors opened.

  Liebold had told the captain the Mark 14 torpedoes ran ten to fifteen feet deeper than their rating. The liners steamed with a deep draft, even deeper while fully loaded. At fourteen feet, Moreau could hit the hull under the waterline with seven to twelve feet to spare.

  Nixon: “Two-five-double-oh!”

  The time, 0120.

  “At what range do you plan to shoot, Captain?” Charlie asked.

  “When I can see the whites of their eyes. I’m gonna get as close as possible and hit ’em with everything we got. Nixon! Call for battle stations, gun action.”

  The alarm sounded below. Helmeted sailors poured out the gun hatch. The crew unlimbered the powerful five-inch deck gun under Smokey’s direction. Others mounted the 50-caliber and 40-mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns.

  Just the captain’s style. The captain planned to meet the first two ships with torpedoes. Then steam directly down the column, shooting at anything that moved. The weapons of choice being torpedoes, deck guns, and good old-fashioned terror.

  If the boat had to dive fast, the crew would have to leave the guns topside and lose them for good. Another gamble. With three submarines, two escorts, and a whole lot of confusion, the captain likely wouldn’t have to dive until he was ready.