Submarine! by Edward L. Beach

Author:Edward L. Beach [Beach, Edward L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612512891
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

While Tang was going into commission at Mare Island, Trigger completed her refit following Dusty Dornin’s second patrol, and on Christmas Day, 1943, was scheduled to leave for the area of Truk. “Christmas Day,” we moaned. “Surely the war is not going to be lost or won by our departure on that day.” It took a strong protest to ComSubPac himself, but finally he agreed that Trigger had earned her first Christmas in port.

We got under way the following day, and in little more than a week took station on a convoy route between Guam and Truk. Here, for the first time, Trigger’s luck at finding targets turned sour.

For nearly a month we plied the traffic lanes. Nothing whatever did we see, except an occasional plane or various brightly colored ocean birds, until two or three days before shortage of fuel would have started us back to Pearl Harbor. And then early one evening the sonar operator thought he heard something in his earphones. He listened intently. There could be no doubt of it. There had been an explosion in the water many miles away. And then another.

Fandel, onetime country schoolteacher, marked the time, listened a little longer, marked the time once more, and then called for the skipper. “Captain,” he reported, “somebody is dropping periodic depth charges. Listen.”

Sometimes Jap convoy escorts dropped depth charges periodically as they steamed along. Doubtless the idea was to discourage submarines from attacking. Its success depended on whose area they were in.

Dusty and I heard the fifth and sixth explosions. They seemed to be a little louder to the south.

“All ahead flank!” The soft mutter of one diesel engine pushing us along at slow speed was suddenly augmented by three more. Four plumes of smoke poured from Trigger’s exhaust ports onto the surface of the ocean, and a white tumbled wake stretched farther aft. On the bridge seven pairs of high-powered binoculars searched the dimming horizon, and above them the radar rotated slowly. For ten miles we let the ship run.

“All stop! Secure the engines!” Trigger coasted, silenced, slowing. “Rig out the sound heads!”

The pressure-proof speaker on the bridge blared: “Bridge! Sound reports distant depth charges dead ahead!”

“All ahead flank!” We were getting closer. It was now dark, and as Trigger picked up speed once more, we carefully adjusted the radar, peaked its tuning and ring time. We concentrated it dead ahead with occasional sweeps sideways to prevent being taken by surprise. For a long time it showed nothing. Finally, “Radar contact!” Ralph Korn, now chief yeoman, with the simplicity of long practice swung into the routine of feeding the essential information from the radar to the tracking parties. When combined with the known inputs of Trigger’s own course and speed the result was target course and speed—data essential to the correct torpedo fire-control solution.

“Conn! What speed we showing?”

“Twenty and a half, sir! Picking up slowly!”

“Bridge! We’re overtaking them on their port flank—range now about twelve. Can you see them?” We peered ahead. Nothing.

Trigger

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