The War Below by James Scott

Author:James Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2013-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

17

SILVERSIDES

“If we make it tonight, I’ll be a Christian.”

—Donald Sharp, July 8, 1944, diary

The prolonged blast of the Silversides whistle reverberated across the waters at Pearl Harbor at 1:30 p.m. on the afternoon of September 24, 1944, just half an hour after Tang’s departure—signifying the start of the Silver Lady’s eleventh war patrol, the sixth under the command of Jack Coye. The skipper’s previous patrol off Guam and Saipan in advance of the Marianas invasion had been one for the record books. In just forty-six days, Silversides had sunk a half dozen ships for a total of 14,150 tons, ranking the patrol as the sixth top run of the entire war. The eager yet inexperienced skipper who had taken command fourteen months earlier now joined a select club of elite submarine skippers, a club that included men like Dick O’Kane of Tang, Slade Cutter on Seahorse, and Eugene Fluckey, skipper of Barb. Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood made that clear in his endorsement: “The tenth war patrol of the Silversides makes her one of the outstanding submarines of the Submarine Force.”

The officers and crew celebrated that successful run with a return to Mare Island, the California Navy yard where shipbuilders had hammered out Silversides on the eve of the war. The rust-streaked submarine had since covered 92,210 miles and burned through 988,840 gallons of diesel. On patrols that ranged from Japan and the Marianas to the Solomon and Caroline islands, Silversides had fired 157 torpedoes, sinking twenty-two enemy ships. The Silver Lady had endured more action than most submarines. So had her men. The seventy-seven-day overhaul gave the officers and crew a welcome break from the war, a chance to visit family and friends, and soak up being back in America. Coye flew to New York, where he and his wife, Betty, laughed through the musical Oklahoma!, danced, and traveled up to Massachusetts so the skipper could visit his daughter, Beth, and son, Johnny, marveling at how big his young children had grown in his absence.

The news over the summer of 1944 proved far different than the headlines that had gripped the nation when the Navy had commissioned Silversides eight days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Allied forces successful in the June D-Day invasion swept across former Great War battlefields on the path to Berlin. Bombers and fighters crowded the skies over Europe by the thousands, pounding German oil refineries, rail yards, and war plants. Virginia representative Clifton Woodrum, chairman of the House Select Committee on Post-War Military Policy, went so far as to predict that the Army might finish its job against Germany by October. American lawmakers prepared for the end of war in Europe and the return to a peacetime economy, a challenge that would involve ending military contracts, liquidating surplus ships, tanks, and planes, and responding to the sudden unemployment of millions of wartime workers.

The Office of War Information predicted the Pacific fight could stretch on as much as two years past Germany’s defeat because of greater logistical challenges.

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