1834 Gravity meter and sonar together show a dropping away in the ocean floor.
1933 First trial on our hand-made fathometer transducer: Unsuccessful.
The new fathometer transducer, the product of much inspired work by the Electronics Technicians gang under “Whitey” Rubb, had at last been completed, and had passed a successful test. In the Electronics Technicians’ workshop, a sonar signal set into the transducer was clearly heard outside it, even though the frequency response was theoretically in the inaudible range. The thing was worked in reverse also and was proven sensitive to the reception of noise beamed at it by radio or tape recorder at an approximately correct frequency. The problem now was to find some means of getting this sound into the water and catching it on the return.
Steel is a good conductor of sound. Our theory was that if we could send out a sufficiently strong signal, it might pass through the steel of our pressure hull and carry to the ocean floor, there to be reflected, hopefully, in sufficient strength to be detected either on the transducer itself or on one of our external hydrophones.
Another of our problems was that the pressure hull was the inner of Triton’s two hulls. When Jones had gone to work with the sledge hammer, we hoped that the water between the two hulls would carry the signal. But this experiment had been completely unsuccessful; in order to get the maximum possible chance of success with our handmade fathometer transducer, we had to do better.
There was, fortunately, a way to reach the outer skin of the ship itself, through the forward trim tank. Located in the space between the pressure hull and the outer hull, the tank had been built to withstand full test pressure and to meet the highest specifications of shock resistance. It also was accessible through a manhole cover at the bottom of the torpedo storeroom.
Tom Thamm adjusted the trim of the ship so that all water normally carried in the forward trim tank could be pumped out of it and into the midships auxiliary tanks. (Balance fore and aft was maintained by pumping an equal weight of water to auxiliaries from the after trim tank.) Then the tank was opened and tested for gas. After it had been pronounced clear, Lieutenant “Whitey” Rubb and Machinist Phil Kinnie descended into the heretofore sealed space, carrying our jury-rigged transducer with them.
Placing the new mechanism carefully against the skin of the ship, alongside the internal keel, they quickly made a connection to a cable from the fathometer transmitter nearby. After all was in readiness, we began the first test.
For a moment, we were greatly encouraged. We actually heard a sharp click, as the outgoing signal sped through our handmade transducer. But there was no returning echo. Various combinations were tried, including partially reflooding the forward trim tank so as to submerge the transducer and thus increase its ability to transmit through the bottom of the trim tank and to the water outside. But in the end, we were completely disappointed. The effort was unsuccessful.
“Whitey” was dejected. “I’m satisfied this isn’t going to work, Captain,” he said. “But I’d like to keep trying.”
The only bright spot of the day was receipt of our fifth babygram. A boy, Donald, Jr., for Engineman First Class Donald R. Quick.
From the Log:
Sunday, 27 March 1960 1349 We will soon be passing through our nearest point of approach to the presumed location at which the first Triton (SS-201) was lost in action during World War II. As a matter of interest, this took place almost exactly seventeen years ago, and by a strange coincidence the first Triton departed on her last patrol from Brisbane, Australia, on the same day (16 February) as we, her namesake, departed from New London on this voyage. Triton I is presumed to have been lost as a result of depth charge attack by three Japanese destroyers on 15 March 1943, in a position almost exactly 800 miles due south of where we are now.
At that time I was engineer officer of Trigger, also lost in action later in the war, and LCDR R. S. Benson, USN, was skipper. On 15 March 1943, as it happened, we were on patrol in the same general vicinity as Triton I. Correlation between the known facts of Triton’s loss and Trigger’s report of the events of that date indicates that the two ships may have attacked the same convoy. Trigger believed she had sunk one ship and damaged a second, and Triton’s results were unknown. We were depth charged, though not severely. But afterwards we heard distant depth charges for approximately an hour. Japanese records indicate that the depth charging heard by Trigger most probably accounted for the loss of the old Triton. Their report of the action contains the notation that a large amount of oil came to the surface in the center of which floating objects were found bearing the label “Made in USA.”
It was Triton’s sixth patrol, but the first for her new commander, LCDR George K. McKenzie, Jr. Besides her skipper, she had on board an unusual array of talent in LCDR John Eichmann, Executive Officer, and LCDR Jack R. Crutchfield, who was, I believe, Engineer. Eichmann had been with the Triton since she was commissioned in 1940. His name is engraved upon Triton’s old commissioning plaque, presented to us last November 10 by Mrs. Lent, widow of the late Rear Admiral W. A. Lent, Triton I’s first skipper. The plaque is now mounted in the passageway outside our wardroom.
Without too much fact on which to base my supposition, I have always assumed that John Eichmann had been slated for transfer to his own command, possibly to be brought back to the States for a new construction submarine as was the custom for people who had spent a long time in the war zone [and later happened, in time, to me], and that he had either been pursuaded to remain for one additional patrol, or very likely had volunteered to do so in order to provide some kind of continuity for the new skipper.
I had met Eichmann in 1939 when, as an Ensign, I spent a day at sea with the S-25 to which he was attached. Without conscious intention I had kept track of his whereabouts ever since. A year after the loss of Triton, after I had been Executive Officer of the Trigger for some time, I also agreed to stay for one extra patrol because Trigger had unexpectedly received a new skipper. In my case, Trigger survived the most serious depth-charging of her career and returned triumphantly to Pearl Harbor. But all during the ordeal, I kept hearing the parting words of the chap who left Trigger in my place: “You’ll be sorry you didn’t go, Ned—you’ll be sorry—you’ll be sorry.” The Japanese depth charges’ “click—WHAM—swish” said the same, and I kept thinking of Jack Eichmann.
Lt. McDonald and I put considerable thought into preparation of the service. We decided that a version of the committal service would be most appropriate, although we could find no reference or description of exactly what we wanted. Improvisation is the order of the day in submarines at sea anyway.
The services were announced at 1340, with directions that all hands not on watch assemble in the crew’s mess, the air-control center or the officer’s wardroom. At 1345 the services were broadcast throughout the ship, begun by the playing of Tattoo. This was followed by the National Anthem and a scripture reading from Psalm 107.
Following the scripture reading, a short prayer similar to the committal service was read, followed by reading of the tribute, which could hardly be called a eulogy but which was an attempt to put the significance of the occasion into words for our own better inspiration and understanding: The sacrifice made by the first Triton, and all the sacrifices by all the people lost in all the wars of our country, sanctify the service of those who follow in their footsteps.