Joiner grasped the periscope handgrips and embraced the scope and optic module. He started to rotate the periscope at the same time he saw a dark, billowing smoke cloud in the distance. He stopped in place and stared at the distant flotilla of ships. The island superstructure of the burning carrier towered above the other vessels.
"Kitty Hawk is on fire," Joiner observed while he remained transfixed in amazement. He watched a giant crane on wheels shove a burning jet fighter over the side and then vanish in the dense smoke. "They must have had a helluva crash on the aft flight deck."
Although he was concerned about the unfolding tragedy on the carrier, he felt a personal sense of relief. "We've been hearing explosions caused by the fire. Probably ordnance that was thrown over the side."
A low murmur ran through the control room as the collective tension began to dissipate. They finally had an answer to the threatening mystery, and the news flashed through the submarine in an instant.
Joiner began to rotate the periscope to sweep the horizon, then stood immobilized in shocked disbelief when he saw the Arafura Sea. He was staring straight at the bow of a 260,000-ton supertanker carrying 77 million gallons of crude oil. The 1,132-foot behemoth, which was propelled by 37,400-shaft horsepower, was outside the normal shipping lanes in order to get a closer look at Kitty Hawk. The Arafura Sea was only seconds from colliding with the hapless Bremerton.
"Emergency deep! Emergency deep!" Joiner shouted in horror to the officer of the deck as he snapped the periscope grips up and quickly lowered the scope. "Rig for collision! Rig for flooding! This is not a drill!"
Everyone leaped into action while a depth-control tank was being flooded. They had to force the submarine into a steep diving angle in the next few seconds or face certain death beneath the colossal ship.
The frightened CO glanced up at the overhead. "We've got a tanker right on top of us."
Joiner's mind raced, thinking first about how he broke one of his cardinal rules. He had paused to look at something before he swung the periscope all the way around to check for surface vessels and other obstacles. He would have relieved a junior officer for an infraction of that magnitude.
Along with his fellow submariners, Joiner knew only too well the dangers of dealing with the supertankers. Sonar often didn't detect the big ships, and there were many sea stories about close calls with the enormous vessels.
The huge volume of crude oil stored between the bow and the engine compartment in the stern of the tankers completely absorbed the engine and screw sounds. The latest generation of stretched supertankers was stealthily quiet and extremely dangerous to submarines.
Joiner was praying and counting down the seconds when the 260,000-ton oil tanker plowed into the side of the small attack submarine. Drawing seventy-six feet of water and traveling at 15.2 knots, the tanker's tremendous kinetic energy crushed the sub like a roll of aluminum foil.
The double hull of Bremerton was severed behind the conning tower. Joiner was thrown across the control room and slammed into a bulkhead. He momentarily heard screams of agony as the lights went out and the forward half of the submarine rolled inverted. He tumbled end over end, then tasted blood and gasped for air as the cool seawater poured over him and his crew.
Both halves of the doomed submarine plunged to the bottom of the strait while the crew of the supertanker shrugged off the slight shudder that rippled through their ship. They would not become aware of the damage to the bow until they made a port call in Taiwan.
Chapter 34
Like his crewmen, Commander Shigezo Takagi experienced a moment of paralysis when he heard the crunching sounds from the destruction of the American. attack submarine. Takagi rushed into the sonar compartment, grabbed a set of earphones, then listened to Bremerton as the sub purged air and sank to the floor of the waterway. The sound of quadrillions of air bubbles rising to the surface was intermingled with popping and scraping noises.
The startling destruction of the hunter-killer submarine caused Harushio's short, chunky skipper to relive his worst nightmare. On rare occasions, usually before a deep dive, he dreamed about being trapped in a sub and helplessly sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
Takagi was confused by the fact that Bremerton had suffered a massive structural failure and his crew had not heard an explosion or picked up the sound of a torpedo or the screws from a ship. The only audible noises had been generated by the propeller from the American attack boat and the distant explosive sounds that reminded him of depth charges.
Shigezo Takagi had never experienced the terror of having depth charges dropped on him, but he had not forgotten the recorded sounds of an actual attack that had been played over and over in submarine school.
Shaken by the disastrous event, Takagi listened until the two sections of Bremerton impacted the bottom of the strait, then returned to the control room and talked with his second-incommand, Lieutenant Commander Oda Kanjiro.
"Let's step into my stateroom," Takagi said under his breath and turned to go to his cabin. He didn't like to discuss important matters in front of his men.
Kanjiro wordlessly followed the CO down the narrow passageway and into the tiny sleeping compartment that was Takagi's sanctuary.
The CO quietly shut the door and leaned against the smooth bulkhead. He could always count on the man he was recommending to become the next Commanding Officer of Harushio. "Do you have an opinion, Oda?"
"We didn't hear a direct hit," Kanjiro observed and shrugged one shoulder, "so they may have collided with another submarine. We heard scraping and crunching sounds, and two distinct masses hit the bottom, so there may have been two submarines involved in the accident."
"That's possible," the skipper said at last, "but we didn't hear any other screws — not a single thing except the cluttered background noises from the distant ships."
Kanjiro folded his bony arms and frowned. "Let's take things in order, if you don't mind."
"Go ahead," Takagi said and closely studied the bright young officer.
"I think something hit the American sub…" Kanjiro trailed off, then continued. "What hit it is the unknown factor."
"Or," Takagi quickly interjected, "the American could have hit something they didn't hear, like a large submerged obstacle, another submarine, or a new type of quiet weapon we don't know anything about."
As always, Kanjiro nodded in deference to his CO. It was a habit he had learned early in his naval career. "Someone may have a torpedo similar to our new Sea Ferret."
"It might be extremely large," Takagi began, considering the various possibilities, "superfast, and capable of piercing the skin — actually puncturing the double hull of a submarine."
The frown returned to Kanjiro's face. "We don't know what happened, and we don't know if someone initiated an attack or if it was simply an accident."
"That's true," Takagi conceded, reviewing his sailing orders and the fact that his commander had been adamant about being aggressive. He had told Takagi not to hesitate to attack if he felt uncomfortable. The sub skipper also thought about his ultimate responsibility to Japan and the oath he had taken as an officer.
"Sir, I respectfully recommend," Kanjiro offered with measured confidence, "that we immediately close on the American fleet and prepare for battle."
Shigezo Takagi listened to his trusted second-in-command while he silently considered using the Sea Ferrets. The state-of-the-art torpedoes didn't use a conventional propeller, relying instead on the use of magnetohydrodynamics to supply the propulsion for the stealthy weapon.
Using the advanced technology of MHD, which is similar to a jet engine without a turbine, Sea Ferret had an open tube running the length of the torpedo. The long tube was surrounded by a ferro-liquid in a thin-sealed sleeve. A high-density, pulsing magnetic field produced tremendous sympathetic vibrations in the ferro-liquid.