“I’m just damned glad we got you back and I’m damned sorry that we had to do the operation. We’re a submarine, not the Marine Corps.”
Sipping at a coffee cup after the three men had left, John Olsen looked at his Captain.
“I wonder what happened to the Australians who were supposed to be manning that ship-watching station?”
“They’re probably long dead,” Brannon said. “Hey, maybe that’s why their reports were so wrong. The Japs had probably killed the ship watchers and were sending phony reports to Fremantle about ship movements. Sea Chub is coming in here in about a week with a new crew of ship watchers and some new radio gear. Get Michaels and make a coded message direct to Admiral Christie. Tell him what happened and tell him to keep Sea Chub away from here.”
The throat of the Gulf of Davao from its easternmost point at Cape San Agustin to the main part of the Island of Mindanao, at a small fishing village called Lais, is 30 miles wide. The port of Davao lies 65 miles to the north, up the Gulf on the east side of Mindanao. Early in the war the Japanese had occupied Davao and used it as a major naval base and a staging area for their conquest of Celebes and Borneo. Now, in mid-1944, Davao was once again a major naval stronghold for the Japanese. The elements of the Japanese fleet that had been driven out of strongholds in the Pacific islands by the relentless stepping-stone tactics of the American Naval and Army forces had concentrated in Davao, at Tawi Tawi just north of Borneo, at Surabaya and at Singapore.
Mike Brannon had been prepared for a nonproductive patrol area. Captain Mealey had made an appearance in the Officers’ Club the evening before he was flown back to Pearl Harbor, and when asked about his patrol Captain Mealey had praised Mike Brannon and Eelfish and let it be known, in caustic words, what he thought of senior submarine commanders who lacked aggressiveness. After Mealey had been flown out of Fremantle Mike Brannon had noticed a chill in the air when he went to the O-Club to eat.
“I’m proud to have served with Captain Mealey,” he said to John Olsen as the rest period neared an end. “But I wish that he hadn’t been as tough on some of those senior skippers out here. They’ll take out their dislike of Mealey on us, you’ll see. We’ll get a patrol area where there won’t be any ships.”
Eelfish was assigned to patrol the eastern third of the opening to the Gulf of Davao. Two weeks after the Eelfish reached station John Olsen came on the bridge one morning to get star sights before the Eelfish submerged for the day.
“Sea Chub reported seeing two enemy cruisers and a destroyer. They’re giving chase but they’re too far away, I think, to catch up,” Olsen said.
“Where?” Brannon said.
“Over on the west side of the Gulf,” Olsen replied.
“Son of a bitch,” Brannon said. “The ships that come out of this damned Gulf aren’t going to turn east, where we are. They’re going west, to Tawi Tawi or to Borneo. Nothing comes this way. We’ve been here a little over two weeks and we haven’t seen one damned ship. The Irish have no luck, John, no luck at all.”
“Neither do we Swedes, sir,” Olsen said.
Four days later, patrolling at the western limit of his area, Mike Brannon relieved Bob Lee at the periscope for the usual hourly periscope sweep and saw the smoke of a small freighter to the west. He watched as the smoke came closer and when the small freighter crossed his bow he fired two torpedoes at a range of 800 yards. The small inter-island freighter — Brannon estimated it to be no more than 2,000 tons — rolled over and sank. Three days later Perry Arbuckle saw an inter-island freighter with a heavy deck load and Brannon attacked. He fired one torpedo and the freighter broke in two and sank. Two days later Eelfish was ordered home with twenty-one torpedoes aboard.
Admiral Christie’s booming assurances that the Eelfish had indeed had a successful patrol did little to mollify Brannon’s barely concealed anger over the unproductive patrol area he had been assigned. The crew of the Eelfish, not unaware of the political infighting that went on constantly among the senior submarine captains to get productive patrol areas, got ready to go to the hotel for their two weeks of R & R.
Paul Blake approached Lieutenant Bob Lee on the afterdeck before the bus arrived to take the crew to the hotel.
“Do you think all the paper work is done yet, sir?”
“I don’t know,” Lee answered. “I did all I could before we left on patrol. Now it’s up to the people on the Base and the tender. They have to make an investigation of the family and the woman, you know. The chaplain has to talk to the ladies we want to marry. I believe that Captain Brannon has to interview them also. Then, after all that’s been done and everything is four-oh, the whole business goes to the Admiral for his approval.”
“That’s an awful lot of stuff to go through for someone to marry a nice girl,” Blake said. “It isn’t that Constance is a bar girl or anything like that. Her folks are just as nice as my folks.”
“I know,” Lee said. “You know what General Sherman said: ‘War is hell.’ I’ll check with the legal officer on the tender tomorrow. We went to the same law school but he was about three years ahead of me. I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I find out anything. You going to spend your rest period at her folks’ house?” Blake nodded. “I’ll get in touch with you there. Don’t sweat it. Everything will come out all right.”
CHAPTER 20
The night before Eelfish was to leave on patrol Captain Sam Rivers led a tall, thin, U.S. Army Brigadier General into the small Wardroom on the submarine. Captain Brannon, alerted by a message from Admiral Christie, was waiting, seated at the Wardroom table.
“I’d like to make the area secure, Captain,” Rivers said. Mike Brannon motioned to Pete Mahaffey, who left his galley and closed and dogged the watertight door to the Forward Torpedo Room. He stopped at the Wardroom door on his way aft.
“No one else in the Forward Battery, sir,” Mahaffey said. “Forward Room won’t allow anyone to come in until you give the word. I’ll dog down the door to the Control Room after I go through and stand watch on it. There’s a carafe of hot coffee in the galley, sir.”
“I’m sorry about the secrecy,” Sam Rivers said, “but we’re asking you to undertake a special mission, and if word gets out there’ll be all hell to pay.” He nodded his head toward the Army officer.
“This is Brigadier General Dennis Connelly. Captain Brannon, General. The General will take it from here, sir.” He sat back in his chair. The General put a cloth bag he had been carrying on the table in front of him.
“Briefly, Captain Brannon, General MacArthur is going to make good on his promise. He’s going to return to the Philippines on October twentieth. He will land on that day, and President Osmena of the Philippines will be with the General.” He paused. “One cannot underestimate the symbolism here, Captain Brannon. The General will return. The hearts of all the people of the Philippines will swell with pride.
“The invasion will be the largest of the war. The Navy is committing over seven hundred ships of all sizes.”