Jim Blanchard and Herman Kossler would probably both tell you today that collaboration was furthest from their minds on the 19th of June, 1944. Although each knew of the other’s presence in the general vicinity, the fact that together they would deprive the Imperial Japanese Navy of two of its largest first-line aircraft carriers would have seemed the height of the unexpected to both of them. Curiously, Taiho and Shokaku were virtually sister ships, although the former was the newer by about two years and carried the latest improvements in design; and they were sunk on the same day — almost within sight of each other — by sister submarines. Cavalla was about two years newer than Albacore, but our standardization of design was such that the two were almost identical.
To Albacore and Jim Blanchard, veterans of many submarine war patrols, fell the brand-new, unseasoned Taiho. A few hours later Herman Kossler and his Cavalla, both fresh out of the building yard, got the veteran carrier Shokaku.
So it was that the First Battle of the Philippine Sea found only three large Japanese carriers opposed to our seven, which perhaps was part of the reason why our airmen knew that battle as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot.”
This story really starts on June 14. Albacore was on her ninth war patrol, operating in the area between Yap and Guam. For the past two days she had experienced heavy wind and seas, and consequently was behind schedule. Another submarine had reported damaging a ship in a convoy apparently en route for her area, and Jim Blanchard had bent on everything but the galley range in his effort to get into position to intercept. His chances looked pretty poor because of the bad weather, but he hung on grimly, running at full speed on the surface, hoping that the convoy also might have been delayed.
On the afternoon of the 14th, however, a message from ComSubPac directed Jim to discontinue the chase and to proceed to a point in almost the exact opposite direction. Since the submariner always works on the theory that the bird in the hand is worth several still in the bush, and since there still seemed to be hope of catching the elusive convoy, it was with some disappointment that Jim reversed course.
Not quite seven hours later another message was decoded in Albacore’s wardroom: she was to proceed to yet another spot for patrol. Again Blanchard ordered the course changed, and off they went to the new station. By this time there was little doubt in the skipper’s mind that something was happening — or about to happen.
All day long, on the 15th, Albacore patrolled assiduously back and forth, never straying more than a few miles from her station, and remaining constantly on the surface in order to increase her search radius. All day long also Blanchard drilled his crew at battle stations for what he hardly dared hope might come his way. A careful check of all messages received in the radio room was kept, and many, addressed to other submarines, were decoded. Pieced together — and then scrupulously destroyed, for you aren’t required to decode any messages except those addressed to you — they spelled out that something big was in the wind, and that Albacore was one of several submarines to be placed in what looked like strategic positions.
At 0800 on June 18th a message arrived for Albacore, ordering her to shift position about one hundred miles to the southward. This itself was encouraging, for it showed that whatever was expected had not yet happened somewhere else, and that ComSubPac was keeping his fine hand right in the deal. Jim Blanchard sent his submarine south at full speed.
When June 19th arrived, things had so built up in the minds of the crew that most of them knew this was to be the day.
The feeling was not at all discouraged by the detection of two aircraft on the radar at 0430. Albacore promptly dived.
At 0700, the critical period of dawn with its tricky visibility past, she was again on the surface. And at 0716 a Jap patrol plane was sighted by an alert lookout, and once again the submarine dived.
Now sighting three aircraft within such a short interval usually indicates that something interesting is about to come along, for the Japs don’t have enough airplanes to waste in indiscriminant area search.
And so it proves. At 0750 ships are sighted. It is still pretty hazy to the west in the direction of the contact, and for a moment the skipper cannot make out what they are — but only for a moment.
“Battle stations submerged!” Before his eyes Jim Blanchard has the submariner’s dream come true — an enemy task force. Through the periscope he can see a huge aircraft carrier of the largest class; at least one cruiser, maybe more; and several other ships, some of them no doubt destroyers. It is given to very few submariners to see this sight and to be on the spot with a well-drilled crew, your torpedoes ready in the tubes, your battery warm with a full charge just completed.
“Left full rudder! All ahead flank!” The helmsman leans into the wheel and at the same time reaches up to the two annunciators and rings them over to the position marked FLANK. Men are still tumbling up from below, racing to their battle stations under the stimulus of the alarm, and Lieutenant Commander Ben Adams, Albacore’s exec, takes over the job of periscope jockey.
Blanchard’s initial observation has shown the carrier’s angle on the bow to be seventy degrees port, range about seven miles. It’s going to be an all-out race to get to a firing position, and if the enemy is making any speed at all, reaching him will be an impossibility, barring a radical zig toward.
“Up periscope!” Time for another look. Also, better take a careful look around. The situation is developing very fast, and you’ve got to keep the whole picture in your mind as fast as it develops, for you are the eyes and the brains.
The target should bear on the starboard bow, but the skipper suddenly switches his attention to something on the starboard beam. He quickly completes a 360-degree sweep, motions for the periscope to be lowered, and orders, “Right full rudder!”
His exec looks at him questioningly. As all executive officers and assistant approach officers should do, he has mentally visualized the relative positions of his ship and the enemy. Turning to the right is obviously the wrong maneuver for the situation as he knows it. But he does not have to wonder long.
“Another flattop! This one’s coming right down the groove. All we have to do is wait for him!”
Both men know the same thought: what a pity that there is only one submarine here. One carrier is sure to get away. The flattops are too far apart for an attack on both, even assuming that the submarine would be able to reach the first one. There is not even any argument about it: the thing to do is take the one which gives you the better shot, and worry about the other one later. As a matter of fact, the decision has already been made, and Albacore is even now turning for an approach on the carrier more recently sighted.
“Give me a course for a seventy track!” Blanchard spent many years in the old “S-boats” which had no TDC, and this is S-boat procedure, usually glossed over by skippers brought up in the fleet boats where you only have to glance at the TDC to have the whole picture right before your eyes.
Ben Adams has a small plastic gadget called an Is-Was hung around his neck. Consisting of a series of concentric compass roses of different diameters, plus a bearing indicator, it enables the assistant approach officer to keep track of the problem without a TDC to help him. It got its name from the fact that you can set it up for where the target is, and see from it where he was—and thus determine where he probably will be. At the skipper’s orders, Adams picks up the Is-Was and starts turning the two upper dials. In a moment he announces, “Zero three zero, Captain.”