It won’t be long now! Kossler motions to Tom Denegre, his Executive Officer. “You make the next look!” Herman had previously decided to let two other officers also look at important targets, partly for their own indoctrination, but principally for identification purposes.
“Up periscope!” Number two squats before it, goes up with it, makes a quick look, shoots it down again. “Shokaku class, Captain! I’m sure of it!”
“I think so, too, Tommy. Just remember what you saw, so we can pick him out when we go through the silhouette identification book!” The skipper answers shortly, then speaks to the torpedo officer, who up to now has been running the TDC. “Take a look, Jug!”
Up goes the periscope once more, just long enough for Jug Casler to photograph the unforgettable scene in his mind. The carrier is one of the largest class with a flight deck extending almost, but not quite, from the bow to the stern. The island is rather smaller than is customary on contemporary American ships and located farther forward. The smokestack is subordinated to the rest of the island structure, and dominating the whole thing is a large “bedspring” type radar rotating slowly on top of the single mast.
“Up ’scope for a setup! Bearing — mark!.. Range — mark! Down ’scope!”
“Angle on the bow, starboard forty! Make ready all tubes!”
“Set!” from Casler on the TDC. “Perfect setup, Captain.”
“All tubes ready forward,” from the telephone talker. “All tubes ready aft!”
“Normal order, speed high, set depth fifteen feet!” Herman is echoed by the telephone talker.
“This will be a bow shot!” orders the skipper. “One more observation — up ’scope! Down ’scope!”
Herman has taken the opportunity to snatch a quick look at the destroyer on the carrier’s starboard beam, and what he sees heightens the urgency in his voice. “Angle on the bow, starboard five five! The destroyer is heading right for us, about one oh double oh yards away. We’ve got to shoot right now!”
“Standby forward!” This is the culmination of the approach.
“Check bearing method!” to the TDC. This simply means that the skipper plans to get one or more check bearings during the firing.
“Up ’scope!.. Final bearing and shoot!.. Bearing—mark!”
“Three four two,” snaps Denegre, as the periscope starts down.
“Set!.. FIRE!” from Casler, and all hands feel the torpedo leave the tube.
Then numbers two, three, four, and five. The moment number-five torpedo has been fired, Kossler shouts down the hatch, “Take her down!” Then, to Casler, “Let the sixth one go on time!”
All the while Cavalla has been firing, Herman has been ticking away in his mind the yards yet separating her from the onrushing Jap destroyer. There has been no time to look at him, but he will surely spot the telltale torpedo wakes in the water and begin an immediate harassing attack.
As Cavalla lowers her periscope and starts for deep submergence, the racing beat of the enemy propellers can be heard, rapidly becoming louder, in the sound operator’s earphones. With maddening slowness the submarine tilts downward.
“All ahead flank!” Herman is anxious to put as many feet of protective water between him and the surface as possible, and with Cavalla’s nose once pointed down, he gives her the gun.
“Rig for depth charge!” This is where the veteran submariners among the crew show their worth, and where the initiative assiduously cultivated among them begins to pay off.
Slowly, all too slowly, the depth gauges creep around. The propeller beat of the enemy destroyer becomes more and more audible.
“WHANG!.. WHANG!.. WHANG!” Three rather tinny metal-crashing explosions are heard throughout Cavalla’s straining hull. Three hits! Nothing in the world sounds the same as the noise of your torpedoes going off. Nothing in the world equals the thrill of hearing them. A subdued cheer echoes in the submarine’s confined hull and a grim smile of satisfaction appears for a moment on the skipper’s face.
One hundred fifty feet, by Cavalla’s depth gauges. Hang on to your hats, boys!
“Left full rudder!” Herman is hoping to alter course a bit and thus throw the Jap destroyer off, but there is hardly time for the change to take effect before the first four depth charges arrive.
For the next three hours 106 depth charges are dropped on Cavalla, and things grow progressively worse for the submarine. This Jap is no novice. Since Cavalla is a new boat, and consequently not yet depth charge proved, seams leak water here and there. The propeller shaft packing is apparently not properly set up and, under the double effect of the deep depth and the series of trip-hammer shocks received from the depth charge explosions — luckily none quite within lethal range — sea water pours into the motor room bilges at an alarming rate. Shortly after the depth charging begins there is a loud hissing heard in the galley overhead. No water comes into the ship, but she immediately becomes heavy aft and starts to sink deeper. It is believed that the main induction piping outside the pressure hull must have been flooded, probably through rupture of the line somewhere. An immediate test is made by opening some of the main induction drains, and sure enough, a steady stream of water spurts out under full sea pressure. The combination of this, plus the water taken into the motor room, forces the submarine to increase speed and run with an up angle in order to maintain her depth.
But as was so frequently the case during the war, the Japs finally either got tired, lost contact and could not regain it, ran out of depth charges, or simply gave up — maybe because they had something else to think about.
For with three torpedoes evenly spaced throughout her length, the Japanese carrier Shokaku, member of the Pearl Harbor attacking force on December 7, 1941, and veteran of many engagements in the Central and South Pacific, sank with all her planes on board just three hours after having been hit.
Cavalla showed up at Saipan a few days later while the attack on that hapless island was still going on full blast. The Japanese Navy had just been decisively defeated in the First Battle of the Philippine Sea — the Marianas Turkey Shoot — which to a large extent showed the pattern for the remainder of the battles of the war.
But on the day of the battle, despite the fact that our carrier-based planes shot practically every Jap plane out of the sky, only one Japanese carrier was sunk — the ill-fated Hitaka on her maiden voyage. Incidentally, this was the same carrier which had stopped two torpedoes from USS Trigger a year earlier at the mouth of Tokyo Bay. Try as they might, however, the American airmen could find but three Jap carriers the day of the battle, although it was known that five had left the Philippines. At first the supposition was that somehow the enemy had outguessed our people, for the number of planes they put into the air was obviously more than the complement of three carriers.
The explanation was simple, when the pieces were finally put together. Five carriers had started out originally with intentions of making a surprise attack on our fleet, which at the moment was engaged in giving Saipan and Guam the works. Our high strategic command had placed a cordon of submarines across the route which it seemed most logical the enemy would use.
A submarine reconnaissance had reported the passage of the task force through San Bernadino Strait on the 15th, but Herman Kossler’s contact on a convoy of fast tankers on the early morning of June 17 was the first proof of the direction of the Jap move. The location of the convoy gave a good indication of the prospective course of the enemy task force, since these could only be fleet tankers (because of their speed and position) en route to a refueling rendezvous. A redisposition in submarine patrol positions was thereupon ordered. While this repositioning was still under way, however, Kossler reported his second contact, on a carrier force this time, and our whole Pacific Fleet command went into immediate action. Although Herman had some idea of the import of his contact, he could have had no conception of the tremendous difference made by the fact that he chose to report the contact instead of attacking it. Had he done so, he might have sunk the carrier; but there would not have been the timely warning to alert our own people, and there was always the chance, of course, that Cavalla might have been sunk during or after the attack, and thus not able to make a contact report at all. Albacore’s position would then not have been changed, and Taiho might well have escaped detection.