All this was of no importance, and of less interest, to the small trio of Japanese submarines patiently waiting outside the entrance to the San Diego naval base. For fifteen frustrating days, they had waited there submerged and quiet, surfacing only at midnight for two hours to recharge their batteries, and to quickly gasp a few breathes of fresh air. Once a week, in quiet, open seas, Admiral Abe would host the submarine captains, one at a time, on his “flagship”—a dirty, noisy little Mexican fishing tramp by the name of the Anna Maria.
“The Mexicans are noted for their intellectualism, their athleticism and their deep sense of history,” Abe had said to Captain Higa on the previous Friday, in reply to Higa’s question about the exotic name of the fishing boat. Or as Abe said to Higa when the two stood alone on the stern of the fishing vessel ten minutes later, smoking cigars, “They’re fucking Mexicans, what did you expect, the Chrysanthemum Throne?” Higa laughed. Abe waved to his hosts who turned to look at the Japanese devil from under the sea.
Abe expanded,
“They’re fucking children, idiots—trained monkeys could do a better job of fishing than these Mexicans. I have never met such a lazy bunch of men in my life.”
Abe paused,
“But my view is generous compared to that held by their northern neighbors. That is what makes my small Mexican ‘flotilla’ so useful—the Americans ignore them; the Mexicans are the perfect camouflage. Actually ‘ignore’ is the wrong word; ‘detest’ is a better word. I had one of the boats in my White Stork ‘flotilla’ accidently—that is, deliberately—ram the port side of one of the American destroyers. I had coached the captain to say in English, ‘you my starboard, you give right way.’ Needless to say, the young American captain frowned and then threw this idiot off his boat. And remember, Higa, these Americans cannot see a ruse de guerre even when it is staring them in the face, as my ‘flotilla’ clearly is. I have been nosing around these waters off one of their most important naval bases with no inspections, no reviews, no surprises—nothing. Of course, any thought of inspections evaporated after the ramming incident.
“As you heard on the short-wave frequency, our agents in Bremerton signaled three days ago that the American aircraft carrier Saratoga has departed, and so we can expect the enemy in these waters tomorrow or Sunday. I have designed the positions of our three submarines so she should sail almost directly above you. If this does not happen, then Imai or Noguchi will surely see her.”
After the Great War, only the Germans and the Japanese took the submarine seriously; the English—still living in the phantasy of Nelson—dreamt of a second Trafalgar. The Americans took a more realistic view, but their torpedoes were the worst of any warring nation—“My God, even the Italians are ahead of us when it comes to torpedoes,” Admiral Stark had complained to the President in ’38. Stark explained that the American “fish,” as he called them, ran too deep, were under-powered and—worst sin of all for any bomb—did not explode on impact.
“They do not explode on impact?” the President asked.
“They do not explode on impact—that is correct, sir.”
“Well, something has to be done.”
And as happens with all pronouncements from a political Olympus in any country—in this case the Oval Office of the President of the United States—nothing was done, but all vehemently agreed that something should have been done, or at the very least a complete and detailed study should be conducted, when the time was ripe, in the fullness of time, which taken at the flood.
In contrast, the Japanese Navy had spent 20 years of intensive effect to create the world’s finest torpedoes. By ’35, the Long Lance had been perfected. Powered by pure oxygen, it was five times more effective than conventional torpedoes that ran on air, air that contained 80% inert nitrogen. In addition to the very high-speed and tiny vapour trail on the Long Lance—technically, the “Type 93 Torpedo”—the detonator was superb: rugged, safe and, most important of all, reliable. And the “wander” was astonishing small—it was 14 times better than the American “fish.”
Higa had taken the risky gamble of loading and flooding the four forward and his two aft torpedo tubes—Higa’s boat was now a submerged bomb with six fully loaded Long Lance torpedoes, all charged with pure oxygen. But the rewards were worth the risk—he could launch a wide spread in less than 60 seconds in either direction. Higa had gambled that he would be close to the target and had set all of the torpedoes to the maximum speed of 48 knots. While this limited the range to just under 20,000 yards, it also meant that the wander would be reduced to at most 200 yards. And like all submarine captains, Higa was a gambler.
As it happened, the Saratoga literally sailed over Higa’s boat.
Higa had put his boat at 30 meters, the shallowest dive depth possible but one that gave him the ability to surface within 45 seconds. Which is precisely what he did. He expected a typical task force of destroyers even though his periscope man, Yako, had vehemently said there were no support vessels in sight.
Sure enough, after Higa quickly surfaced, the horizon was empty—not a destroyer in sight. But as Higa surfaced he was faced with a truly odd situation—he was too close to the American aircraft carrier, so he order “Emergency Reverse,” probably the only time in the days of hostilities that such a command was issued.
After a minute of frantically going away from the enemy was Higa in a position to fire. Without hesitating, he fired the four forward torpedoes, with the widest spread. Sixteen seconds later, he and his crew were rewarded with the glorious sound that every submarine crew lives for—the sound of a torpedo exploding, and in the next five seconds the other three all registered.
With the explosion of the four Japanese torpedoes, the Saratoga started to immediately list to port and list dangerously. Rear Admiral Fitch, standing in the conning tower, regretted his decision to override the captain’s request for General Quarters—“Bill, to run the men for over two days at the ready will not sharpen them, but it will dull them,” Fitch had said to the Captain as they left Puget Sound. While this may have been true, what was also true was that without General Quarters, none of the water-tight doors were dogged.
The birth of the Saratoga had been a very difficult one—first as a battle cruiser, then in mothballs, then finally as an aircraft carrier. But she was superbly engineered with 18 separate water-tight compartments—“virtually unsinkable” was the verdict from Admiral King on down, but “virtually unsinkable” was concomitant with the water-tight doors being closed—that is, General Quarters having been sounded.
When the fourth Type 93 torpedo exploded at the very end of the last compartment on the Saratoga, the aircraft carrier’s doom was sealed. As the designers could not agree on the correct approach to tapering the armor belt, they did what all engineers do in such a situation—they did nothing. So, just as a traveler sometimes sees a completed bridge that ends in space, or a suburban house with an extension that is never completed, the naval engineers poring over the blueprints of the Saratoga also left their work unfinished.