“Torpedo range, one thousand yards!”
Wilson examined the last set of torpedo countermeasures they had launched, annotated on the geographic display. The torpedo had passed both; the eighteen-thousand-ton submarine was too tempting of a target.
“Torpedo range, five hundred yards!”
Wilson gave it one last shot — an aggressive turn to starboard.
“Helm, hard right rudder, steady course one-eight-zero!”
Michigan was almost two football fields long and couldn’t turn rapidly like the smaller fast attacks. The maneuver didn’t fool the incoming torpedo.
As the torpedo closed the remaining distance, Sonar reported, “Explosion to the north. Correlates with Sierra two-seven.”
Michigan’s torpedo had done its job, sinking the Russian submarine. That was little consolation, however. The Russian captain had also accomplished his mission; USS Michigan was going to the bottom.
Wilson grabbed on to the Conn railing, preparing for the torpedo’s detonation.
66
USS MICHIGAN
A deafening roar swept through the Control Room, accompanied by a jolt that knocked Wilson to the deck. Lighting fixtures shattered and anything not fastened down catapulted into the air. The intense burst of sound faded, replaced with a dull roar. As Wilson and other crew members picked themselves up, the oscillating wail of the flooding alarm filled the air, followed by a report over the 4-MC emergency circuit.
“Flooding in Missile Compartment Lower Level, starboard side!”
The Diving Officer responded as he was trained. “Thirty up. Full rise, fairwater planes.”
The Engine Order Telegraph beside the Helm shifted, indicating the Throttleman in the Engine Room had adjusted the throttles to ahead full.
Michigan tilted to a thirty-degree up-angle, and despite the upward angle and the sail planes at full rise, the submarine sank rapidly. They had started out at 150 feet and were already past two hundred.
Wilson grabbed a 7-MC microphone, then overrode the standard flooding procedure. “Maneuvering, Conn. Ahead flank!”
The Engine Order Telegraph shifted back to ahead flank, and Wilson felt tremors in the deck as the main engine turbines spun back to maximum. Despite the additional speed, Michigan kept sinking.
The Chief of the Watch stood and reached for the Emergency Blow levers, looking to Wilson for direction.
Based on the rapid depth increase, Wilson knew there was a large hole in the hull; they weren’t dealing with a burst pipe or misaligned flange. There would be no way to stop the flooding, and with the entire Missile Compartment flooded, not even a full emergency blow would bring Michigan to the surface.
They were going down, and once they came to rest on the bottom, assuming the other compartments remained habitable, air would be a valuable commodity.
“Do not emergency blow!” Wilson ordered.
The Chief of the Watch returned to his chair and energized the trim and drain pumps, aligning both of the eight-foot-tall behemoths to the Missile Compartment bilges. But even against a hole only a foot in diameter at this depth, both pumps would be overcome. With a Russian heavyweight torpedo exploding a few feet from the hull, Wilson knew the hole would be much larger.
The Missile Compartment was lost.
Wilson shifted gears, transitioning from tactical to survival mode. There was no way to stop the flooding, so he had to get everyone out of the Missile Compartment before they got trapped inside. He grabbed the 1-MC microphone. “All personnel evacuate the Missile Compartment. Repeat, this is the Captain. All personnel evacuate the Missile Compartment.”
His eyes shot to the fathometer. The last recorded sounding was four hundred feet. Despite Michigan’s unstoppable descent to the sea floor, relief washed over him. The Operations and Engineering compartments would remain intact.
“Passing three hundred feet,” the Dive announced.
Only a hundred feet to the bottom, and Michigan was traveling at ahead flank. The last thing Wilson wanted was to plow into a rock formation at full speed, crushing the sonar dome and puncturing the pressure hull. Wilson decided to arrange a soft landing.
“Helm, back full. Dive, zero bubble.”
He wanted to stop Michigan and return it to an even keel before it landed on the bottom.
The Helm complied, and the tremors through the deck increased as the Throttleman spun the ahead throttles shut, then sent steam into the astern turbines while they were spinning in the wrong direction. The main engines strained as the astern turbines slowed the submarine’s propulsion shaft, then reversed it. The submarine’s twenty-two-foot-diameter screw dug into the water, gradually slowing Michigan as the deck leveled off.
Without an up-angle on the submarine and with speed bleeding down, Michigan sank faster. But there wasn’t much farther to go.
As Michigan prepared to settle onto the bottom of the Black Sea, Wilson’s thoughts went to the Engine Room. The main seawater suctions were at the four and eight o’clock positions along the hull, and if the sea bottom was silt-covered, the seawater intakes would suck silt into the condensers, fouling them. They could be cleared with high-pressure air, but that would be noisy, revealing Michigan had survived, along with its location. Months earlier, he’d witnessed the Russians torpedoing a submarine on the bottom to ensure it was destroyed. He didn’t want another torpedo coming his way.
Michigan’s speed slowly subsided. When it reached zero knots, Wilson retrieved the 7-MC microphone. “Maneuvering, Conn. All stop. Shut the main seawater intakes.”
Seconds later, Wilson felt tremors as Michigan settled onto the Black Sea floor. A deep rumbling and the sound of groaning metal filled the air. Then there was silence.
Wilson waited tensely, listening for another emergency report, but nothing came.
The tension slowly dissipated as Wilson sorted through the issues. His first concern was his crew. “Chief of the Watch. Get me a crew count.”
The Chief of the Watch sent a request to all spaces via the sound-powered phone circuit. The reports filtered in, with the chief keeping a tally. When the last report was received, he relayed the information to Wilson.
“Captain, all personnel are accounted for. Twenty-four crew members are in the Engine Room. The remaining crew members, along with all sixty-one members of the SEAL detachment and President Kalinin, are in the Operations Compartment.”
That was good news. Then Wilson keyed on the SEAL detachment. It was a sixty-six-man unit, not sixty-one. “Where are the other five SEALs and Navy divers?”
“Commander McNeil reports that five SEALs did not return to Michigan.”
Wilson nodded. He’d been occupied in Control and hadn’t been debriefed on the mission. He knew that only one of the two RHIBs had returned with President Kalinin, but nothing else.
“Where is Christine O’Connor?” Wilson asked.
The Chief of the Watch replied, “She didn’t board, sir.”
Wilson wondered what happened to her, but had more pressing issues to deal with.
“Secure from Battle Stations Torpedo,” he ordered. “Have all department heads, the XO, and Chief of the Boat muster on the Conn.”
The Chief of the Watch passed the word over the 1-MC, and soon only the normal Control Room watchstanders remained at their posts, although there wasn’t much to do at the moment. Lieutenant Commander Patzke stepped onto the Conn, followed by the Navigator, Weapons Officer, and finally the Engineer, who emerged from Sonar. Battle Stations had evolved over the years, and it was now common practice to assign the Engineer, one of the most experienced officers aboard beside the Captain and XO, as the Sonar Coordinator. The Chief of the Boat was the last to arrive, coming up from the third level.