“I understand you perfectly, sir, but I maintain the Buffalo will not be abandoned until all hope is gone.”
“Damn it, captain!” he said “You’ve seen the damage report. This ship may be sinking, and an enemy submarine could be stalking us right now. This is not safe water to be in with a damaged ship. Navy policy is to scuttle the ship and get the crew off and leave the area.”
“Admiral, we have men trapped below decks, and I will not abandon them, as a minimum, until we have tried everything we can to save them and keep this ship afloat.”
“Those men are acceptable losses, captain!”
I was not at all ready to hear that. I raised my voice high above the rest of the noise on the bridge and shouted, “They are not acceptable losses to their families or the rest of this crew sir, and neither would you be!”
The admiral recoiled slightly and paused, thinking for a moment. I could see he was going to back down if I gave him a way out.
Commander Thompson appeared on the bridge at this time and quickly perceived something was not going well between me and the admiral.
“Are you waiting for the enemy sub to come around and finish us off?” the admiral shouted back.
“God damn it, admiral! I am not going to lose another ship to those slant-eyed sons of bitches!”
“This is a career decision, captain! The regulations state that during circumstances like this, a ship may be ordered abandoned.”
“According to the regulations, the safety of this ship and its crew are my responsibility alone!” I told him, giving him, the opening I hoped he would take.
“Damn, Williams,” the admiral said with a look of resignation on his face, “Halsey was right about you. You do have guts.”
He paused for a moment, pointed his finger at me, then continued. “Very well, captain. You try to save your ship if you can. But know this: if this ship sinks, you better go down with it, or I am going to personally hang your ass from the highest mast I can find.”
“XO,” I said, “the admiral and his staff will be transferring to the Lawe at the soonest possible time. I also want you to prepare a list of personnel that may not be needed, given our current circumstances, in case we need to offload them as well. Damage control, gunners for the guns that are still functioning in case we run into a fight, medical personnel, and a skeleton crew for engineering must remain on board.”
“Yes, sir,” the commander said and was off, with the admiral trailing him.
I noticed at that time the entire crew of the bridge had stopped their work and were silently staring at me. The major was looking at me, smiling slightly (which was rare for him), and nodding.
“Thank you major; your services are not required at this time,” I said, turning to him.
“Very well, sir,” the major replied, and was gone.
“Alright men, come on, we have a lot of work to do,” I said and sat back down in my chair.
One of the runners returned at that time and reported to me the bow was down to three feet of freeboard on the starboard side. The flooding was slowing, but the bow was still sinking, and the list was now passing twenty five degrees. All voids usable for counter flooding, aft and port, were filled to capacity. It didn’t look like it would be possible to keep the starboard bow above water using any conventional methods.
“Tell him he has permission to flood other non-combat related compartments aft and port if needed to stabilize the ship. He can even flood the hangar area if he has to, but only as a last resort because we don’t want to take on too much free water in case of heavy seas.”
“Also tell him,” I continued, “I am going to give the engine room the chance to make their repairs on the engines starting now. Be prepared to rig for tow as soon as the Lawe is along side of us.”
I told the talker to inform the engine room that it was time for them to start their repairs, and I wanted to know when we would be able to have propulsion again.
The sun would be setting in about four hours, and it was dangerous to sit still in the water for that time, so we would have to be prepared to have the Lawe tow us for awhile.
“All stop,” I ordered the helm. And soon after that, the Buffalo was dead in the water.
That was a hard set of orders to give. Taking on more water would set the ship lower in the ocean than we wanted to be. There was no chance we could survive another torpedo or maneuver effectively in case of an air attack with all of that water on board and only our aft engines. All of the unrestrained water we were taking on would seriously affect the stability of the ship, even for a potential tow, and would have to be pumped out before we could hope to sustain even moderate seas. But most of all, I hoped the planes and destroyers would keep the Jap sub from coming up to attack us again.
About half an hour later, the Lawe was alongside, and the admiral, his staff, and most of the injured that were able to be moved were transferred off. The tow was rigged at what seemed like a record pace, and soon, we were making a creeping three to four knots. Not nearly fast enough to evade attack, but at least our position was changing, so hopefully we would not be as easily found by other Japs.
One of the two float planes was lowered into the water by crane and took off to help with the hunt for the submarine that fired on us. I didn’t really have any hope it would be found, but I couldn’t leave the ship exposed any more than I had to. They were probably very deep and silent and creeping away by then. That’s what I would have done. Hopefully, the planes would be able to give us early warning of further attack and keep us covered until nightfall.
A short time later, the Fletcher and the Barton began dropping depth charges, which were most likely more ceremonial than effective. After awhile, they moved into formation with us in a flanking position.
As the remainder of the afternoon passed, Lieutenant Commander Schuller continued to send runners with damage reports on a regular basis.
The counter flooding eventually stopped the ship from listing further, but the bow continued to sink slowly for awhile. It finally stopped with a thirty-one degree list and a very meager eighteen inches between the main deck on the starboard side and Davy Jones’s locker.
Keeping up with the continuous damage reports made the rest of the day fly by at an extremely quick pace. Plans were put in action to move as much of the ship’s stores to the port side aft to act as a counterbalance to the extreme amount of water which now flooded the forward starboard part of the ship. At the same time, as many pumps as possible were working on removing spilled fuel oil and water from the flooded compartments.
The engine repairs were proceeding at a very rapid pace, and soon, the ship’s aft propulsion system would be back online, operating at nearly one hundred percent.
I have never seen a ship’s crew operate in such a united and single-minded fashion before. It soon became apparent we would be able to save our ship.
The major factor in the damage control efforts, besides the effectiveness of the crew, was that we never lost electrical power.
But there was one thing about the whole situation which really tore me up inside and that was the twenty-one trapped crewmen. It’s not only that they were trapped, but it was my order to flood those spaces that trapped them. I tried to tell myself it was the only way to save the ship. If the fuel in the ammunition magazines would have caught fire, the bow would have been blown right off and those men would surely have died anyway. But that didn’t help me. The simple fact was, it was my order to secure and flood those areas that trapped them.