Final Patrol (29 page)

Then, at the end of August 1945, the
Razorback
was ordered to proceed, along with eleven other submarines, into the mouth of Tokyo Bay. She was to stand by there next to the sub tender
Proteus
(AS-19) while the surrender ceremonies took place aboard the battleship USS
Missouri
.

There was some concern about this particular honor. Sailors speculated that the whole thing might be a trap. Once the
Missouri
, the submarines, and the rest of the contingent were inside Tokyo Bay, the Japanese might spring a surprise attack. They were known to be fanatical. Some had refused to lay down their arms and were fighting still. Deck guns were manned and the torpedo tubes were all loaded as the
Razorback
steamed into enemy territory.

Of course, there was no surprise attack, but some of the officers who went ashore reported the ominous sights they had seen. Hundreds of mini-submarines were in various stages of construction, ready to launch in the case of an Allied invasion.

The crew of the
Razorback
was berthed too far away to see or hear the actual surrender ceremony when it took place, but they soon read General Douglas MacArthur's brief message to those assembled on the
Missouri
's main deck.

Just after the surrender documents were signed, he read the simple dismissing words from a slip of paper:

“Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world, and that God will preserve it always. These proceedings are closed.”

 

 

 

As did most of her sister submarines,
the
Razorback
returned to the United States immediately after the war, docking in San Diego. She received five battle stars for her service in the Pacific. For the first time, the crew was able to talk with family and friends about what they had been doing in the Pacific. In the glut of news about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and the quick end of the war, the submarine service's contributions were, unfortunately, not fully recounted.

Once again, the silent service's stealth, the hidden way the submarines went about their business, were not conducive to newsreels or newspaper front-page photos.

JANAC (Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee) also cut into the record of the sub sailors. The submarine command tallied about four enemy vessels sunk for about ten million tons. Relying heavily on Japanese war records, JANAC cut the total to about thirteen hundred ships and five million tons—one-third the claimed vessels and one-half the total tonnage.

Some figures were indisputable, though. Fifty-two submarines were lost during the war. Over thirty-five hundred submariners died out of the sixteen thousand who served. That was a casualty rate of nearly 22 percent, the greatest for any branch of the service in World War II.

Even using the conservative JANAC figures, less than 2 percent of the U.S. Navy had accounted for more than 55 percent of Japan's maritime losses in the war. It is impossible to count the other contributions—the warships lost to service even if they were not destroyed, the oil tankers and freighters loaded with raw materials that never reached the Home Islands with their vital cargo, the time and effort used by the enemy vessels to avoid the submarine fleet, the crucial observations of the sub crews that helped prepare for attack and follow convoy activity, the many downed pilots rescued by subs on lifeguard duty.

Even if the war was over, the
Razorback
still had plenty of fight left in her. She went back to Pearl Harbor and operated throughout the Pacific until 1949. Then, in 1952, she received the GUPPY II conversion. Soon, she was back in Pacific waters as part of the Seventh Fleet. She even took part in some of the early nuclear blast tests in the South Pacific. Later, she played a role in the Vietnam War, for which she and her crew received four battle stars and a Vietnam Service Medal. Most of that activity remains classified, even today.

The end of her service to her native country came in November 1970, and it was not immediately clear where the
Razorback
would end up.

Many of her sister diesel boats had long since met ignoble fates. Some of them were scrapped—“cut up and made into razor blades,” as the old sub sailors like to describe their inglorious fate.

Many more were parked at docks around the country, placed into “reserve fleet” status, just in case they might be needed for some other kind of duty. There, many of them had their equipment stripped for use on other vessels as they simply rusted away.

Others were used for target practice, simulating enemy submersibles so that young trainees could hone their antisubmarine warfare skills. Though this was a valuable sacrifice, the navy was still sending gallant historical artifacts to the bottom of the sea each time they sank one of the diesel submarines.

A few boats were retained as training vessels. No longer rigged or seaworthy enough to steam out of port, they were parked at piers around the country, where reserve sailors could come aboard and learn to operate their systems and get other important training.

A few others, as we have seen, were saved from the scrap heap and set up as memorials to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

That did not seem to be an option for the
Razorback
.

A precious few of the diesel subs were destined to continue their service. They were allowed to switch their loyalty to the navy of a new country. Some ended up in South America. Others went to Europe and Asia.

That was the
Razorback
's destiny. Just after being stricken from the list of active vessels in late 1970, simultaneously with her decommissioning, she was transferred to the Turkish navy. She steamed away to the far side of the world one more time, this time to ply the ancient Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black seas, most likely until the end of her days.

 

 

 

“North Little Rock
now has a navy.” Those were the words of North Little Rock, Arkansas, mayor Patrick Hays just after returning from a trip to Turkey in September 2002. His declaration came as part of the news conference at which the mayor announced the official acquisition by his city of an old diesel boat that had once been named the
Razorback
. It was their intent to bring her back home after her stint with the Turkish navy, steaming back to Arkansas across the Atlantic and up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers.

But the story begins a year before that, and all the way across the North American continent from Arkansas, with the casual comments of a salesman to one of his customers.

It was November 2001. Bob Opple, a former sub sailor, was in his office at a heavy-equipment company near Seattle, Washington. On that day, he was talking with a visiting salesman named Len Schutt. Schutt also happened to be a former sub sailor, having served on the USS
Ronquil
(SS-396).

As they swapped sea stories, Schutt kept looking at some photos on Opple's office wall.

“That's the
Razorback
, right?” Schutt asked, eyeing the “394” visible on the submarine's sail in one of the photos.

“Sure is. I went to sea on her when I was nineteen years old,” Opple confirmed. “She was a great boat.”

“Well, you may not believe this, but I was aboard her a while back,” the salesman declared. “Only she's called the
Murat Reis
now. Too bad, but they've probably scrapped her by now, though.”

Opple couldn't believe what he was hearing. His old boat was still around. Or at least she had been when Schutt saw her several months before. Opple had assumed that she had been scrapped or sunk long before, just like many of the other boats.

He quickly got on the horn to some of his sub veteran buddies, Maurice Barksdale, a real estate consultant in Texas, and Max Bassett, who had remained in the navy until he retired to Florida. They, too, were amazed that the
Razorback
was still in existence. They discussed the idea of climbing on an airplane and visiting the submarine before it was too late. If it wasn't too late already, of course.

But along the way, someone proposed—half kidding—the idea of trying to buy the boat and bring her back to the States. The more they talked about it, though, the more it intrigued the sub vets. What at first seemed like a wild and crazy idea blossomed into a full-blown plan when they discovered that the boat had indeed been decommissioned by the Turks, but at last report she was still afloat and in decent condition.

“We're just a bunch of old submarine vets who have found ourselves a toy,” Opple told a newspaper reporter.

But the sub sailors were smart enough to know they needed help with a project of this magnitude, even if their mission was a worthy one. And they also knew, from the experiences of other groups who had attempted such a task, that they would need money. Lots of money.

Then someone made a natural connection. Razorback? Arkansas!

The razorback hog is the mascot of the University of Arkansas athletic teams. Maybe someone in that great state would be interested in helping bring a true fighting razorback home.

Contacts with sub vet groups in Arkansas led to conversations with Patrick Hays, the mayor of North Little Rock. Hays already had big plans to capitalize on recent development that was planned along the Arkansas River waterfront of his town and that of Little Rock, the neighboring city across the river to the south. President Bill Clinton's library was already under construction and there had been talk of some kind of veterans' memorial park or maritime museum in the vicinity.

Thus it was that the mayor was more than willing to listen to what the sub veterans had to say. He bought into the plan immediately when he heard the details and, with the help of the Arkansas sub vet group, and especially Greg Zonner, who handled much of the considerable paperwork, they set a course to get themselves a diesel submarine to park on the river at North Little Rock.

Soon the U.S. State Department and the Turkish government were involved in serious talks. Over a roller-coaster nine months, a plan was hatched and myriad paper trails were hiked. Then, in September, Mayor Hays led a delegation to Ankara, Turkey, to see what it would take to finally secure the boat for his city.

Hays got surprising news when he and his group arrived.

Instead of having the Americans reimburse Turkey for what it had cost them to store the old submarine since negotiations had begun, or asking them to come up with money for some kind of exaggerated purchase price, the Turkish government said they would be most happy to simply give the aging vessel to the mayor and his group, gratis.

Well, that was a bargain!

Of course, the rest of the plan would not be so easy to carry out. Who was going to pay to prepare the vessel for a transoceanic transit? She was in no shape for such a trip. Could they plan on steaming across the Atlantic under the
Razorback
's own power or would they have to settle for a tow? Her engines worked, but could they last for such a long journey? Could they actually get her floated up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers without running aground?

There were more questions than answers, now that they had the sub, but it seemed that there was one solution to most of the anticipated difficulties. That was money.

A few weeks after the mayor's visit, Opple and some of his fellow sub sailors went to Turkey for a look-see. They were pleased with the boat's condition, considering the miles on her odometer. But there were still a lot of things that would have to be done to get her ready and secured for such a long voyage. Each of those things carried a price tag.

The first estimate to make her seaworthy and ready to propel herself home was $1.5 million. Even if they did not need her to be capable of making a dive along the way, it would take about a fifth that much money, $300,000.

The sub vets scratched their heads and thought about it for a while. It would have been fun to make a flank-speed run across the open sea, taking the occasional dive just for old times' sake, but that seemed out of the question when the bids started to come in.

There were other expenses to consider, too, as time went on. The Turks originally agreed to sell her to the city of North Little Rock for a nominal sum of one dollar, but government red tape inevitably muddied that beautiful deal. The city and vet groups would eventually have to pony up nearly $40,000 in salvage reimbursement money before they could take the boat home. They still considered it a fine bargain, but that was $40,000 they had not anticipated needing.

Somehow they found it. Most of the money came from local businesses that saw the value in the publicity and tourist dollars the submarine would bring to their city. Other contributions gathered up by the submarine veterans paid for the long tow through the Mediterranean Sea and across the Atlantic.

On May 5, 2004, the
Razorback
began her eight-thousand-mile journey from the Gulf of Izmit, with plans to arrive in Little Rock in mid- to late July. Max Bassett, Bob Opple, Greg Zonner, and Mayor Patrick Hays rode along for portions of the trip, either in the tug that was pulling the boat or aboard the old girl herself. A couple of retired Turkish sub sailors were along for the ride, too, excited about seeing the boat saved.

There were no Japanese dive-bombers, no enemy destroyers, no depth-charge attacks along the way. They made good progress despite some minor mechanical and weather glitches, easing down through the Dardanelles. There were some thoughts of taking the boat down for a dive in the vicinity of an old World War II German gunboat, sunk by the Allies in World War II, but the weather did not cooperate.

Next was the Aegean Sea and a short stopover in Greece to drop off some passengers. The Mediterranean was rough and several of the men on board got seasick. Sub sailors do get seasick, but back in the day the boat simply submerged, looking for a smoother ride. The
Razorback
had no such option on this trip. They could have dived, but it would have been a risky procedure in those rough seas.