Hellcats (19 page)

In earlier correspondence with those officers in charge of FMS training on the West Coast, he had laid on the line what had to be done to convince the naysayers. “. . . [C]onfidence must be built up by familiarity with use and knowledge of enemy mining systems and limitations. Dr. Henderson and I have been doing it here [at Guam] and while I like to get out in the boats, eventually there will be more than I can handle. Where we find COs opposed to use of FM Sonar, we will have to relieve them [of command], for no one will do a proper job of mine detecting unless he has confidence in his gear and has plenty of guts.... Each sub should have at least 3 good operators.... We've got to get that Tsushima job done—and soon.”
³
Finally, he had a solid success that would prove how good FMS was at mine detection.

Lockwood's report to Admiral Nimitz on the
Tunny
's success elicited CinCPac's congratulations and a personal message to Pierce and his crew for a job well-done. Personal recognition by Nimitz was always a terrific morale booster and, in this case, one that polished Lockwood's brass in the bargain. Basking in the glow of Nimitz's praise, Lockwood tried to wheedle himself a ride aboard the
Spade fish
, about to depart on her mission to Tsushima, claiming that it was imperative that he go along to size up her performance. He hurriedly sent his request to Nimitz, only to find that the admiral had departed for Washington. With no time to waste he pleaded his case to Nimitz's chief of staff and war plans officer, Rear Admiral Charles H. “Soc” McMorris. Speaking for Nimitz, McMorris turned him down flat. “You know too damned much about our future plans,” he said, in a rare instance of a rear admiral issuing orders to a vice admiral. “But, Soc, if we come to grief on this mission—which I'm sure we won't—there'll be no prisoners.” McMorris shook his head no and that was it.

McMorris's refusal wasn't unexpected. Lockwood, the armchair submariner, accepted that with the war's end looming he'd probably never get to make a war patrol nor fire a torpedo in anger. What rankled him, though, was that his friend James Fife had wrangled a patrol aboard a submarine operating off Subic Bay. How he had done it was a mystery to Lockwood and the cause of deep envy. Here was ComSubPac, who couldn't even order himself aboard one of his own subs, while Fife was having the time of his life off the Philippines. Riding a sub to test FMS was hardly a substitute for the real thing.

 

 

In the meantime two problems
that had been pushed aside for more pressing matters vied for Lockwood's attention: the upcoming test in San Diego of rival sonar detectors scheduled for late April; and finding an experienced submariner, an ex-skipper, to take over the training, planning, and execution of the Japan Sea mission. Selection of an officer for this assignment would relieve Lockwood and Voge of the enormous workload threatening to grind them down under the already formidable task of running the submarine war.

Lockwood directed his chief of staff, Commodore Merrill Comstock, to find an officer who could take up the load. Comstock tapped ComSubPac assistant operations officer Commander William Bernard “Barney” Sieglaff for the job. Sieglaff was the former skipper of the USS
Tautog
(SS-199) and USS
Tench
(SS-417) and had thirteen confirmed sinkings to his credit.
^k
Sieglaff was one of those quiet, resourceful, and self-motivating officers who often work behind the scenes of big and important undertakings that are successful because of men like him. With his appointment in late March the Tsushima Strait breakthrough finally had a name: Operation Barney.

 

 

Even as Operation Barney's load
shifted from Lockwood's and Voge's shoulders to Sieglaff's, the
Seahorse
, skippered by Commander Harry H. Greer, Jr., and the
Crevalle
, under Commander Everett H. Steinmetz of Brooklyn, New York, arrived at Guam. Lockwood put the two subs through four days of intense FMS training under his and Sieglaff's supervision. As expected, the gear in both subs needed a tune-up to meet Lockwood's and now Sieglaff's exacting standards. Lockwood wasn't discouraged anymore. He knew they were closing in at last on solving the few remaining problems with FMS. He was also encouraged by a genuine improvement in the attitudes of FMS sub crews and also in their mine-hunting skills, which in turn bolstered everyone's confidence.

In late March Lockwood dispatched Greer in the
Seahorse
, as he had Germershausen in the
Spadefish
, to sniff around the southern limits of the Tsushima mine barrier. He did this to double up on the mapping and to ensure its accuracy. Next he sent Steinmetz in the
Crevalle
off to patrol along the China coast and to probe the southern Tsushima boundary.

 

 

The
Bonefish
nosed into Apra
Harbor, Guam, on April Fool's Day. Lockwood and Sieglaff wasted no time climbing aboard for FMS tests off Orote Point. Lockwood, enthused as ever, cast a keen eye on Edge and his ship, which arrived in spotless condition. He remarked that Edge, an electronics expert, was keen to wring out his ship's sonar equipment and that he was self-assured and all business. Lockwood knew through scuttlebutt that sometime in July Edge would receive orders to the electronics desk at the Navy's Bureau of Ships (BuShips), not ComSubPac, as Edge had assumed. Before this happened, however, Lockwood wanted him for Operation Barney. He was eager to watch Edge, one of the only sub skippers in the force who had been trained in the arcanum of circuit boards and resistors, put FMS through its paces.

Even before the
Bonefish
could get under way at dawn, problems arose. A cable had pulled out of her FM sonar head due to faulty switches that controlled the rotational limits of the head shafting. Lockwood kept his anger in check while he chain-smoked, waiting for the technicians to complete repairs, not pleased with the delay nor with the fact that the alleged experts who had gone over the ship's equipment upon her arrival hadn't discovered the problem. After repairs the
Bonefish
's performance that day bested any that Lockwood had seen. Coupled with Edge's knowledgeable touch on the controls, it tempered the admiral's earlier upset. Despite FMS's temperamental nature, when it was handled properly, as it was by Edge, it worked beautifully. Lockwood was also pleased to see that Edge didn't display the skepticism and cynicism about FMS that had affected so many of his peers. Lockwood could cheerlead all he wanted for his plan, could talk it up day and night, do a sales job on it that would hopefully convince even the most skeptical among them. In the end he had to prove that it would work. And he had to hope that events beyond his control didn't scuttle his efforts. More than anything else, he feared that the loss of one of the three FMS subs now on patrol in mine-infested waters south of Kyushu, or those that would follow, would sink Operation Barney before it ever had a chance to get started. So far early reports from the skippers of the
Spadefish
,
Crevalle
, and
Seahorse
indicated that, like George Pierce in the
Tunny
, they were having success locating mines. Watching Edge demonstrate his expertise of the gadget and seeing his confidence in its abilities was all the evidence Lockwood needed to maintain his belief in FMS and Operation Barney.

 

 

When Edge returned from his
outing with Lockwood, he started a letter to Sarah.

A day later, after completing another workout, he wrote:

Being infected with Lockwood's enthusiasm for FMS may have been what Edge needed to convince himself that the mission he would be undertaking would help bring the war to an end and speed his return to Sarah and Boo.

T
he
Bonefish
departed Guam on April 6, after Lawrence Edge received sealed orders for a seventh war patrol in Area Nine, the Goto Retto and Quelpart Island region southwest of Kyushu. His orders included instructions to operate with the
Seahorse
—if feasible, given Greer's tricky assignment—and the
Crevalle
. Edge also had orders to locate a minefield in an area southwest of the Danjo Gunto, a small group of islands west of Kyushu. The orders didn't specify a date for carrying out the mine recon, instead leaving it to Edge's discretion.

In private moments during the voyage Edge's thoughts turned to Sarah, Boo, and “Junior.” Time permitting, he wrote letters to Sarah in which he revealed deep, personal feelings about the war he so much wanted to survive.

Though Lockwood had delighted in Edge's optimism regarding FMS, and his impressive bearing and self-assured manner, Edge's true feelings, which he put into his letters, had been tempered by the great distance and duration of separation from his wife and daughter, and by the deaths of men with whom he had served and had shared, as men in combat do, his deepest fears and longings. Those fears and longings, and a sadness bordering on melancholy, are apparent in photographs taken of Edge during the period leading up to Operation Barney. He appears drawn and tired, world-weary and anxious to have the war over.