Hellcats (9 page)

With the increased tempo in the Pacific at last turning back the Japanese, Lawrence arrived in New London in August 1943 for PCO instruction, which he completed in late September. He then received orders to report in late November to the Seventh Fleet and to the headquarters of ComSubSoWesPac, 13,000 miles away in Fremantle, Australia.

 

 

Lawrence took leave at home
with his family in Atlanta before departing for Australia. He and Sarah knew that they'd not see each other again for a long time, perhaps a year or more. Though eager to undertake his new duties, which would culminate in command of a submarine, Lawrence knew that this achievement, important as it was, wouldn't ease the pain of prolonged separation from his wife and daughter and the longing it would cause. It was no different for Sarah and for all the wives, husbands, and friends of the men and women serving in the armed forces; they, too, would suffer the pain of extended separation, and with it the constant, nagging fear that their loved ones might be killed.

As for submariners, the fear of death was something they learned to live with, though it was never far from their minds, given the dangers inherent in submarine operations themselves, and not just from enemy action. Yet by their nature submariners are optimists. They have to be, for after all, they'd volunteered (the submarine service is an all-volunteer force) to be sealed up in a steel hull—some would say an iron coffin—for the duration of a war patrol. Other than the ship's officers only a handful of enlisted men ever got to see the world outside their submarine during a patrol. What kind of men would volunteer to spend a good part of their lives living together in cramped, hot, smelly spaces enduring physical and mental stress while under constant danger from the Japanese, if not their own machinery and the sea itself?

One answer is that the submariners' lifelong bond of brotherhood and camaraderie with shipmates is like few others in the military service. Another answer is that because the duty is so demanding submariners have always had a certain mystique, as though schooled in some black art or arcane specialty, which is absolutely true, given how complicated subs are. Aboard a submarine, more than in most warships, each man is dependent upon his shipmates for the sub's performance and safety, if not his own survival. Caution and vigilance are the watchwords aboard a submarine prowling beneath an unforgiving sea, where one mistake can lead to disaster. Thus, after undergoing rigorous and highly specialized training, each officer and enlisted man strove to earn the designation “qualified in submarines” and to wear the twin-dolphins insignia that marked him as a man apart, a man belonging to an elite service, a man who was special, even fearless.

Fearless indeed. Up until just before the start of World War II, it was dangerous to go to sea in a submarine, much less submerge in it. The old submarines of the 1920s, the O-, S-, and R-class boats, though vastly improved over the subs Charles Lockwood had once served in, were still nothing more than leaky rust buckets. Often their hatches didn't seal properly, and as seawater sluiced into the boat through inch-wide gaps in the hatch's knife edge, sub crews could only hope that sea pressure would eventually seal them, which it usually did, but not always. Then there was the stench of sweat, oily bilges, and stopped-up heads brimming with human waste. Back then sub sailors had to endure one-hundred-degree-plus temperatures, lack of air-conditioning, and choking diesel fumes. Things weren't much different from what they were in Lockwood's day. Stalwarts said that conditions like these built character and fostered camaraderie. No doubt they did, though with the advent of the modern fleet-type submarine in the late 1930s, conditions vastly improved for sub crews. More than shared hardship, the camaraderie fostered during World War II resulted from the shared experience of men fighting to defeat a vicious and pitiless enemy. The camaraderie that such experience engendered in submariners patrolling the Pacific Ocean was outside Sarah's understanding. She knew only that Lawrence was committed to his profession and that he was determined to carry out his duties to the best of his ability. As close as she and Lawrence were, she could never share with him the closed world he was about to enter. When they parted early in November 1943, there was no way for either of them to know whether they would ever see each other again.

 

 

Edge departed from the West
Coast on a lengthy sea voyage “down under,” to Australia. From Brisbane, he flew cross-country in an Australian National Airways DC-3. Days later, after arriving at the sprawling submarine base in Fremantle, he reported for duty to Submarine Squadron Sixteen.

The submarine base at Fremantle, on Australia's western coast, bustled with activity. Submarines departed almost every day on war patrols, while others returned from patrols for refits and crew rotations. A sense of urgency permeated every aspect of submarine operations, from the staff level down to the sailors chipping rust on the boats. Swept up in this urgency, Edge, with little time for rest after his long trip, reported to Admiral Christie's ComSubSoWesPac operations staff to undergo a two-month crash course in submarine operations, logistics, ordnance, personnel, and much more.

Then, in late January 1944, in preparation for taking command of a submarine, Edge received orders to the USS
Bluefish
(SS-222) as executive officer. It was invaluable experience for a PCO, as an exec has responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the ship, including all the paperwork and personnel headaches that go with it, to say nothing of his duties as navigator and, in some boats, fire control and attack coordinator. Edge served in the
Bluefish
during two war patrols under two skippers: Commander George E. Porter and Commander Charles M. Henderson. They could not have had a better exec than Edge.

 

 

Sarah always received a cable
from Lawrence upon his return from a war patrol (“ALL WELL AND SAFE. LETTERS RECEIVED ... FONDEST LOVE AND KISSES”), which was then followed by a letter, in this case, one typical of those he wrote during the war.

As recounted earlier, Edge relieved Hogan on June 13. In only eleven months, and with New London, Annapolis, and Atlanta on the other side of the world, Edge found himself standing on the
Bonefish
's quarterdeck taking his crew's salute and being addressed as “Captain.”

On June 27, just hours before the
Bonefish
departed on her fifth war patrol, Edge started a letter to Sarah, telling her how lonely he felt, that he was suffering from a bad case of the blues, adding:

The next day he completed the letter, in which he hinted that he now had command of his own sub.

After topping off provisions and
fuel at Exmouth Gulf, a forward base on the coast of Australia, the
Bonefish
headed for her patrol area in the Celebes and Sulu seas north of the Malay Barrier. U.S. submarines had found good hunting in these waters. Despite questionable torpedo performance, SoWesPac subs had sunk scores of Japanese
marus
along with their cargoes destined for the home islands. They had also sunk scores of other
marus
doubling as troop transports. Thousands of Japanese soldiers along with their weapons, ammunition, and supplies had thus failed to arrive at the many Imperial Army garrisons scattered throughout the conquered territories in East Asia. For the Japanese the loss of these needed troop replacements and food supplies was like dying a slow death from a thousand bleeding wounds.

Early in the patrol the
Bonefish
encountered fleets of native fishing vessels and other small craft. For a while Edge shadowed a pair of sea trucks—small wooden-hulled cargo haulers—thinking to sink them with the sub's four-inch deck gun. But before Edge could act the two gave him the slip into the shallow coastal reaches of Lombok Island. No matter, Edge sought bigger game.