War Beneath the Waves (22 page)

Willingham’s executive officer, William Thompson, would later write about one particularly impressive attack, “[He] was a perfectionist. We sank three ships, firing bow and stern tubes simultaneously—bow with the TDC [torpedo data computer] but stern with his infallible eye and judgment. To the best of my knowledge this was an ‘only feat’ during the war.”

Although postwar research would not give Willingham and his boat credit for three of the ships they were certain that they sank in that assault, it was still a daring and unorthodox attack, one that quickly entered into the lore of the wartime submarine skippers. Willingham’s crew knew what they and their skipper had done and they helped spread the legend around the leased resort hotels when they returned to Perth.

Willingham’s boss, Admiral Christie, was equally impressed. He said the skipper’s efforts were “brilliant” and promptly rewarded him with a medal presentation ceremony on the pier at Fremantle and by promoting him off
Bowfin
. He sent him off to command a submarine division in Brisbane. It was typical for a captain to recommend his replacement when he left a boat under good graces, and Willingham strongly suggested that his XO, Bill Thompson, get the job.

However, Christie had someone else in mind. He chose Walter Thomas Griffith, who had been executive officer on another submarine and had a year’s worth of seniority on Thompson.

There were no hard feelings. Thompson remained second in command to Griffith and continued to learn. Based on his accomplishments when he did ultimately get his own boat, it was obvious that both skippers—Willingham and Griffith—had trained Thompson well. He later commanded USS
Cabrilla
(SS-288) and led that vessel on four successful war patrols, leaving him among the top sixty wartime submarine skippers in total credited enemy shipping destroyed.

In his writings, Christie hardly sounded as if he had a great deal of confidence in the man he made
Bowfin
’s new skipper. He described Walt Griffith as “studious looking, red-haired, a trim young man with blood pressure too high and a slight hand quiver.”

XO Bill Thompson was more flattering in his take on his new skipper. He wrote, “[He] was absolutely fearless—maybe too much so—and a reasonable and wonderful skipper and shipmate. I shared a cabin with him at his suggestion and one of us was ‘always awake on feet’ throughout the boat at all times. Walt, at sea, was a fearless fighter. In port, he was a mild, kindly and even poetic type.”

As mentioned previously, there were changes as well among crew members aboard
Billfish
after her initial run. Her commissioning XO, Gordon Selby, left to enter the prospective commanding officer (PCO) pool and later served with distinction aboard that submarine, the one with the decidedly problematic past. And, of course, among the other new crew members who came aboard for the boat’s second run were Lieutenant Charlie Rush and Chief John Rendernick.

Such a joint operation was nothing new. Several skippers and their commanders had explored having two submarines work together in close proximity, as
Bowfin
and
Billfish
were doing. While it cut down on the territory that they could patrol, it definitely allowed them to more effectively attack groups of targets. It also gave the ability for one submarine to offer a bit more protection for the other—to allow them to watch each other’s back.

Of course, such a tandem required good coordination. Neither boat wanted to be caught behind a target when the other launched torpedoes in that general direction. It was also important to know always where the other boat was and what amount of cover fire and observation she could offer. It helped, too, if each captain had confidence in the other’s abilities. However, like many things going on in the war at that time, the skippers had to make up the rules as they went along, learning from their mistakes, if they survived them. Then they could add those successful tactics to the “manual” in the process. At that time in the war, prospective submarine commanders and other crew members actually received copies of very recent war patrol reports and they dissected them in the classrooms in New London. What better submarine warfare textbook could there be than the actual details of what was going on at that very moment in the Pacific?

The sister submarines were able to use a new radio on this patrol, one that used voice transmissions and operated on a frequency at which the enemy was unlikely to hear them. That allowed them to use plain-language voice messages, not encrypted Morse code.

Billfish
did not have much luck finding potential targets over the next few days. According to the patrol logs, heavy seas and torrential rainstorms made it difficult for Lucas and his crew to line up their sights on any kind of target. That is, if they even happened to find one. At times, the submarine was quite literally lost, unable to rely on either celestial navigation or landmarks on the distant shore because of the dense clouds and pouring rain.

Billfish
did run across a single ship early on the morning of November 25, first spying the vessel on radar off the port bow at a distance of ten thousand yards. They were attempting to rendezvous with
Bowfin
off Cape Varella. Captain Lucas was hesitant to try to maneuver around and stage any kind of attack on this vessel, though.

“It was still raining and visibility was poor,” he later logged. “Decided to wait for daylight as firing blind was impracticable for the following reasons: (a) Possibility of contact being BOWFIN. (b) Radar indicated target was of small size and it was estimated that 15 feet was the minimum practicable depth setting in the existing heavy sea. Therefore worked for position ahead, but at daybreak the rain, which had showed signs of letting up, increased so that visibility was practically zero. Patrolled across the estimated track of the target using radar search but never regained contact.”

Was Captain Lucas deliberately trying to avoid any confrontation with an enemy ship? Or was he merely being prudent, attempting to get back together with his sister submarine while waiting for better hunting weather?

They had exchanged radio communication with
Bowfin
at about nine p.m. the night before, so she was definitely in the area. Granted, weather conditions were bad. Griffith mentioned it in his patrol report, saying, “Do not consider that torpedoes would perform in this sea.” Later, while trying to exchange information visually with
Billfish
, Griffith noted, “Seas so big that it was necessary to run before the wind to exchange searchlight signals at 500 yards, and then we could only see each other half the time.”

Regardless, it now seemed to some of the crew that Lucas was once again fixated on the next rendezvous with their sister submarine to the exclusion of accomplishing anything else on this patrol.

No one on the bridge or in the conn said anything, but men exchanged glances. Whispers flared up again among the enlisted men, too, but the hissing ceased immediately anytime an officer approached.

Despite the bad weather and navigational difficulties that stymied
Billfish
, Griffith and
Bowfin
were having considerable success. Near the coast of Indochina, and in the midst of one of those blinding rainstorms that were giving Captain Lucas so much trouble,
Bowfin
suddenly found herself in the middle of an anthill of Japanese shipping. She almost collided head-on with a tanker. Griffith ordered all back, throwing the diesel engines into reverse.

“Pitch black and raining solid,” Griffith wrote. “At first I thought I had blundered into the beach or some small islands although I had 75 fathoms of water. Came hard left to clear out to seaward and backed emergency to keep from ramming an enormous tanker.”

With a quick run through the TDC data, tubes were readied and torpedoes were out of their tubes and on their way. She scored a direct hit and sank the 5,070-ton tanker
Ogurasan Maru
.

Now that their presence in the midst of the ships was known, Griffith could have been cautious, gone deep, and slipped away before it began hailing depth charges. Instead, he lined up on a second freighter and took out the 5,400-ton
Tainan Maru
.

“I figured this might be the biggest ship I would ever get to shoot,” Griffith wrote. He also noted that it was raining so hard by then that it was extinguishing the gasoline fire that was burning on the sea’s surface near the torpedoed ships. He also mentioned that one engine would not crank, the number ten torpedo door was jammed shut, and he had developed a huge blind spot in his radar, which explained the sub’s popping up in the middle of the convoy without Griffith’s knowing what it was.

Only a few hours later and while still being pounded by rain and rough seas,
Bowfin
was able to torpedo and sink a 690-ton coastal cargo ship, one of the many vessels that the Japanese had confiscated from the French plantation owners when they overran Indochina.

Meanwhile, Frederic Lucas and
Billfish
were still concentrating on looking for
Bowfin
, anxious to join up with their sister submarine. Despite the crew’s excitement about bagging a target, none presented itself.

They wandered around in the foul weather, waiting.

—Logbook entries for USS
Billfish
, November 28, 1943

2100. (about)
BOWFIN called on voice radio. Said approximate position was off Cape Varella and that she would head north
7-8
miles off coast. Replied that we were coming in on Cape Varella from the eastward and would remain to seaward of her track. Exchanged other information.

It was early on the morning of the twenty-eigth.
Billfish
was patrolling on the surface. Charlie Rush had the watch. Only he and Captain Lucas were on the bridge at the time.

The rain had slackened to little more than a drizzle and it was dark, a perfect night for a predator like
Billfish
to hunt its prey. Their view was restricted, but so was the enemy’s. The submarine’s radar was superior, too.

The call came up the hatch from below that radar had spotted five contacts, all at about 290 degrees and at a distance of about eight miles. An electric charge ran up and down the boat.

Rush gave the order to turn to that heading and work for position at about eighteen knots. There was no radar sweep detected from the target convoy, indicating they likely had none. If they had it, they would almost certainly be using it in weather like this. And in a part of the sea where American submarines were doing real damage.

“Battle stations!” Lucas called, and the ship jumped to action, ready to make a charge at the contacts steaming along the surface in the far distance.

Perfect! Dark, rainy night, a tightly packed enemy convoy with no radar, no reason to suspect an imminent attack from escorts, and
Billfish
had no reason to suspect the ships had any idea they were already in
Billfish
’s sights.

Rush felt a quickening of his pulse and relished the feel of the damp air and wind on his face as the submarine made good speed on the surface toward a prime firing point.

Finally, after all the frustrations of this disappointing run so far, they were now in a good position to do some serious damage to the enemy.
Billfish
was about to cease being a target, cowering on the bottom, and start shooting back for a change!

The rush of adrenaline took the young officer back to
Thresher
. He could not help but think what “Moke” Millican would do in a situation like this, what the look on his face would be as they rushed across the wave tops to get into position to make a full-blown attack, using every weapon in their arsenal.

Just then, the radar operator reported brief flashes of another vessel’s radar, but based on frequency, it appeared to be from an American ship. They quickly surmised it was
Bowfin
, on the other side of the convoy, between their position and the shore near Cape Varella. They, too, were bombarding the convoy with their radio waves. And they, too, were likely primed for the attack.

They were about to catch the Japanese in a wicked set of pincers!

As soon as the
Billfish
crew felt they had an accurate set of details on the convoy—course, speed, composition—they raised
Bowfin
on the newly installed radio circuit to see if she was seeing the same thing they were.