Run Silent, Run Deep. Edward L. Beach

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      Having learned the technique, the student is permitted to try it with a real submarine on a real target, shooting a real torpedo—with exercise head instead of warhead, set to pass under instead of to hit. Graduation exercise in the submarine school wraps everything up in one bundle; the student is required to make his own torpedo ready for firing, superintend hoisting it into the submarine assigned, load it into the torpedo tube and make the final adjustments himself, then go up into the control room, make the approach, fire the torpedo, and write the report resulting. And woe betide the student whose torpedo fails to run properly, who does not conduct the approach and attack effectively, or whose report does not measure up to Navy standards of thoroughness, accuracy, and brevity!

      After graduation every submarine officer is required to make several approaches to the satisfaction of his skipper before being put up for qualification in submarines—and the Examining Board requires here again that he conduct a satisfactory submerged attack. And the same procedure is required for qualification for command. The degree of technical expertness demanded is of course greater as the level of qualification increases, and of Jim, this day, the board expected nothing short of perfection befitting the commanding officer of a U. S. submarine.

      In the distance Falcon’s hull lengthened. She had begun to turn around, preparatory to starting her target run.

      Jim leaned toward the open hatch, cupped his hands: “Rig out the bow planes!” he ordered between chattering teeth. Immediately the bow planes, heretofore housed flat against the S-16’s bow like elephant’s ears, commenced to rotate and fan out, stopping when they were extended perpendicular to her hull and slanted slightly downward, their forward edges digging deeply into the shallow seas.

      This was the final act in the preparation for diving. As I stepped toward the hatch the Falcon’s hull commenced to shorten again, indicating that she had nearly completed her turn, and at that moment a small spot of intensely brilliant light appeared at the base of her foremast.

      “There’s the light, Jim,” I said. He had seen it too, and was extracting a stop watch from his pocket. When the searchlight was extinguished, after having been pointed in our direction for several seconds, this would be the official moment of the commencement of the exercise. A stop watch would be started on the Falcon’s bridge, matching the one Jim would start at the same instant. The two watches would be kept running throughout, and the watch time of each maneuver recorded. Stopped by simultaneous signal after the run, they would provide Jim with the essential time comparison he would need when later he had to draw the tracks of target and submarine on the same chart and explain the maneuvers of both.

      The light must have lasted only a few seconds. I was only halfway down the ladder into the control room when I heard Jim order, “Clear the bridge,” and a moment later the diving alarm sounded. There was just time to step off the ladder onto the tiny conning tower space to get out of the way of the first lookout scuttling by. Immediately after him came the second one, and then Jim, holding the wire hatch lanyard in his hand. Bowing his back, he pulled the hatch home with a satisfying click as the latch engaged. Then, straightening up, he swiftly whirled the steel wheel in the center of the circular hatch, dogging it tightly on its seat.

      The next second he was below in the control room, superintending the operation of diving—something else the qualification committee had insisted on observing.

      Up from the control room came the familiar noises. The venting of air, the slight additional pressure on my ears, and the quiet report, usually directed at me: “Pressure in the boat, Green Board, sir!” The noise of the bow and stern planes operating, and the calm voice of the diving officer—Jim—giving instructions to their operators. The blowing of air as regulator tank, which we used as a negative tank or a “Down-Express,” was blown nearly dry and the inboard vent opened to release the pressure in it, thus, incidentally, further increasing the notice my ears were taking of the operation. The tilt of the deck, down by the bow ever so slightly, and the subsequent return to an even keel. The gurgle of water, hurly-burlying up the sides of the bridge and conning tower, the sudden darkness as the tiny glass “eye-ports” went under, and the quietness when fully submerged. Swiftly the graceless surfaced submarine, uneasily breasting the waves, became a poised, confident fish, moving with ease and certitude in her element.

      In a moment came another signal: the clanging of the general alarm bell. Most of the crew, anticipating it, had already gone to their stations, but there was a last-minute movement of a few of them below me. Then came a sharp “Klack!” as the electric brake on the periscope hoist motor released, and the whirring of the hoist cable and sheaves as Jim, relieved of the diving duties by Tom Schultz, ordered the periscope raised for his first look at the target.

      Quietly I descended the ladder and took station beside the helmsman in the forward part of our crowded, dimly lighted control room. During the maneuvering watches his station was on the bridge, where there was a duplicate set of steering controls, but during surface cruising, and of course when submerged, his station was in the control room. Today there seemed hardly room for him, so crowded was the tiny compartment. The ship’s company were at their stations, ready to execute Jim’s orders upon the multiplicity of equipment located here. The members of the qualification committee were here, too, having taken up positions from which the progress of not only the submerged approach but also of everything else in the control room could be observed. I was only an extra number, an observer. It had been cold topside; here it was already stifling hot, men packed closely together, body against body, breathing each other’s body smells. I could feel every move of the helmsman as I stood, facing the other way, jammed hip to hip against him.

      The base of the periscope came up. Jim stooped on the deck of the control room—what extra space there was, naturally, went to him—captured the handles as they came out of the well, extended them as the base of the periscope came clear, applied his right eye to the eye-piece, and rose smoothly with it to a standing position. Once the ’scope was fully elevated, he spun it around twice rapidly, then ordered, “Down periscope!” stepping away slightly as the shiny tube started down into its tubular well in the deck. All three black notebooks came out of their hiding places, received comments, and disappeared.

      Jim gave me a bleak look. For three days the little black notebooks had been in and out of sight. They had got on my nerves too; it is never pleasant for a skipper of a ship to have what amounts to an inspection party making notes about his ship. The most serious effect by far, of course, was on Jim, for whom they constituted an unexpected mental hazard.

      The Qualification Board was looking expectantly at Jim. Every move of a submarine making an approach is at the sole behest of the Approach Officer; it was up to Jim to make the correct observations and give the right orders.

      “Nothing in sight,” Jim said. Out came the notebooks for another moment.

      Jim waited nearly a full minute, then “Up periscope!” he ordered. The ’scope slithered out of its well, Jim fixing on the eye-piece, as before, the moment it appeared.

      He twirled it around, stopped suddenly slightly on our starboard bow. “Bearing—Mark!” he said.

      A disc-shaped celluloid “Is-Was,” used for matching target bearing with target course, was hanging from around Keith’s neck on a string. He was standing on the other side of the periscope from Jim, watching the spot where the vertical cross hair on its barrel matched against the bearing circle on the overhead around it. “Zero-one-six,” he announced.

      Jim’s right hand had shifted to a small hand wheel on the side of the periscope. He turned it, first rapidly, then slowly and carefully. “Range—Mark!” he finally said.

      “Six-seven-double-oh!” said Keith, who had shifted СКАЧАТЬ