Schauer stood stunned for a moment, his mind unable to comprehend what
his eyes and ears had just absorbed. It took the sight of a second
orange flash to jolt him into action.
"Get down!" he shouted at the two men in the cabin as he spun the
ship's wheel hard to port. The laden trawler was slow to respond, but
it was enough to avoid the second shell from the I-403's 5.5-inch deck
gun, which screamed into the water just astern of the boat. This time,
the force of the explosion lifted the entire trawler out of the water
and slammed it back down again hard, shearing the rudder off in the
upheaval.
Wiping blood out of his eyes from a gash to the temple, Schauer groped
for the radio microphone.
"Doug, there's a Jap sub. It's blasting the hell out of us. No joke.
Keep to the north, and get help."
He was still talking when the third shell found its mark, piercing the
forward hold of the fishing boat before detonating. A furious
explosion of splinters, glass, and mangled halibut blasted into the
cabin, throwing the three men viciously to the back wall. Struggling
to his feet, Schauer peered out a gaping hole in the front of the cabin
and saw the entire bow of the trawler disintegrate into the sea before
him. Instinctively grabbing the wheel for support, he looked on in
disbelief as the remains of the boat began to sink rapidly beneath his
feet.
Peering through binoculars, Ogawa watched with grim satisfaction as the
trawler slipped beneath the waves amid a scattering of flotsam.
Rescuing survivors was out of the question, so he wasted no time in
looking for bodies in the water.
"Motoshita, have there been any additional sound recordings?" he asked
his exec.
"Negative, sir. The sound operator reported a possible secondary
target before we initiated firing but the reading faded. It was either
background noise, or a small vessel at best."
"Have him keep sweeping. With this visibility, we will hear a vessel
well before seeing her. And have the chief aircraft mechanic report to
me. We've got to get those planes launched."
As Motoshita scurried off, Ogawa stared toward the hidden coastline of
Washington. Perhaps we'll get lucky, he thought. The trawler was
likely a lone fishing boat and wouldn't have a radio. The guns could
have been heard ashore, but, at this distance, would sound like an
innocuous muffle. The charts showed few inhabitants residing along
that stretch of coast as well. Perhaps-just perhaps-they could still
pull off the mission undetected.
The hairs on the back of Radioman First Class Gene Hampton's neck stood
up like a grove of ponderosa pine. The voice ringing through his
earphones had an air of urgency and authenticity that could not help
but be believed. After confirming the message twice, Hampton popped
out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box and bounded to the center of
the bridge.
"Captain, I just picked up a civilian Mayday message," he blurted
excitedly. "A fisherman says there's a Jap sub offshore shelling his
brother's boat."
"Did he sound coherent?" replied the ship's bearded, heavyset
commander in a skeptical tone.
"Yes, sir. Said he didn't see the sub because of the fog but got a
radio call from his brother on another fishing boat. He heard a couple
of shots fired from a big gun, then lost contact with his brother. I
received a call from another boat confirming the sound of gunfire."
"Did they provide a fix on the location?"
"Yes, sir. Nine miles southwest of Cape Flattery."
"Very well. Contact the Madison and tell her we are headed out of the
strait to investigate a reported enemy contact, then provide a location
fix to Navigation. Mr. Baker," he continued, turning to a tall
lieutenant standing at his side, "let's go to General Quarters."
As an alarm bell rang throughout the ship, the crew of the USS Theodore
Knight scrambled to their battle stations, adorning helmets and kapoks
as they ran. It wasn't the first time the Farragut-class destroyer had
seen action. Launched in 1931 at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in
Maine, the Theodore Knight had an active service duty garnering North
Atlantic convoy duty in the early stages of the war. After dodging
several U-boat attacks while escorting the merchant fleets, the
341-foot-long destroyer was sent back for patrol and escort duty off
the West Coast, sailing the waters from San Diego to Alaska.
Trailing three miles behind, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, was the
Liberty Ship Madison, bound for San Francisco with a cargo of lumber
and tinned salmon. Leaving the assigned cargo ship in its wake, the
Theodore Knight broached the mouth of the Pacific as its captain,
Lieutenant Commander Roy Baxter, ordered flank speed. The ship's twin
diesel turbines churned the sleek gray ship through the water like a
hound chasing a rabbit. The crew, accustomed to quiet, routine
patrols, was at an unusually heightened sense of readiness at the
prospect of facing the enemy.
Even Baxter felt his heart beat a little faster. A twenty-year Navy
man, he had seen action in the Atlantic but had grown bored with his
recent assignment on the home shores. He relished the thought of
tasting battle again, though remained skeptical about the radio report.
Japanese subs had not been seen off the coast for over a year, he knew,
and the Imperial Navy was now clearly on the defensive. "Radar?" he
demanded loudly.
"Sir, I have three small vessels approaching the channel, two from the
north and one from the west," replied the radarman without taking his
eyes off his monitor. "I have another indefinite target that appears
to be stationary lying to the southwest."
"Take us to the southern mark," Baxter barked. "And have the forward
batteries stand by for action." The commander had to suppress a grin
of excitement as he issued the orders. Maybe we'll earn our pay today,
he thought while strapping on his helmet.
Unlike their American counterparts, most Japanese submarines in World
War II were not equipped with radar. The early-warning technology was
only first deployed on Imperial submarines in mid-1944, and then
installed only on selected vessels. Most Japanese submarines instead
relied upon sound-detection equipment to reveal a distant enemy.
Although more limited in range than radar, sound detection could be
utilized underwater, and aided many a sub in avoiding a fatal
rendezvous with depth charges.
Absent a radar unit, it was the I-403^ sound operator who first became
aware of the destroyer bearing down on them.
"Vessel approaching ahead ... sound intensity one," he reported at the
first registering on his equipment.
On deck, both of the aircraft had been moved out of their hangars,
where the wings and pontoons were affixed, while repairs continued. It
was the situation Ogawa feared most. With both planes assembled but
neither ready for flight, they would have to be sacrificed should the
submarine have to
make an emergency dive.
"Deck gun at the ready," he ordered, hoping the unwelcome intruder was
yet another fishing boat.
"Sound intensity two and increasing," the sound operator relayed
calmly. "It's a ship," he added, to no one's surprise.
"Secure all aircraft and clear the aviation deck," Ogawa ordered an
ensign, who sprinted down the large deck shouting at the mechanics and
pilots as he ran. Tying down the two airplanes, the aviation crew
quickly grabbed their work tools and scurried to the hangar. The
watertight doors of the hangar were closed and sealed; then the men
dropped down another hatch into the secure body of the submarine.
"Sound intensity three, off our bow. May be a destroyer," the operator
reported, correctly identifying the churning sound of the tin can's
twin propellers.
As if on cue, the gray ship materialized out of the fog a half mile
away, the apparition of a steel wraith charging across the moor. White
foam burst off the bow in angry torrents while wisps of dark smoke
billowed from the funnel. The lean ship drove straight at the sub, an
attacking lancer not to be denied.
In an instant, the I-403's deck gun boomed as the submarine's
experienced gun crew attempted to halt the oncoming dervish. The slim,
head-on profile of the destroyer made for a difficult target, however,
and the shell passed harmlessly to one side. Hurriedly, the gun crew
took aim and fired again.
Once identifying the ship as a destroyer, Ogawa recognized the futility
of a surface duel with a superior vessel and immediately ordered a
crash dive. The mission would have to be sacrificed for the safety of
the ship and crew, he reasoned, if it wasn't already too late.
As the dive alarm sounded, the gun crew fired off a last desperate shot
before scrambling belowdecks to safety. The gunner's accuracy was
nearly dead-on, but he overcompensated the approaching speed of the
destroyer. The shell splashed into the water fifty feet directly ahead
of the American ship's bow, blasting a spray of water onto its deck but
causing no damage.
The two forward batteries of the Theodore Knight ax last came to life,
lobbing five-inch shells in succession toward the Japanese sub. The
inexperienced and adrenaline-fortified gun crew fired high, however,
placing the destroyer's shells harmlessly beyond the now-accelerating
submarine.
On the exterior bridge of the I-403, Ogawa hesitated momentarily before
dropping down the hatch, taking a final glance at his approaching
stalker. Movement caught his eye on the forward deck, where he was
surprised to see a crewman striding toward one of the
airplanes. It was a pilot, ignoring the dive command and climbing into
his plane. In the spirit of the kamikaze, the pilot could not bear the
thought of losing his aircraft and was willing to die with it instead.
Ogawa cursed his foolish bravery, then ducked down into the bridge
below.
The ballast tanks were opened and a rush of seawater began flooding in
to weigh the submarine down. The huge hull of the I-403 was a
liability in this situation, requiring a notoriously long time to
submerge. As Ogawa waited for the sub to make its agonizingly slow
descent, he played one more card.
"Prepare to fire torpedoes!" he commanded.
It was a gamble, but a calculated one at that. With the destroyer
directly ahead, Ogawa could let go a shot in the face of the ship and
make the hunter fall prey to the victim.
"Tubes loaded," the torpedo officer reported.
"Stand by tubes number one and number two," Ogawa ordered.
The destroyer was barely two hundred yards away and still belching fire
from its five-inch guns. Amazingly, the destroyer's guns continued to
miss their mark. The point-blank target of the sub slowly began to
diminish as the nose of the undersea craft dipped beneath the waves and
a wash of seawater gradually flooded over the forward deck.
"Fire one!" Ogawa shouted. Counting off three seconds silently, he
paused, then ordered, "Fire two!"
With a blast of compressed air, the two torpedoes burst out of the
forward tubes on a deadly streak toward the advancing destroyer. Each
packing an 890-pound lethal warhead, the twenty-three-foot-long,
oxygen-powered torpedoes accelerated quickly, racing toward the
Theodore Knight at better than 45 knots.
An ensign standing on the bridge wing of the destroyer noticed a seam
of white trails under the water's surface burrowing toward the ship.
"Torpedoes off the port and starboard bow!" he shouted, though his
body remained frozen in rapt fascination as he watched the speeding
explosives approach.
In an instant, the torpedoes were on them. But either by
miscalculation, divine intervention, or just plain luck, the two deadly
amazement as the two torpedoes skimmed past both sides of the
destroyer's bow, then raced down the length of the ship no more than
ten feet from either side of the hull before disappearing beyond the
stern.
"She's diving, sir," noted the destroyer's helmsman as he watched the
waves slosh over the bow of the sub.
"Steer for the conning tower," Baxter commanded. "Let's go right down
her throat."
Firing from the forward batteries had ceased, as the guns could no
longer be trained on a target so low to the ship's bow. The bat de
became a race, the destroyer boring in like a charging ram in an
attempt to batter the I-403. But the submarine was gaining depth and,
for a moment, appeared like it would successfully slip beneath the
stalking ship. The Theodore Knight had crossed over the bowline of the
sub, its keel missing the top deck of the descending sub by a matter of
feet. But the destroyer drove forward, intent on crushing the
submersing vessel.
The aircraft were the first to feel the sharp wedge of the destroyer's
prow. Partially submerged on the receding deck, the randomly aligned
airplanes just caught the surging bow of the ship at mid height and
were instantly dissected into large sections of mangled metal, fabric,
and debris. The defiant pilot, who had climbed into the cockpit of the
first airplane, received little time for impudence before realizing his
wish to die with his plane in a crushing blow.
The I-403 itself was now half submerged and had so far avoided damage
from the assault. But the sub's conning tower was too great a
protrusion and could not escape the charging wrath of the ship. With a
crunching shear, the bow of the destroyer tore into the vessel's
console, slicing through it like a scythe. Ogawa and his operations
officers
were killed instantly as the ship crushed into and through the control
center of the sub. The entire structure was ripped away from the body
of the submarine as the destroyer continued its onslaught, carving a
mutilating gash along the rear spine of the I-403. Inside, the doomed
crew heard the screeching grind of metal on metal be
fore the torrents
of seawater burst in and flooded the compartments. Death came quickly
but painfully to the drowning men as the sub lurched, then dropped
rapidly to the seafloor. A smattering of air bubbles and oil boiled to
the surface to mark the gravesite, then all was silent.
Aboard the Theodore Knight, the crew and officers cheered their
destruction of the Japanese submarine as they watched the telltale
slick of black oil and fuel pool on the surface like a death cloud
above the sunken boat. How lucky they were to have found and destroyed
an enemy vessel right on their own home shores, with not so much as a
casualty on their own ship. Though the enemy had fought with valor,
the victory had come easily. The crew would return to port as heroes,
with a great tale to tell their grandchildren. What none of the men on
the destroyer could have suspected or imagined, however, was the
unspeakable horror that would have befallen their countrymen had the
I-403 succeeded in its mission. Nor could they know that the horror
still awaited, silently beckoning from the depths of the shattered
wreckage.
Mystery trawler and NUMA
May 22, 2007 The Aleutian Islands, Alaska
The winds swirled LIGHTLY about the faded yellow tin hut perched on a
small bluff overlooking the sea. A few light snowflakes danced about
the eaves of the structure before falling to the ground and melting
amid the grass and tundra. Despite the nearby hum of a diesel
generator, a wooly Siberian husky lay on a sun-exposed patch of loose
gravel enjoying a deep sleep. A white-feathered arctic tern swooped by
for a look, then stopped momentarily on the small building's roof.