Sub

Description

True tales of life and death as told by those who fought in the briny depths.

From the undersea warfare of World War II through the Cold War stand-offs in the deep to the cutting-edge technology of the modern U.S. Navy, submarines have evolved into the front line of our nation’s defense at sea. And the men who sail them have become heroes above and below the waves. These are their stories.

Compiled from interviews and recollections from submarine veterans and accompanied by detailed photos and illustrations of both man and machine at work, Sub is a gripping chronicle of undersea warfare as told by those who know firsthand what it means to drop through the hull of a boat, to sink into the dark, freezing waters of the deep-and to have death never more than one torpedo away.Mark Roberts is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Strike Force Baghdad, Precision Strike, and Sub.

“SURFACE! SURFACE!”

We blew out the tanks and were able to get part of the way up. The pharmacist’s mate was able to close the lower conning tower hatch, which stopped the water from coming down into the control room. However, before we fully surfaced, we had flooded the pump room, and taken in about a foot and a half of water into the control room.

As a result we lost all hydraulics, radar—we didn’t have any surface coverage. The air search radar was the only electronics we had because it was up in the control tower, above the water.

What was really bad was that we couldn’t make air to breathe, and we had to survive on the air we had in the bottles. Each compartment has a way to open and close the ballast tanks, so we had to do hand dives into the compartments to reach those valves. We were crawling around in dark compartments, wearing Momson Lungs, with watertight battle lanterns, searching for those petcocks.

Everybody was hoping he could hold his breath long enough to find those valves.…

—Stanley J. Nicholls, LCDR, USN (Ret.)

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SUB

AN ORAL HISTORY OF
U.S. NAVY SUBMARINES

MARK ROBERTS

BERKLEY CALIBER, NEW YORK

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright © 2007 by Bill Fawcett & Associates

Cover design by Steven Ferlauto; Cover photo courtesy of Stocktrek Images

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PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley Caliber hardcover editon / April 2007

Berkley Caliber trade paperback editon / April 2008

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Berkley Caliber hardcover editon as follows:

Roberts, Mark K.

Sub : an oral history of U.S. Navy submarines/By Mark K. Roberts.

p.   cm.

ISBN: 978-1-101-66423-0

1. United States. Navy—Submarine forces—History. 2. United States. Navy—Submarine forces—Biography. 3. Oral history. I. Title.

V858.R63 2007

359.9’30973—dc22

INTRODUCTION

Since the first drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, men have dreamed of an underwater vessel suitable for transportation and use as a weapon of war. The first truly effective “submersible” saw service in the American Civil War and managed to sink several surface ships. Yet it remained far distant from the ultimate, which we will examine later in the SSN-class boats. By 1940, the submarine was a far more sophisticated craft than in any of da Vinci’s wildest dreams.

On the eve of WWII, the United States Navy Submarine Service still used boats from the WWI era for training and as some fleet boats. There were some more modern boats available, built in the 1930s, but they also followed the design plans of the boats built between 1918 and 1920. Cramped and crowded, they smelled horribly after even a short cruise. The torpedoes they fired were hit-and-miss at best, totally ineffective at worst.

Within these pages you will read the remarkable stories of some of the men who served with such valor through World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Gulf One, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Life on a submarine is not all adventure and excitement. Frequently it is dull, monotonous routine. There is constant training to keep the edge; there’s always equipment and machinery to repair, spaces to be cleaned, and the daily tasks of living to be attended to. However, a huge difference exists between life on shore or on a large vessel like an aircraft carrier, and life in a submarine.

An artist’s rendition of the USS Grayback releasing UDT-carrying SDVs while still underwater. Courtesy of United States Navy

For example, taking a shower—something most people take for granted—is a major undertaking in a sub. In the early boats, they might be taken once or twice during a patrol. It was impossible to wash clothing, and men continued to sweat and produce odors, hence the derogatory name for the sub, “Pig Boat.” When the nuclear subs came along, the quantity of fresh water produced daily greatly increased. The advent of washing machines also helped to make the atmosphere more pleasant, as did improved air filtration equipment.

Through it all, though, the men and the boats they served in remained tough and resolute. Meet them now.

A sailor eating a sandwich beneath the propellers of a torpedo being loaded aboard a U.S. submarine at New London, Connecticut, August 1943.

Courtesy of United States Navy

Gold dolphins are worn by officers, silver by enlisted ranks.

Courtesy of United States Navy

1

JOSEPH MCGRIEVY

COMMANDER, USN (RET.)

Joe McGrievy went from seaman recruit in 1943 to retirement as full commander in 1989.

His training consisted mostly of On the Job Training (OJT) aboard diesel subs and classroom work in the crew’s quarters. Like his friend Stan Nicholls, by the time Joe McGrievy arrived on station at Midway, very few Japanese cargo and tanker vessels remained to pick on; combat vessels were even harder to find. More adventure awaited McGrievy after the war, when he served in nuclear subs off the coast of Vietnam during that country’s conflict.

One day, when I was a kid, I looked out on the sidewalk in St. Louis and saw a big man coming up the way with a sea bag on his shoulder and a very large, flat hat. That was my cousin Harry. He had just completed a tour of duty on the Asiatic Fleet. He gave me his dress blue jumper. I put that on and my grandmother couldn’t get it off me. Even to take a bath, she couldn’t get it off me. That made a big impression on a kid, because I always wanted to be in the navy. Always.

When I hit eighteen…I was eighteen on June 14, 1936. I joined the navy on August 17, 1936. I went to Great Lakes, Illinois, for my boot training. When I completed my boot training, my first ship was the USS Holland, a submarine tender, AS-3. I got on board the Holland as a seaman second class; I made first class on my second try. There were only 480,000 people in the navy at the time. Whenever I worked overside in my undress blues, I could see these submarines tied up alongside. The crew was sitting up topside in dungarees, having their ten o’clock soup and coffee.

I told myself, “I think I’d like that.”

As time went by, I became involved with signal instruction. I worked with the signalmen and quartermasters who worked as signalmen. We worked with the signal lamps—flashing lights—and with semaphore flags. This close association gave me the chance to stand watch on both the tender and the subs, which offered me an opportunity to learn more about the submarine service.

One day, one of the sub guys came up to me and said, “Hey, Joe, how’d you like to come down for lunch?”

I told him yes and went on board the sub, the USS Pickerel. We went down below and he took me in and introduced me to the executive officer.

Then he says, “Mr. Executive Officer, here’s the guy you’ve been looking for. He’s a seaman first class and a signalman striker.” The exec agreed, so I put in my papers for a transfer and joined that sub crew.

We took the Pickerel up to Alaska in 1937 and began sounding the bottom. We didn’t know why we were doing it, then. It was presented as something that needed to be done for safe underwater navigation in the future; those soundings off Alaska and the Aleutian Islands were part of it. I was permanently attached to the Pickerel and served in her on the Asiatic Station until my enlistment ran out. Earlier, when we got the word about new construction, I went to the captain and told him I would extend my enlistment for new construction. I received my term in construction and went back to Portsmouth [NS Portsmouth, Maine] to put the USS Searaven (SS 196) in commission.

USS Pickerel (SS 177) at sea.

Courtesy of United States Navy

USS Searaven (SS 196).

Courtesy of United States Navy

By then, I had been married for a while. Our daughter was born on August 1, 1941, and on August 27 we left port. We arrived in San Diego, where we were supposedly stationed. We stayed a week and shipped out for Pearl Harbor. We stayed there for two weeks, and then we were on our way out to the Asiatic Station. Ironically enough, I tied up right alongside the ship I’d just left: the Pickerel. The guys aboard the Pickerel got a big laugh out of that. Our sub flotilla tied up in the Philippines. In fact, I was in Manila Bay the day the war started. At that time, I was a second class signalman. I qualified in submarines and then along came the war.

We left Manila on December 11 and we went out on our first patrol run. We weren’t sure what the hell would happen. We had never even fought a war. We hadn’t even conditioned ourselves to fight a war. Our skipper would not even let the chow barge come alongside because he was worried that someone might carry a hand grenade or something on board, so we had just what chow we had. We had our torpedoes to put aboard, because we’d just off-loaded [for maintenance] and we were scheduled to relieve the Sealion and the Seadragon at the navy yard at Cavite with the Searaven and the Seawolf. So, anyway, we reloaded our torpedoes and took on some chow from the Kanopus and got underway.

Our first run lasted forty-eight days and it was a pitiful thing. We ran out of coffee; we ran out of cigarettes. It was terrible because our skipper did not know anything about fighting a war. I thought the war would be over in about three weeks, that we would whip the Japs, but it didn’t happen that way. As it was, I ended up making four runs on the Searaven. Our skipper was relieved after the second run, and Hiram Cassidy took over. Cassidy was, at the time, executive officer on the Sailfish, which was the old Whalen. Frank Walker was our exec at the time we made our third patrol run. And that’s when we got some shooting done.

We left Fremantle, Australia, and entered our patrol area off the Philippines. When we were under water most of the day, the crew knew little about what went on. It was one of those things that the ship’s company didn’t know very much about. It was strictly the captain and the exec, although I was in the conning tower on the helm as my battle station. We acquired a target, and judging from the headings I was being given, I was convinced we were lining up a shot. Suddenly, I heard, “Fire torpedoes! Fire torpedoes!” We got one hit on the ship and that was it. Right away, we went deep because, once again, we didn’t know how to fight a war.

USS Sailfish (SS 192) on patrol in 1943.

Courtesy of United States Navy

We went back into Fremantle and were told that on our next patrol we would be going to Corregidor. “You’re going to take fifty tons of three-inch ammunition up there, which they need to fight airplanes,” our exec told us.

So we loaded fifty tons of boxed three-inch fifty-caliber high-explosive shells in the fore and aft torpedo rooms, and off we went. There were no ladders leading up to the wardroom; only the engine room and the after battery had ladders to the topside. We got about one-fourth of the way from Corregidor and we got word that the defenses had surrendered.

At that point, we were told to go out to our usual patrol area. When we reached it and began patrol runs, we were contacted again and told to stop what we were doing and go to the island of Timor to rescue some Australian flyers whose plane had been downed.

Let me give a little background on this patrol assignment:

Somewhere on the island of Timor, a transport had landed and discharged a group of Australian Air Force personnel. These men had been sent to beef up the base maintenance group, which had arrived at Timor earlier in September 1941. They quickly settled into their barracks and enjoyed good solid meals served by Timorese waiters. They were experiencing another culture, drinking in both the island’s beauty and beer.

About this same time, the submarine Searaven (SS 196), with an American crew of about sixty-five men and officers, was operating in and around the seas surrounding the Philippine Islands. Fully aware of the possibility of war, all units of the Asiatic Fleet were on full wartime footing. From the vantage of hindsight, we can look and wonder at the part fate played in the lives of these two groups.

As mentioned above, on December 7, Pearl Harbor Day—actually December 8 in the Western Pacific—Searaven was preparing to enter the Cavite Naval Shipyard for a short upkeep and overhaul period. Suddenly, with little or no warning, bombs rained down on the capital city of Manila and the American ships in Manila Bay, and the war was on.

Over the next year, the superior Japanese forces moved rapidly, extending their will and power throughout the entire Southwestern Pacific region, from the Philippines to the Great Barrier Reef just north of Australia. The Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, Java, and Timor were the constant targets of the Japanese Navy men-o’-war and the swift and deadly Zeros of the carrier forces. An invasion of paratroopers and, finally, a landing of army troops during continual bombing and strafing followed. This was the fate that befell Timor as it became a Japanese stronghold.

Before retreating from the oncoming Japanese forces, the Aussie Air Force personnel destroyed the communications towers, the landing strip, ammunition, and fuel oil storage, and left the area in a state of ruin. They then took off into the jungle, seeking a means of escape. We learned that before the Aussie Air Force members destroyed their base, headquarters in Australia had informed the group that rescue from their end was not possible. They promised a corvette and later promised flying boats. All attempts ended days later, when Japanese bombings destroyed Broome and Darwin. By the time fate intervened and we entered the picture, the air guys were on their own in a wild jungle, pursued by the Japanese Army.

Arriving off the shores of Timor, Searaven reconnoitered the beach and surrounding jungles by periscope during the day, hoping to find evidence of the survivors or a visual signal from them. Surfacing later in darkness, we approached the vicinity of the rescue position as close to the beach as possible. A fire was seen on the beach, leading the submariners to believe this was the location of the rescue. The exec called for volunteers to go ashore and verify.

Ensign George Cook was assigned as the boat officer and put in charge of the operation. “All right,” he asked, “who wants to go ashore?”

“Okay, I’ll go,” I piped up.

My friend Swede Markeson, quartermaster first class (submarine service) agreed to go with us. In preparation for our trip to Timor, a small, sixteen-foot wherry, carried in the submarine’s superstructure, was hoisted over the side to carry us ashore. We were loaded for bear. We had machine guns and hand grenades, food, water, brandy—a little bit of everything.

“Good luck, men.” The captain’s wishes ghosted to us over the increasing distance between us and the submarine.

With fate already playing a hand, bad luck struck immediately. Although the diesel engine had a pressure cover on it to protect it from water, it had gone for months and months without being used. So the engine failed to start, and no amount of elbow grease, cussing, or repair work could get it to cough to life.

The crew hastily manufactured paddles out of the tops of the ammunition boxes. With three very unwieldy oars in hand, we volunteers headed for the beach. The currents remained swift, the sea rough, and the useless engine remained an obstacle to rowing. Worse yet, sharks as big as torpedoes were observed knifing through the water. The Japanese loomed all around, and no further signals came from the beach. Our first attempt at rescue was a dismal failure.

Cook swam to the beach, heading for a fire we had observed from seaward. Landing on shore, he shouted out, “Hello! I am George Cook, an ensign in the United States Navy. Come out, show yourselves.”

His voice came faintly to us two volunteers in the boat. He continued to call out and stride toward the fire area. When he arrived in full sight of the blaze, he saw a group of shadows hustling into the jungle darkness. Unsure, for they could have been the enemy, Cook returned to the small boat and we beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the Searaven.

LT Cook reported what had happened to the captain, who thought a second, then said, “Oh, hell, let’s get out of here. We’ll report to headquarters, then wait for further orders.”

With dawn approaching, Searaven headed to the open sea, charged batteries, and headed toward Australia. Before submerging, we sent a report to headquarters, covering the events of the night.

They replied, “Stay there. Go back. They’ll be there Friday night at nine o’clock.” In addition, they gave us the identification signal: SR-SR.

Submerged, we went through our routine duties through the rest of the day. Tension became something we could almost touch. Surfacing that night, we were informed that the rescue was still in order.

When Searaven reached the rescue area, the small boat was hoisted overside once again. This time without the engine—it had been removed and jettisoned the night before. We three volunteers were outfitted with some first-class paddles the engineers had made. We were soon on our way to the shoreline. Once we reached a spot near the line of breakers, about five hundred yards off the beach, we tossed a makeshift anchor—made from a Fairbanks-Morse diesel cylinder—over the side. The three of us went into the water and headed for the beach. We trailed long lines behind us. These lines were the only connections with the small boat. I thought I was the smart one; I took along a mattress cover to drift along with the tide, going faster as I swam. Then, when I looked over the top of the bag, the island was quite a bit off my starboard hand. So I wound up with a lot of swimming to do.

When we reached the beach, we reacted in horror to the sight of thirty-four or thirty-five Australians in various stages of near-death. Most of them suffered from malaria and malnutrition; many had tropical ulcers under the armpits or between their legs, and three of them were stretcher cases. Those heaving lines, which we brought in with us, were our only communication with the beach.

After a close examination and a brief discussion, a guy named Rolf, who was the warrant officer in charge of the Aussies, said, “Who can swim and who can’t swim, and who’s healthy and who’s not healthy? We’re going to take the healthy ones. They can fight again. You other guys, we’ll come back and get you later.” The wounded and sickly would wait until the second trip. It was a harsh decision for him to have to make, but necessary to their point of view.

We three Americans led the selected group out through the surf. With all the trouble we had with the boat, Cook returned to the wherry in order to be available to hoist the weakened men into the boat. Markeson and I swam alongside the men who were not going hand-over-hand along the line. All sixteen men in the first group made it to the boat, but not without one close shave and two near-casualties.

Two of the men, weakened further by the exertion of hauling themselves along the line, swallowed a lot of salt water. They let go to see if they could get to the boat on their own and found themselves being swept farther away from the small craft. Cook, standing on the stern of the boat, directed Swede Markeson and me to get the Aussies back to the line and on toward the sub. Leonard and I got to the Aussies and wrestled them back toward the boat. Even in their weakened condition, they fought their rescuers. It took almost superhuman strength to get them back to that line and to the sub.

Time was now our major enemy. When the small boat reached the submarine, dawn was not too far away. The passengers were hurriedly lowered belowdecks, given first aid, bowls of hot tomato soup, sandwiches, cigarettes, and clean skivvies. The small boat was hoisted in, as the skipper decided the risk was too great to try another rescue trip at this time. The remainder of the party that stayed on the beach was notified that the submarine would return the next night to pick them up. Knowing that the Japanese Army was but one half-day’s march away from their position, these brave men sent a brief but cheery message, “Okay, Yank, good on ya.”

Searaven returned to deep water, charging batteries en route. The Australians were hurriedly indoctrinated into life aboard a submarine. Our COB handed out information slips to instruct them as to what to do in case of an emergency, where and when smoking would be permitted, and the all-important “how to blow the head” (how to flush the toilet, quite an operation aboard a submarine). A peaceful day was spent submerged off the island. The Aussies were greatly concerned about the safety of their mates left on the beach. They knew the Japanese were not too far away, for they had received a note from the Japanese stating the group would be treated with kindness if they surrendered. Our submarine crew tried to assure them that the small boat would beat the Japanese to the punch. Plans were formulated as to how we would get the stretcher cases off the island. This time our CO insisted that different volunteers from the previous night take the boat into the beach. We quickly talked him out of that with a counterproposal.

Being that we had been there once and knew how things went, the decision was made to take one additional man, who would remain with the boat and assist in helping the injured into the boat. The three swimmers would secure the wrists of the badly injured with bandage material, loop the bound arms around the neck of a swimmer, and then swim them through the surf to the small wherry. All agreed this was the best solution to the problem.

After dark, Searaven surfaced and again headed for a position as close to the breakers as would be considered prudent. When the submarine reached an acceptable position, the small boat was hoisted over the side for a third trip to the beach. Johnny Lintz, a hefty, strong, young chief machinist mate, was the fourth man in the boat. He remained with the small craft while we three swimmers—Swede Markeson, Cook, and I—headed to the beach to effect a rescue of the stretcher cases.

When we reached the beach, we were greeted with a cheer and a “Thanks, Yanks, for coming back for us.”

We accepted their gratitude curtly; there was a lot to do.

The Japanese had chased these men around the island for about three months. They didn’t have a lot to eat; their bones showed, and all of those left were very weak. I took the first man on my back and entered the water. It took me great effort to instruct a semiconscious man on how he would have to act as we came to the breakers. I tried my best to get through to him as we headed out. When we reached a depth of water where the patient became less of a load, I took hold of the line and began to hand-over-hand the long trip through the surf to the anchored vessel. Forcing our way through the surf was a major undertaking, since we had to make sure the injured passenger did not swallow too much seawater.

When I reached the small boat, Lintz made short work of getting the injured man into the bottom of the wherry. In a few minutes, Markeson arrived with his first passenger, followed close behind Cook, who deposited his man into the boat. We got two boatloads to Searaven and went back for another. We quickly loaded them and started out. At this moment, while we sucked in deep draughts of breath, the seas decided to change a very smooth rescue into a tragedy: The wind began to blow and the seas began to mount. Our small boat began to drag anchor and finally turned broadside to the waves.

In a flash, the boat was swept toward the beach. It smashed through the breakers and deposited itself—we four Americans and three injured Aussies—onto the sand of the beach. Fighting time, we got the injured and sick men into the bottom of the boat, and shoved the wherry back toward the breakers. All hands took hold of the boat wherever they could grab. Forcing our way forward in the rising waves became daunting. We struggled and struggled—and lost. Overpowered by the pounding waves, we shot through the surf until we crashed on the beach. No sooner than we regained our breath, we started out again. This time we gained maybe ten yards over our first attempt, only to be defeated again by the Pacific waters.

Our third try resulted in another disastrous failure. Three tries and we blew them! Finally, we gathered our last bit of strength and asked the Almighty for a helping hand and made another try. We put the sickest ones in the bottom of the boat, those a little better we put on the oars, the ones in best shape we put in the water with us. Then we set out. Suddenly, the water that churned around us seemed to change for the better. The Good Lord reached out a hand and picked up the stern and shoved that little boat and its battling crew into calmer waters. From there, the rowers were able to make forward progress. After getting all hands into the boat with considerable struggle, we made our way back to Searaven.

Our task of transferring the seven rescued men onto the submarine and getting them belowdecks almost ended in another tragedy. The first man brought aboard was a semicomatose Aussie who drifted in and out of consciousness. Some of our crew shoved him aft on the deck in order to facilitate getting the others aboard. Finally, the small boat was empty and hoisted in, and topside was secured. Searaven prepared to head to sea and dive, for dawn was not too far away. When the order was passed down, “Secure the hatches,” a sailor came topside to close the afterbattery hatch.

Suddenly, he thought he heard someone moaning and trying to call. He said it sounded like, “Hey, mite, wot abute mei?” Our seaman froze for a second then looked around and spotted the stretcher on the afterdeck area. He shakily alerted the captain on the bridge. Searaven was slowed and a bunch of willing hands came topside to lower the injured man, Phil Kean, to the safety of belowdecks. Worse luck was to follow.

En route to Australia, a major fire broke out in the maneuvering room. A small loosened bolt had fallen into the main electrical cubical and [fire] rapidly spread. There is nothing more dangerous than a fire aboard a submarine—whether it’s surfaced or submerged. The fire running through the boat flowed so fast the cries came in rapid succession: “Fire in the forward engine room! Fire in the aft engine room! Fire in the control room! Fire in the after torpedo room!” That’s the way it went.

I went to the aft torpedo room, because that was where I was stationed at the time. There was a lot of heat and dense smoke, with people all around, coughing and confused. I couldn’t find the ladder to the hatch trunk in the center overhead to close the hatch—there’s no ladder below the inner combing of the trunk of the hatch. I forgot that there was no ladder. There was this guy, by the name of Neal Nemick. He was chief torpedoman in the after room. He had just finished making sure the door was dogged down and was coming back when he saw me. He reached out and grabbed me and threw me up into the hatch trunk, where I grabbed the ladder, pulled myself up, and closed the hatch. That quickly got rid of the smoke. I went down into the emergency fresh water tank and filled up some rags with fresh water so the guys could breathe a little better. We fought the fire for an hour. Finally, we took all the unused extinguishers left aboard the ship and threw them into the engine rooms. With the hatches closed and the ventilation system secured, the fire snuffed itself out.

After morning came, we surfaced and radioed headquarters for help and the crew turned to. We took stock and found that we had a couple of Lewis machine guns, a couple of fifty-caliber Browning automatics and a three-inch gun. We had no propulsion. The electricians and the machinists had worked all night trying to get something hooked up. They finally got cables hooked up and working. After hours of hard effort, we were able to jury-rig the auxiliary engine to the main electrical system and produce enough power to proceed at about two knots. We kept going, more influenced by the tidal flow than the power of our engine. All at once, our lookout spotted an approaching aircraft. For all we knew, the only planes nearby were Japanese, but no matter, there was nothing we could do about it. We were supposed to get coverage from Australia. So we watched as an old PBY (seaplane) came in close and circled around and says [sic] on the radio, “I’m your coverage.” About fifteen minutes later he radioed to let us know he was low on fuel and had to go back to base. The HMAS Marlborough, an Australian corvette, came out and an Aussie submarine, the Saurie, came alongside us, hooked onto our anchor cable, and started towing us. Then we got airplanes on the NXP radar, so the Saurie cut loose and submerged. We were left alone on the surface. All of a sudden—no aircraft. (The NXP radar wasn’t every effective; a good-sized pigeon could set it off.) Anyway, the HMS Saurie resurfaced and took us under tow again. She towed us back to Australia at roughly ten knots in rough seas. We felt like a carp on the end of a fishing pole. We got back and had one anchor left, which we dropped in the center of the bay, returning the rescuers and the rescued to the port of Fremantle. The injured were taken from the submarine under highly secretive orders. The Allied governments did not want the Japanese to know that American submarines were being utilized as rescue-and-delivery vessels. The Aussies went to the hospital to recover, and we were towed in the next day and tied up right alongside the pier. We stayed in Fremantle for quite a while, taking on supplies and having repairs done and got all new people [aboard], who had come over from the States. At last, Searaven went back on patrol to take up the business of sinking enemy shipping. On our departure we received a very heartfelt, warm, sincere “Thank You” from the Australian Navy, but not much else. No liberty in Perth, no medals. That was the end of our fourth run.

After we got under way on the way out of Fremantle, I was starting up the aft ladder and the skipper was coming down, so I stood aside.

The captain stopped and turned to me and said, “McGrievy, I hate to say this, but I’m transferring you.”

I said, “What for? I put the boat into commission. I own [had his signature on] three tiers of rebar.”

“They need people back home, because the boats are building so fast they need crews over there.”

So I went to the Skipjack, which was the 184 Boat [SS 184], and that of Jesse Wiggins Cohen. He had been skipper of the Ness boat when he got the Skipjack. While he was with us, he wrote this wonderful letter about toilet paper. It was [a communication] for tending ship, 137s they called them. What you did was write down anything you wanted: stock number, paper, toilet. He sent it back to Mare Island and the Mare Island people reply, “Cannot identify.” Then the skipper would write up another requisition form with another stock number and send along a square of toilet paper and wrote this letter, in which he told this supply officer how we’re using air sacks and dungaree pant legs and all sorts of things trying to take care of our bodily needs. We couldn’t figure out why he could not find any toilet paper; it was hanging from everything in the supply department.

“Cap” Clemmins was exec and we did sink two ships on that run. So, when we get back to Pearl, the pier was stacked with toilet paper, just stacked with it. The band was all wearing toilet paper ties; they had toilet paper stuffed in their instruments so that when they’d go ump-pa-pa the toilet paper would go flying out. Admiral Lockwood was down to meet us, along with all his staff.

Our skipper said to Hide, our quartermaster, “Go down and get that pipe with all that toilet paper on it. We’ve been bitchin’ about it, let’s go get some.”

Anyway, we took the Skipjack back to the States and I was assigned to the USS Skate. I went aboard and was on the Skate for about ten days, when I got a set of orders to report to the Seahorse (SS 304). I went to the Seahorse; our skipper was Don McGregor and our exec was Slade Cutter. I’d known Slade Cutter since I was a young seaman on the Pickerel in San Diego.

One day Slade calls me into his office and says, “McGrievy, I’m making you chief of the boat.”

USS Skate (SSN 578) was the first submarine to surface at the North Pole.

Courtesy of United States Navy

And I said, “Mr. Cutter, you’ve got two chief petty officers who have twelve, fourteen, sixteen years’ service. I’m a boot; I’ve got only eight.”

He replied, “You’ve got something they haven’t got. You’ve got five war patrols.”

So I went on as COB. I took the first routine Navy Yard work, getting the boat ready to go to sea. I was working hard; the crew worked hard right along with the yard personnel, because if we didn’t get the boat ready, the crew would be transferred. As it happened, we all worked fast and hard enough to get the boat going. One of my jobs was to take the crew up to the lookout training area and take night-vision training, because regulations declared everyone on the entire ship had to be able to function as lookouts. Therefore, I started taking them up there, some twenty-five the first day. The chief explained what would happen.

“Once you are in the chamber, I’ll slowly turn the rheostat up and the light in the background will start coming up. As soon as any of you spots anything, holler ‘Mark!’ and then you identify it.” He paused and said, “Here we go.”

And I immediately said, “Mark.”

“What’s that?” the chief asked.

“I see an oiler, a tanker or something like that. Bearing zero-nine-zero.”

He said, “Lucky guess. Let’s try it again.”

So we started out again and boom! I called out a destroyer.

Finally the chief said, “You don’t need this drill, you catch ‘em before I get ‘em out there.”

The upshot was I could see better at night than most people can during the day, although I had to wear glasses to read. I never needed glasses for distance. Finally, we went out on our first run with Don McGregor as skipper. We made contact with the enemy and fired six torpedoes at a tanker making fifteen knots away from us. Firing range was seventy-five hundred yards. Torpedoes don’t run that far, even at low speeds. Our torpedoes just ran out and exploded and that was it.

As a result, McGregor was going to put Slade Cutter and Phil Budding out of the navy, or at least out of the submarine force, because he didn’t think they were “submarine-type people.” We pulled into Midway Island after that miserable patrol and Admiral Lockwood was at Midway to welcome us. First thing, he relieved Don McGregor and sent him back to the Bureau and made Slade Cutter skipper. It wasn’t long before I heard the rumor that went around the ship that Slade was a madman and no one wanted to go to sea with him.

I went up to the Wardroom and Slade said, “Mac you’ve got something on your mind?”

So I said, “Yeah, I have, Captain. There’s some of our people don’t want to go to sea with you. They think you are a madman.”

“Fine,” he says. “At quarters tomorrow morning, make a list of those who don’t want to go and we’ll have them transferred.”

I got up before quarters and said, “All right, sailors, if you don’t want to go to sea with Slade take one step forward. And when you take that step, know that you will be going elsewhere.”

One guy stepped forward, and that was all. So we got rid of him in a hurry and we all went to sea with Slade Cutter. Under Slade Cutter we made four patrol runs on the Seahorse, and he sank more ships on those four patrol runs than any other boat in all of their runs. He was the second-biggest ship sinker, who sunk the most ships in the least number of runs. Some skippers made larger kills, but it took them up to seven, eight, nine, or more runs to build up their records.

We were running out [from our base] and we contacted this convoy. We started chasing it. It was moving slowly enough that we end-a-rounded it. When we drew closer, we saw that there were four ships and four escorts. I was on the bridge, handling the lookout job, what with my good eyes. Slade fired two torpedoes at the fourth ship in line, then two at the third ship in line, and two more at the second ship in line and then said, “Right full rudder.”

As we started to turn, I caught sight of a destroyer coming around the bow of the first ship in line. If we had continued that right full rudder command, we would have been exposed to that tin can.

I shouted, “Check that!” and we went to left full rudder. By then the ships began blowing up and that was the end of our worry. When we settled down, we chased that convoy for quite a while. We went down five hundred feet and took a break for a while.

During this time I was pretty much our permanent lookout. I always kept a pair of glasses [binoculars] next to my bunk, so I could grab them whenever we surfaced to make an attack run or to recharge batteries at night. I’d go up on the bridge and into the lookout station and, if I saw smoke or a ship on the horizon, I’d notify the captain and we’d dive. Slade Cutter proved to me to be the best skipper I ever served under through these patrols.

I was at my station on the bridge. The exec, Steve “Speed” Curry was OOD (Officer of the Deck). He was giving speed and range to the skipper in the conning tower. We could see the Japs on deck going about their business as we made our way through the convoy and its escorts.

Suddenly, the Japs spotted us. I could see them run to their guns and open fire on us.

The skipper yelled up, “Speed, let me know if they get too close to us and we’ll dive.”

Speed was a hell of a good exec and a real Southern gentleman. He talked with a slow, Southern drawl and they called him Speed because he did not do anything fast, including speaking. I didn’t think he would ever get the word to the captain to dive. I was damned close to shouting, “Dive!” myself, because the first shot was so close. [Remark made off record: “This next part, from Slade Cutter, embarrasses the hell outta me.”]

“Chief Quartermaster Joseph McGrievy was the ultimate chief of the boat—the top enlisted man aboard any submarine and right behind the exec in value to the skipper’s command. McGrievy was Curry’s man and brought things to me regularly on a man-to-man basis, yet was respectful. He was truly a naval professional petty officer and a top submariner.

“McGrievy had the best night vision of anyone on the boat. He was like a cat. I made several night attacks during the war, but we could get in closer and didn’t have to worry about escorts. I put McGrievy on the periscope. I couldn’t see anything, but he could see those black hulls through the ’scope. The way he did it was to move the ’scope from the black blurb until he could see a star, then he would move back to the hulk and say, ‘Fire!’ Then he would move the ’scope back the other direction until he saw another star and then swing back and say, ‘Fire!’ He was inside their bow and inside their stern and that’s when he estimated where the middle of the target would be. That’s when he was an enlisted man and I made him an officer. He was also my OOD at night during battle stations-surface. When we made a night approach—and mind you, he was only a petty officer—I would be in the conning tower where I had the Torpedo Data Computer (TDC), he was feeding data to me such as the bearing and disposition of the target ship. He was invaluable and absolutely fearless.”

[Interviewer: “It’s great!”]

Yeah, but I was only about twenty-seven years old then. Now I’d think a little before doing anything like that.

I came back and got in Sailfish and we went to Guantanamo Bay Naval Station (Gitmo) and we trained DEs (Destroyer Escort Class) for anti-submarine warfare. They were going to the Pacific, so we weren’t there very long. We arrived there in early May and left in August. From there we pulled into the Philadelphia Navy Ship Yard and the war ended for us on August 15. I was assigned to the Nineteenth Fleet, which was deactivating and decommissioning submarines and putting them in storage for future use—what they later called the Mothball Fleet. The next thing I know, I get a set of orders for squadron commander for a group of LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks) in Cold Springs, Florida, on the Saint John’s River.

When I got on the ship I talked to—ah—Cleveland, a submarine four-striper and he said, “Yeah, and they’re sending me to a carrier, so you might as well throw your medals away.” Then he said, “You know Slade Cutter, don’t you?”

I said, “Yeah, I know Slade.”

“Slade’s got a boat up at Portsmouth. Why don’t you give him a call?”

So I got back to Philadelphia and called Slade. Meantime my wife was in the hospital, awaiting the arrival of our son. I made my call and said, “Slade I need a favor here. They’re trying to transfer me to some surface unit. I need a boat.”

And he said, “Pack your bag and come on up.”

I replied, “Cap’n, you don’t do things like that. This is peacetime.”

He repeated, “Pack your bag and come on up. I’ll have a set of orders for you before you arrive.”

So I thanked him and went on to the hospital where my son was born. Two days later, Monday, I took my wife upstairs [in our home] to bed and I was on my way to Portsmouth. Slade left the boat about three months after I got in the yard, but I just stayed and went on with my naval career.

Slade was the guy who changed my life. I’d told him that before, but now I put it in writing. I still keep in touch with him. He went from Portsmouth to instruct at the Academy. I enjoyed my thirty years in the navy. I loved the navy. Nothing stands out more than that rescue of the Australians. I made a lot of good friends on that operation. When they had their first reunion, I went down to Australia and we had a grand old time.

2

STANLEY J. NICHOLLS

LCDR, USN (RET.)

On October 5, 1945, the chief of naval operations released a final tally of warship losses in World War II. It appeared to be a staggering number: 696 ships of all types. However, call to mind that a good number of these were destroyed at anchor or tied up to piers at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Included in the total are two battleships, five fleet aircraft carriers, six escort carriers, seven heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, a terrible toll of seventy-one destroyers and fifty-two submarines.

On November 16, Fleet Admiral King made the demoralizing statement when he testified before Congress, that the rapid demobilization of the navy was causing a major disintegration of capability. In particular, he remarked on the massive reduction in submarines. According to King’s testimony, “the navy could not fight a major battle.” The next day, Fleet Admiral Nimitz addressed the issue of defense unification by stating, “Unification would hinder the navy and reduce the role of sea power in the nation’s defense.” Nimitz went on to state that, “A separate air force is no more needed than a special agency to control submarines.”

US

Additional information

Dimensions	0.6500 × 6.0000 × 9.0000 in
Imprint	Dutton Caliber
ISBN-13	09780425219522
ISBN-10	0425219526
Author	Mark Roberts
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	HIS027110, HIS027100
Subjects	army books, military history, dad gifts, fathers day gifts, history gifts, military history books, world war 2 books, gifts for history buffs, historical books, history buff gifts, history lovers gifts, Hiroshima, history teacher gifts, war books, ww 2, war history books, ww ii, HIS027110, submarines, navy seals, navy books, Navy, history, gifts for dad, war, american history, military, naval history, WWII, WW2, world war ii, submarine, world war 2, battles, history books, world war two, army, HIS027100, hitler, pearl harbor, us history, European history