Submarine! by Edward L. Beach Page A

The decks and bulkheads are slippery, and literally alive with water. The humidity is exactly 100 per cent. But you don’t notice it.
    Slowly Trigger sinks. Down, down, far below her safetested depth. Trigger , if you are worthy of your heritage, if you can keep the faith of those who built you—who will never know—and of those who place their lives in yours—who will know, if only for an instant—keep it now! We have faith in you, else we’d not subject you to this test. Vindicate that faith, we pray you!
    Far, far below where she was designed to go, Trigger struggles on. Sinking slowly, her hull creaking and groaning at the unaccustomed strain, her decks bulging in the center, light partition doors unable to close because of the distortion caused by the terrific compression, she finally brings us to the point where it is safe to speed up a little, enough to stop her descent. And so we creep away, finally surfacing to complete our escape.
    It wasn’t until more than a year later that our carrier was spotted and photographed by a reconnaissance plane. We had set him back a long time, at a critical period. Too bad he didn’t sink, but the effect on the Japs of seeing that half-sunken wreck come dragging back on the end of a towline and settle ignominiously into the mud of Tokyo Bay after his brave departure the day before must have been considerable and significant. For we had tagged the uncompleted aircraft carrier Hitaka on his maiden trial trip, just as he poked his freshly painted nose outside the torpedo nets.
    Later we discovered that our first two torpedoes had “pre-matured”—exploded just before reaching the target—and that Hitaka had in fact received only two holes in his hull, both of them aft. It wasn’t our fault that the enemy had had time to tow him back into the shallows, for the four hits we had earned should have taken care of him immediately. Our report did add impetus to the campaign ComSubPac was then waging to get the torpedoes fixed up, however, and had the additional unlooked-for result of starting a rash of stories about the submarine which lay on the bottom of Tokyo Bay for a month waiting for Hitaka to be launched. But this was all small comfort.
    Trigger had been so badly damaged that it took two months to repair her. During this period Roy Benson, nowpromoted to Commander, who had commanded her for four patrols, and Lieutenant Steve Mann, who had placed her in commission with me, five patrols before, were detached. Commander Benson reported to the Submarine School at New London, as instructor, and Steve went as exec to the new submarine Devilfish , then under construction at the Cramp Shipbuilding Works near Philadelphia. I succeeded Steve as Executive Officer. Stinky, who by this time was trying to get us to call him “Sinky,” took over as engineer.
    For a time we wondered who our new skipper was to be, and hoped it would be somebody who had had a lot of experience already as exec of a hot ship. Our hopes were fulfilled to overflowing when, after a short time, we learned that Robert E. Dornin, commonly known as “Dusty,” veteran of many patrols in Gudgeon , had been ordered to take over Trigger . Knowing his reputation, we expected great things of our ship in the next few months, and in this we were not to be disappointed.

In the meantime, Seawolf had been long overdue for repairs, and her crew for an extensive rest, so she was ordered to Mare Island Navy Yard for a complete modernization. While in California she received a new skipper, Lieutenant Commander Royce L. Gross, commonly known as “Googy,” and Fred Warder left the ship he had commanded for more than three years and for seven war patrols.
    When Seawolf stood out to sea again, refurbished inwardly and outwardly, she immediately proceeded to demonstrate that she was still the same Wolf as of yore. Her first war patrol under Gross lasted twenty-six days in