Submarine! by Edward L. Beach Page B

all, from Midway to Midway. Its high point was an eleven-hour battle with a large escorted freighter, as a result of which the freighter’sbow was blown off—he sank a few hours later—and Gross learned to his dismay that there was still plenty of room for improvement in torpedoes.
    A few days later a damaged ship was encountered, in the tow of a tug, and escorted by a single destroyer. Gross decided that the escort was by far the more valuable target, and attacked him first in hopes of getting up on the surface later and sinking the towed vessel by gunfire. This plan was foiled by the approach of yet another destroyer after the submarine had expended all her torpedoes, but Seawolf carried away a series of photographs, later widely publicized, showing the last moments of H.I.J.M.S, Patrol Boat #39 . And then Roy Gross brought his veteran submarine back to Midway for a fast refit and some more torpedoes.
    Googy’s second patrol produced only one hit for sixteen torpedoes fired, with the majority of blame definitely going to the recalcitrant fish. Nevertheless, that one hit sank a ship, which is illustrative of what might have been done by our submarines had they had dependable armament. The situation was improving, although at this point no one in Seawolf could have been criticized for thinking otherwise.
    On her tenth patrol, Gross’s third, came the first indications of a new deal for the old Wolf . In her assigned area for but five days, she spent the entire time working over a single convoy, sinking three ships in all; and she then attacked and sank two reconnaissance sampans with her deck guns. On her first attack, submerged between two columns of freighters, she fired her bow tubes at the largest ship in the left-hand column, and immediately afterward fired her stern tubes at the largest ship in the right-hand column. Both ships sank. Surfacing after a depth charging, she pursued the convoy, overtook it, made another submerged attack, and fired four torpedoes, none of which hit. Nothing daunted, she resumed the pursuit, made a night surface attack, and obtained one hit in the largest remaining ship, leaving him dead in the water. With four torpedoes left, Seawolf bored in on the surface to finish him off, disregarding the salvoes of gunfire with which he sought to dissuade her. She firedeach of her precious remaining torpedoes independently and carefully—and got two dud hits and two erratic runs. That left her without any torpedoes; so Gross manned the deck guns, closing the enemy slowly, firing deliberately, feeling him out. With the return fire, originally erratic, to be sure, now entirely silent, Seawolf continued to close the range. After approximately one hour of target practice, the enemy vessel, hit by more than seventy rounds from the submarine’s three-inch gun, rolled over and sank within sight of her gun crews.
    The torpedoes were still not perfect, but they were improving, and skill and persistence were still paying off.
    Patrol number eleven again saw Gross bringing his ship back to port with no torpedoes remaining, leaving two enemy vessels at the bottom of the China Sea and damaging a third which in all probability also sank, though not seen to do so. Torpedo malfunction had again robbed the Wolf of at least one and possibly two more targets, but it was now obvious from other patrol reports that the problem was finally on its way to a solution. Reports of other submarines were indicating a larger proportion of successful attacks, and Skipper Gross was at a loss to explain the heartbreaking misses on his last few attacks. In his self-criticism he failed to appreciate what every other submariner had long since seen. Only once had Gross brought back torpedoes! Every submarine skipper was highly respectful of the man who could consistently average two ships per patrol, and that was exactly what Googy Gross had done so far.
    On December 22, 1943, the Wolf got under way from the