Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [188]
After hours or days of monotony and discomfort, routine would suddenly be interrupted by the heart-stopping moan of the klaxon, “Aa-oogah, aa-oo-gah,” and the broadcast order: “Clear the bridge! Dive! Dive!” War is full of exclamation marks, and submariners experienced more of them than most. A sudden descent might be prompted by a sighting of an enemy aircraft, or a glimpse of funnel smoke. Since a submarine could move more swiftly than most convoys, it was normal procedure to shadow enemy merchant vessels until they could be engaged in darkness. Once night fell, it was often possible to attack on the surface, the preferred option. A submarine manoeuvred to achieve a position ahead of the target, which was tracked on the control-room TDC—Torpedo Data Computer, an early analogue computer resembling a vertical pinball machine.
In a submerged attack, the captain bent over the periscope lens below the conning tower, while clusters of sweat-streaked figures watched their dials in the control room, calling off details of target and orders for the approach: “Angle on the bow, starboard thirty-five. Mark the range! Down periscope! All ahead two-thirds! Steer two six five.” Submarine captains were taught: surprise is fundamental. Use the periscope as little as possible531, and remember that the higher your underwater speed, the more conspicuous a periscope’s wake. Always pick a ship, rather than “firing into the brown” at a convoy or formation. Set a salvo of torpedoes to run in a spread which will cover 80 percent of a vessel’s length. The straighter the firing angle, the better the chance of a hit. The bane of every attacking skipper was a target’s sudden alteration of course, which was why every prudent surface ship zigzagged. So poor were Japanese sonar and radar, however, that it was rare for an escort to interrupt an attack before it was launched.
It was a curiosity of the war at sea that the Japanese, so often extravagantly bold, showed themselves far less aggressive submariners than the Americans. Many Japanese boats were diverted from attacking U.S. ships to transporting supplies to beleaguered Pacific garrisons. The Imperial Navy had better torpedoes than the Americans, yet its operations against the USN were seldom better than halfhearted. By contrast, many of Nimitz’s captains were tigers. America’s submarine admirals had no patience with timidity. They sacked every captain who seemed to lack aggression, which meant those who came home without sinking ships. In 1943, 25 out of 178 skippers were dismissed for the cardinal sin of “non-productivity.” Even in 1944, 35 out of 250 were transferred out.
Crews held good commanders in deep respect. Radioman Artie Akers of Angelfish wrote: “I don’t believe that any officer in the armed forces has a more difficult assignment than a good submarine commander.” Few captains achieved more than two hours’ consecutive sleep in operational areas. A patrol skipper had absolute responsibility for the key decisions of when, where and how to attack. Akers’s first two commanding officers, pre-war Annapolis graduates, survived only one patrol apiece before being relieved. He wrote of the second: “This man seemed to know532 how to attack. He did not seem to be scared. He simply would not attack.” He held his submarine submerged and passive, even when sonar indicated a tanker or freighter above—and was sacked on returning to Pearl. An excess of imagination was thought a handicap to good submarine commanders, as indeed it is to all successful warriors.
By 1944, many attacks were carried out by American wolfpacks, three or more boats working in concord. When this technique was first introduced, few captains relished the