The Galloping Ghost Read online

  Small fires erupted everywhere. Direct hits from deck guns toppled a large steel conveyor loading hoist. Another shell hit a chemical storage facility in the center of the island, throwing up a hundred-foot blue-white flare, followed by a tremendous explosion. Other shells fell on the warehouses, shattering them. The subs made another pass. Again the big deck guns shelled the plant, igniting volatile phosphorus that burned with blue-white intensity.

  The Barb’s 4-inch gun misfired during the attack. A shell casing with a live explosive was jammed in the barrel. “Captain Waterman wanted to conclude the exercise with the faulty round still in the gun. But Gene volunteered to go down on deck, get it ejected, and throw it over the side,” explained Weaver. Fluckey, as was his nature, was relentless in getting his way. The skipper gave in.

  All except the gun captain cleared the deck and reentered the submarine as Fluckey dropped down from the bridge. He ordered the gun captain to eject the shell through the breech of the gun, where Fluckey caught it before it could hit the deck and pitched it overboard. Simultaneously for unknown reasons, Lieutenant Commander Waterman ordered the boat to accelerate. “For some reason he went ahead full, made a sharp turn while Gene was down there,” said Weaver. “Water came over the deck, Gene got soaked, and it was lucky he wasn’t washed off the boat.”

  The young lieutenant commander shrugged off the incident, very satisfied at the aggressiveness that the Barb had shown off Rasa. The crew was electric, certain the bombardment had put the plant out of operation for months to come.

  Low on fuel, the Barb headed for Midway, where Fluckey had every expectation of finally getting his own boat. Hopefully it would be Waterman’s boat, or, as Gene put it, “I looked forward to the captain’s promise being fulfilled.”

  But plans had changed.

  Kito (Eighth Patrol)

  The Barb arrived at Midway to a rousing welcome from high-ranking officers who came aboard to extend congratulations for action that only they and those in the undersea Navy fully understood. Though the submarine offensive was beginning to isolate Japan, little was known publicly about the submarine offensive.

  Waterman had returned triumphant due to the successful sinking of the Q-ship and the bombardment of the phosphate factory. His reward was orders to take command of a submarine division. For the skipper, the risk of war patrols finally had ended. Still, there was the matter of living up to the promise made to Eugene Fluckey at Pearl Harbor. When Waterman presented a letter recommending him as the next skipper of the Barb, however, the officers looked perplexed. They had no idea that he was aboard as prospective commanding officer. In fact, another man—Lt. Cmdr. Jake Fyfe—was waiting to take over. It was an awkward situation, to say the least. “My heart plummeted,” Fluckey later said.

  Waterman coaxed the squadron commander to send a radio dispatch to Admiral Lockwood in Hawaii to see if the orders could be switched. The following day, a change order arrived, giving Fyfe command of the USS Batfish (SS-310). The Barb now passed to Lt. Cdr. Eugene Fluckey. It was made official on 28 April, when Waterman quickly arranged for a formal transfer of command. The new captain had finally achieved his dream and was eager to test his theories of submarine combat with a crew that he hoped would share his passion for dynamic action. He wanted to make a good impression right away at a muster of crewmen on deck. In his hand, he held up the captain’s mast book. Carefully maintained by Captain Waterman on previous patrols according to Navy protocol, the book noted infractions by enlisted men and what the punishments were. With a heave, Fluckey threw it into Midway Harbor. There would be no captain’s mast on his boat, he announced. Rather, he expected all hands to perform to the utmost of their ability. He would trust them, demand all their skills, be creative in finding new and better ways to do their jobs, and press the attack on the enemy and sink ships.

  Preparations began at once for the Barb’s upcoming mission. Twenty-four torpedoes were packed aboard, fourteen forward and ten aft. Provisions to feed nine officers and seventy-five enlisted men for two months were stored. All systems were checked out. Test dives and practice attacks got under way.

  During the refit, crewmen on liberty took rides aloft, courtesy of Marine pilots. In return, the submariners invited the aviators to take a ride in the Barb. Fluckey decided to give them something memorable below three hundred feet, where immense water pressure squeezed the hull, causing it to groan threateningly. One of the pilots was in the conning tower when a packing gland broke loose. Seawater exploded overhead, thoroughly soaking Lt. John Glenn, who thought he was a goner before a crewman quickly stemmed the leak. Glenn would never again ride a submarine. However, he would one day become the first American to orbit the earth.

  By mid-May, as the Barb prepared to cast off, Admiral Lockwood radioed Midway that he would fly to the island. He wanted to talk to the thirty-year-old skipper. Had Lockwood reconsidered his elevation to command? Fluckey was worried.

  The admiral arrived on 19 May. With a stern expression, he headed for the dock, where the skipper was standing on the sub’s deck. Both exchanged salutes. “Good morning, Admiral,” smiled the captain with boyish good nature. Lockwood was terse. He wanted to know how confident the captain was on the eve of a very dangerous mission to the little known Okhotsk Sea, a frigid, 18,000-foot-deep ocean shaped like a teacup north of Japan. The sea spanned four hundred miles between Japan’s Kurile Islands to the east and Sakhalin Island hugging the coast of Siberia to the west. Fluckey said he was eager to get going. “How many ships do you want me to sink, Admiral?” Lockwood, his countenance lifting, wondered how many this young upstart thought he could sink.

  “Will five be enough?” replied the skipper. Did Lockwood want tankers, freighters, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, or maybe a battleship, an aircraft carrier? With a smile, the admiral said five of any type would be sufficient. Indeed, five would match the most sinkings of any submarine in the war.

  The admiral came to the point of his visit.

  The Barb would be sailing with the USS Herring (SS-233) and the USS Golet (SS-361). ComSubPac wanted all three to serve as a de facto wolf pack on arrival in the Okhotsk, coordinating attacks on any convoys encountered. The tactic, pioneered by Germany’s U-boats, had been highly successful in the North Atlantic. The arrival of so many new American subs in the Pacific allowed Lockwood to employ similar tactics against Japan. The admiral’s concern was that Lt. Cmdr. David Zabriskie Jr. in the Herring and Lt. Cmdr. James S. Clark in the Golet were, like Fluckey, making their first war patrols as a wolf pack. One of the skippers had to lead. Was Fluckey, the senior captain, ready for that? As wolf pack commander, he would call the boats together and plan strategy when a convoy was sighted. He would decide who would attack and in what sequence. If difficult decisions had to be made, he would make them.

  Fluckey was more than ready to assume the role, adding, “You will have your ships.”

  Satisfied with the response, Lockwood gave him a firm handshake and a slap on the back, wishing him well. The skipper was delighted with the vote of confidence. Yet he hardly could have predicted the outcome of the mission. Only one boat would return.

  On 20 May 1944 the Barb cast off from its mooring pier to begin its eighth war patrol. Destination: the Kurile Islands. The next day, the Herring also embarked for the volcanic island chain stretching a thousand miles like a beaded necklace between northern Japan and the Soviet Union’s Kamchatka Peninsula and separating the Pacific Ocean from the Okhotsk Sea. A week later, the Golet followed, setting a course for the northeast coast of Japan’s main island of Hokkaido, where the Kuriles begin.

  Outbound, there were high expectations in the Barb. Fluckey began molding the crew into a cohesive force. He listened to them, got to know each on a personal level, and tutored them in all aspects of submarining. “He had a wonderful willingness to try new ideas,” recalled McNitt, the executive officer making his third patrol in the Barb. One of those nuances was shortening up the watch cycle for officers on the bridg
e. Fluckey had long noticed how exhausted the officers were. He wanted his men as rested and alert as possible. He coached all the lookouts on what to do when aircraft were spotted, as explained by “Tuck” Weaver, the officer of the deck.

  His training on how to deal with airplanes was as follows. It is important to spot the plane while he is six or seven miles away. If he is closer, dive. When he is at a distance, observe him as he may not have seen us, and if he hasn’t and doesn’t approach, do not dive. If he turns toward us, dive, go to three hundred feet with left rudder. But always know the depth of the water under us since when near land or in a shallow sea, depth of the water is frequently less than three hundred feet and we do not want to strike bottom on a dive. Lastly, U.S. or Allied planes are at least as dangerous as Japanese planes, so if you encounter them, do not stay up and try to exchange recognition signals with them.

  The captain popularized a special saying when the watch changed, said Weaver. “The officer being relieved would say ‘SLIPKEEP’ and the one going on watch would repeat it. This was short for ‘one slip and it’s for keeps.’ It was a constant reminder to stay alert.”

  Those aboard the Barb melded well with their new captain. “Gene Fluckey was a no-pain, no-strain, easy-on-the-nerves individual whose good-humored, upbeat personality was infectious,” said Weaver. “He had a unique and wonderful ability to make all of those around him feel good about life. He made them better than they really were.”

  It took an uneventful seven days for the Barb to make the 1,800-mile transit between Midway and the lower Kuriles, where the sub passed into the Okhotsk through the wide Etorofu Strait. The sea, which freezes over in winter, was heavy with patchy fogs and ice floes in the spring of 1944. It was the beginning of the shipping season and numerous Japanese and Russian ships crisscrossed the sea. Enemy warships and aircraft from bases all around the lower edge of the sea patrolled relentlessly. Hidden mines guarded ports and waterways. The risk of being sunk was extremely high. Any man left adrift by a shipwreck would freeze quickly.

  Passing into the Okhotsk, the Barb encountered an ice floe five miles wide with peaks a hundred feet high. Soon the sub made contact with a freighter but let it pass. It was Russian, an ally, though Fluckey didn’t trust the Soviets. The next day, just past midnight, radar contact was made with another large vessel in dense fog. Fluckey closed to within two thousand yards on a perfect setup. One more attempt to see the target through the fog and then fire. At the last minute, a tanker loomed into view. It was Russian. The Barb sat there, unseen, as the ship lumbered by. “Frankly I was tempted to order the lookouts to do an about face and let go anyhow. However, we sat and watched her quickly pass into the fog,” Captain Fluckey noted in the ship’s log.

  Overnight, the Barb received an ULTRA revealing that a four-ship Japanese troop convoy was about to leave the northern Kurile island of Matsuwa on a route that would take it into the vicinity of Fluckey’s wolf pack. The skipper issued a call for the Herring and Golet to rendezvous as planned. Only the Herring responded. The two boats danced around each other like scorpions ready to strike until prearranged radar signatures confirmed their identities. The two then planed up alongside each other just before midnight on 31 May.

  From their respective bridges, the two captains communicated with megaphones. Fluckey reasoned that the convoy would make for La Perouse Strait and pass into the Sea of Japan on the opposite side of the Okhotsk. A plan of attack was agreed to. The Herring would patrol a ten-mile square north and east of an imaginary line drawn between Matsuwa and the strait, while the Barb would search south and west of the line. The first boat to make radar contact would alert the other before attacking. The subs quickly separated.

  Fluckey went below to gauge the readiness of his crew. In the stern torpedo room they had a favor to ask. Could the captain attack with the stern torpedoes? Through its many war patrols, the Barb had yet to fire a stern shot. Fluckey promised not to forget this time. In the engine rooms, with the clatter of diesels drowning out conversation as the sub streamed along, the so-called “black gang” gave a thumbs up and a “V” for victory as the captain passed forward into the crew’s mess, where the men burst into applause as the skipper entered. “Sink ’em all, Captain! Give them back more than they gave us at Pearl Harbor!” In the control room, men were so busy exchanging information that Fluckey simply gave a clenched fist in acknowledgment. In the wardroom, as meals were being served, Executive Officer McNitt reported that all was in readiness.

  The Barb was the first to make contact. Fluckey ordered the bridge watch to head for the target while sounding the battle stations alarm and getting off a contact report to the Herring. Gongs blared as men scrambled to their stations. The captain, slipping into a rubberized parka and grabbing a pair of gloves and binoculars, climbed the control room ladder through the conning tower and onto the bridge, a pedestal forty feet above the surf. Though it was early afternoon, Fluckey couldn’t see a thing because of low-hanging fog. However, trailing clouds of smoke from coal-burning engines could be seen through thinning upper layers of the fog. As the captain directed the boat at high speed to get around and ahead of the vessels, the fog disappeared, leaving the sub exposed. The captain and the lookouts dropped down into the conning tower, Weaver following close behind and dogging the water-tight hatch amid the loud “A-ooga!” of the Klaxon diving alarm.

  A bomb blast could be heard, then the sound of depth charges. They were a long ways off. The Herring obviously had engaged the enemy. In fact, Skipper Zabriskie had attacked the convoy’s lone destroyer escort. A single torpedo put the Ishigaki under, scattering the convoy’s three transports. The Madras Maru headed south, the Koto Maru west, and the Hokuyo Maru turned east back toward Matsuwa.

  Fluckey, from the periscope in the conning tower, made a 360-degree circle. No airplanes were in sight. One ship with large guns forward and aft was heading directly at the Barb. The sub would attack with three of its six bow torpedo tubes, then prepare for a stern shot if the ship eluded the first shots. In quick succession, he ordered the periscope up and down, exposed for no more than four seconds at a time to avoid detection. Each time trajectories to the target were checked and rechecked. When the ship was within 1,400 yards, the captain gave the order.

  “Fire 4!”

  The boat shuddered as a blast of compressed air launched a twenty-foot-long torpedo.

  “Fire 5!”

  “Fire 6!” yelled the captain.

  Seconds passed. Then a tremendous explosion amid cheers throughout the boat.

  Fluckey ordered the periscope raised and held there. He watched as a waterspout from the first explosion fell on the target. Then another fireball. “Directly under the stacks!” he shouted, followed by the sound of another direct hit. A secondary explosion from munitions aboard the ship shattered the vessel.

  Fluckey gave those in the conning tower a quick look at the sinking Madras Maru. Landing barges loaded with soldiers floated off the deck. Motorized lifeboats and row boats pulled away. One got caught in the whirlpool of the ship going under and disappeared.

  After ten minutes, with the forward torpedo tubes reloaded, the submarine surfaced among the lifeboats and landing barges, one only fifty yards off the port beam. Weaver and Fluckey were the first to emerge on the bridge, the captain intent on offering medical assistance to survivors. He heard a Japanese officer’s scream, then the sound of a machine gun sending a spray of bullets whizzing overhead. Fluckey and Weaver hit the deck, crawling back to the conning tower hatch and diving below while ordering the sub to roar ahead, leaving the survivors behind.

  “One ship down, four to go!” shouted the captain.

  For Tuck Weaver the near brush with disaster on the bridge reminded him of his days aboard the S-30 (SS-135) when it was stationed in the Aleutian Islands in 1943.

  The boat was on patrol on the Pacific side of the Kuriles when Skipper Bill Stevenson attempted a daring down-the-throat attack on a charging Japanese patrol boat th
at was firing 5-inch shells at the sub. The captain was preparing to fire four bow torpedoes when his periscope dipped below the waves, foiling the setup. Yelling to bring the boat up, the planesmen overcompensated and broached the sub right under the nose of the Chidori. Stevenson ordered a crash dive with no time to close the outer doors of the torpedo tubes where the weapons were exposed. The S-30 was only a hundred feet deep when the patrol boat crossed over and dropped depth charges.

  Weaver described the scene for Fluckey. “Standing in the control room, I saw the hands fly off both depth gauges before the lights and everything electrical went dead. Having no propulsion and being nearly twenty tons heavy we just sank until with a thud we hit the bottom.”

  Fortunately the boat landed on an ocean shelf three hundred feet down, sparing it from crush depth. But the first round of depth charges smashed all four torpedoes, one so badly it couldn’t be removed. As electrician mates toiled to repair damage throughout the boat, patrol craft overhead used grappling hooks in attempts to hook the submarine. It was nerve-wracking to hear them rattling across the hull. But none took hold. After dark the boat surfaced and escaped using radar to thread its way through the circling patrol boats.