Boomerang
The Overlook
By Tom Clavin
“The Overlook” appears every Wednesday at tomclavin.substack.com. If you enjoy the column, please "like" it and let me know what you think by commenting. (Check out previous columns while you're at it.) All support is appreciated. And don't forget to hit the ‘Subscribe’ button – it’s free!
[Six weeks from now will see the publication of the nonfiction book Running Deep: Bravery, Survival, and the True Story of the Deadliest Submarine in World War II. I can’t help mentioning that the first two early reviews have been splendid. Booklist: “A well-written, solid effort in which Clavin brings home the harsh reality of life onboard submarines and the horrors of war.” Publishers Weekly: “Bestseller Clavin offers a lively rendition of the storied career of the USS Tang and its captain, Richard Hetherington O’Kane … Clavin provides a bounty of backstory on submarine warfare, with side excursions into other famous subs and their fates. The result is an entertaining account of daring exploits in the deep.” As a tease, here is the Prologue.]
The torpedo was coming right at them. Everything appeared to be in slow motion – except the torpedo spearing through water at 30 knots.
Only five minutes earlier, the USS Tang had been in the middle of a feeding frenzy that would secure its position as the most successful American submarine in the Pacific Ocean. An entire convoy had been presented through the periscope, unaware it was being observed by a submerged predator. The stunned Japanese officers must have thought that a wolf pack was attacking them the way the explosions kept coming one after the other. Three of the ships were already collapsing and heading for the bottom of the Formosa Strait.
Of the 24 torpedoes that had been loaded onto the Tang when the patrol began, only two were left. Use them and the submarine could head home. This time it would be all the way home – not Midway, not Pearl Harbor, but San Francisco. The married members of the crew would reconnect with wives, and in a few cases, children. The bachelors would go on the town. All deserved whatever they could enjoy after five patrols within 10 months that had Imperial Navy and merchant captains jumpy. Any periscope sighted or sonar blip could be the Tang -- the sub seemed to be everywhere at once.
Now, at 1.25 a.m. on October 25, 1944, one of the enemy ships that had been hit had not sunk. To Captain Richard O’Kane, it made perfect sense to use the last two torpedoes to finish it off. The commander of the transport had to be assuming the overall attack was over and he hoped to keep his vessel afloat long enough to reach the nearest port. It was limping along four miles northeast of Oksu Island.
The Tang surfaced 5000 yards away, rising out of the sea like a reckoning. Its diesel engines seemed to know they were to be as quiet as possible. Two Japanese escort ships protected the wounded transport but both were on the seaward side. O’Kane saw an opportunity – an opening on the coast side.
After withdrawing a thousand yards to further reduce the risk of detection, the Tang swiftly circled the three Japanese ships. After a half-hour at a surface speed of a brisk 18 knots, the sub turned toward the transport’s port beam and moved in at two-thirds’ speed. At 4000 yards, the captain issued the call for battle stations. A thousand yards closer, the sub slowed to steerageway speed and examined its prey.
The enemy transport was indeed lower in the water than when it had first been struck, but that did not mean she was damaged enough to sink. Who knew what desperate repair work was being conducted inside that hull. A strong piece of evidence of the ship’s durability, the 33-year-old captain noted, was that the escorts had not towed the transport to the nearest land to least save the cargo from sinking.
The Tang eased up to six knots, drawing quietly closer yard by yard. Assured that the last two Mark 18-1 torpedoes had been checked and re-checked, O’Kane ordered them ready for launching. The oblivious enemy captain of the Matsumoto Maru could not have made the transport a more inviting target. The sub slipped to within 1100 yards, then a thousand, then 900. That was the distance O’Kane had chosen. There was not another moment to waste. Finally, at 2.30 a.m., the captain called out, “Fire!”
At that distance, the torpedo would take a minute to hit. O’Kane and others on the bridge could see the phosphorescent wake of the weapon as it knifed straight ahead. “Stand by below!” called Lt. Frank Springer, the Tang’s executive officer. They did not have to stand by long. Almost immediately afterward, O’Kane ordered again, “Fire!”
The second – and the submarine’s very last – torpedo plunged into the otherwise calm water of the Formosa Strait. But only several yards later, instead of following the straight and true path of its companion, the torpedo turned sharply left. As those on the bridge followed its spontaneous path, they realized that it could come full circle.
“All ahead emergency!” O’Kane shouted. “Right full rudder!”
This maneuver was an attempt to propel the Tang outside of the wayward weapon’s turning circle. If only the torpedo would change direction again. But the missile continued to porpoise as it heeled in the turn. In less than 10 seconds it had reached its maximum distance abeam, about 20 yards. It was now coming in. The Tang had only seconds to get out of the way.
“Left full rudder!”
The slender, 311-foot-long submarine’s only remaining chance of avoiding the devastating impact was to swing its stern clear of the warhead. All four Fairbanks Morse diesel engines – capable of a combined 6400 horsepower -- rumbled in protest and emitted black exhaust as they were pushed to their limits. Everything about the scene seemed to get slower and slower . . . except the torpedo. It was certain death approaching, thanks to its payload of 570 pounds of Torpex, equal to 850 pounds of TNT. Soon, the Tang could join the five enemy ships – the 23rd torpedo had indeed finished off the Matsumoto Maru – at the bottom.
As he willed the Tang out of harm’s way, Captain O’Kane may have noted the irony that his submarine had been so successful that it could even sink itself.
Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books. The next one, Running Deep: Bravery, Survival, and the True Story of the Deadliest Submarine in World War II, will be published on October 21 by St. Martin’s Press. To pre-order a copy, please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com.