CHAPTER 20 – SOUTH PACIFIC SHOWDOWN
12:07 (Southwest Pacific Time)
Tuesday, August 18, 1942
Open bridge of the U-800, area of New Hebrides Islands
South Pacific
Otto Kretschmer had just finished calculating his present position, after taking a sextant reading from the open bridge atop the conning tower of his U-800, when he got an intercom call from the sonar section.
‘’Kapitän, our towed array is picking up a large group of fast ships at some distance to the North-northeast of our position.’’
‘’In the direction of the Santa Cruz Islands?’’
‘’Yes, Herr Kapitän!’’
‘’Very well! Take as accurate a sound heading of that group of ship as you can now. We will keep on our present course for half an hour, then will take another hydrophone heading in order to obtain a rough triangulation on the position of those ships.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän!’’
As the intercom link closed, Otto thought for a moment about that new contact. The Japanese Navy had sent a few days ago a general warning notice that the Americans had landed in force on the island of Ndeni, in the Santa Cruz Islands. Normally, a major amphibious operation called for close air support, which in this area meant using an aircraft carrier, unless the Americans had decided against all logic to fly only land-based aircraft from Espiritu Santo, their most advanced base in this area. Whatever it was, that group of fast ships held a lot of promises as potential targets.
Half an hour later, with Otto now in the control room, a second hydrophone heading was obtained, allowing him to locate the unknown group of ship about eighty nautical miles to the North-northeast of his position. Furthermore, his electronic warfare section was able to confirm via an HF directional finding that the group of ship was American. Now knowing that he wouldn’t be running after Japanese ships by mistake, Otto turned his boat towards the North-northeast and sailed at a speed of thirteen knots on the surface, his three big diesels working in order to fully recharge his batteries before what he anticipated to be a hot engagement. Once within thirty miles of his objective, or if an enemy plane showed up on the horizon, he would then submerge down to periscope depth, using his schnorchel as long as he could without risking detection. After that, all depended on what he would find.
The Sun was still up at seven in the evening, when Otto finally arrived within periscope sight of his potential target. With Takeshi Nagaoka and Ulrich von Wittgenstein waiting nervously near him as he looked through his search periscope, Otto played the cold fish on them and spoke calmly, as if he was watching a bunch of fishing boats.
‘’Well, gentlemen, I believe that we will have something to feed ourselves on today. I see a nice group of American warships presently conducting refueling at sea operations and going at an approximate speed of ten knots. What appears to be two fleet oilers sailing in parallel are refueling one aircraft carrier and one heavy cruiser, while three more cruisers and six destroyers are forming a protective screen around the oilers.’’
‘’The HORNET! We found it!’’ Exclaimed Takeshi Nagaoka, ecstatic, making Otto smile.
‘’Wait until I have been able to confirm the identification of those ships before making a victory dance, Commander. Herr Straube, bring the ship identification book near me, please!’’
The sailor quickly approached him, the large book in his hands and opened to the chapter on American aircraft carriers. Otto consulted the book for a couple of minutes, looking at intervals through his periscope’s eyepiece, before announcing his findings.
‘’Gentlemen, we now have in our sights the carrier U.S.S. HORNET, the heavy cruisers NORTHAMPTON and PENSACOLA, two ATLANTA-Class light cruisers, six destroyers, two fleet oilers and what could be three ammunition ships. I intend to concentrate my first attack on the HORNET, then hit the cruisers. Herr von Wittgenstein, call the crew to battle stations…quietly. Prepare and flood all tubes, with torpedoes set to run at a depth of four meters. Shut down the diesels and go to electric propulsion, then retract the schnorchel.’’
As his second-in-command passed his orders on, Otto gave a sober look to Takeshi Nagaoka.
‘’Commander, I will ask you to go now to the forward torpedo room, to help your torpedo specialists and ensure that nothing is lost in translation.’’
‘’Right away, Herr Kapitän!’’
Nagaoka then nearly ran out of the control room, heading down and towards the bow. Once in the forward torpedo room, on the Lower Deck, he saw that his four specialists, helped by the German torpedo men, had already connected the Type 92 torpedoes loaded in the eight forward launch tubes to the Japanese-supplied fire control boxes that had been fixed to steel frames near the tubes’ hatches.
‘’SET THE RUNNING DEPTH AT FOUR METERS, MEN! WE HAVE AN AMERICAN CARRIER TO SINK!’’
His words brought big smiles on the faces of his four torpedo specialists, who then double-checked their torpedo settings with Takeshi. They soon felt their submarine going down while increasing speed and turning a few degrees to starboard. One of the German torpedo men smiled and commented to his comrades around him.
‘’My bet is that the Kapitän will get under the destroyer screen and then approach that carrier from the rear, where the screw noises of that carrier will prevent the destroyers’ sonar sets from picking him up. Then, he will ram that carrier in the ass.’’
The Germans present laughed at that crude description, imitated by the four Japanese specialists once Takeshi had translated those words for their benefit.
Sixteen anxious minutes then passed as the U-800 maneuvered underwater, making its stealthy approach towards the HORNET. Then came via intercom the order they had been waiting for.
‘’FIRE TUBES ONE TO FIVE!’’
Torpedo-Obermechanikermaat Kurt Vormann and Chief Petty Officer Hiro Nakamura pulled down in quick succession the five ejection handles, with Nakamura taking care of the even-numbered tubes, sending five Type 92 Mod 1 torpedoes on their way. Less than twenty seconds later, after a slight change in heading by the U-800, came a second order via intercom.
‘’FIRE TUBES SIX TO EIGHT! RELOAD AFTER FIRING!’’
Again, Vormann and Nakamura shared the job of ejecting the three remaining torpedoes still in the forward tubes. Immediately afterwards, the torpedo men started frantically closing and emptying of water all eight tubes prior to reloading them. They were still at it when the muffled sound of four explosions from afar echoed inside the submarine, making the men scream in triumph. They however fell quiet nearly at once and concentrated on their reloading work but three more muffled explosions fifteen seconds later made the men howl again, followed closely by another order via intercom.
‘’COMMANDER NAGAOKA’S TEAM IS TO GET AT THE DOUBLE TO THE STERN TORPEDO ROOM!’’
‘’THE CAPTAIN IS GOING TO FIRE A SALVO FROM HIS STERN TUBES, MEN. FOLLOW ME!’’
With his four Japanese NCOs close behind him, Takeshi went to the ladder leading up to the Median Deck, climbing it quickly, going up to the Upper Deck, then passed in quick succession through the forward torpedo carrousels compartment, the upper crew accommodations compartment and the crew mess before using the narrow passageway linking the crew mess to the diesel engines compartment. There, he used the walkway between the top of the center and starboard side diesels and entered the engine control room, adjacent to the stern torpedo room. There, he found that the German torpedo men present had already loaded and connected to their control boxes four Type 96. With his NCOs taking place near the control boxes, Takeshi communicated with the control room via intercom, then shouted orders to his specialists.
‘’SET RUNNING DEPTH TO THREE METERS AND SPEED TO FIFTY KNOTS.’’
‘’READY!’’ Shouted CPO1 Nakamura after twelve seconds.
‘’FIRE TUBES NINE AND TEN!’’
‘’FIRING TUBES NINE AND TEN!’’
Less than ten seconds later, another order came from the control room.
‘’FIRE TUBES ELEVEN AND TWELVE!’’
‘’FIRING TUBES ELEVEN AND TWELVE!’’
‘’RELOAD ALL TUBES! KEEP THE SAME DEPTH AND SPEED SETTINGS ON!’’
‘’HAY!’’
They didn’t even have time to even close and empty of seawater all four tubes before two muffled explosions were heard through the hull, making the men cheer. The cheers redoubled when another pair of explosions were heard, making Takeshi grin.
‘’Eleven hits out of twelve torpedoes fired: Captain Kretschmer must be the best torpedo shot I ever heard of.’’
The sudden diving of the U-800, at the same time that a sharp turn to port forced him to grab hold of a pipe in order to stay on his feet then reminded him that the Americans were not going to let themselves be sunk without doing anything. PO2 Minoru Tokugara paled when the U-800’s steep dive persisted, while the electric motors of the submarine went to near maximum power.
‘’We are going to get crushed by the water pressure if we keep diving like this!’’
In contrast, the German torpedo men, while understandably nervous, seemed to take the steep dive in stride, with Siegfried Detmers looking at Takeshi.
‘’Standard evasive tactic, Commander. The Kapitän probably released a pair of Bold canisters to fool the American sonars and is now going down to a depth of 300 meters in order to escape any depth charges thrown by the Americans. Then, he will trail the American ships from deep down until his torpedo tubes are all reloaded before attacking again.’’
‘’Then, we better hurry up and reload those tubes, I believe. Let’s get back to work, men!’’
The ten men present in the stern torpedo room reloaded the four stern launch tubes as quickly as they could, completing the job in near record time. All the while, dozens of muffled, distant underwater explosions from American depth charges dropped in the water kept being heard inside the submarine. However, those explosions were obviously too far to cause any damage, as the U-800 barely shook with each explosion, something that made Detmers smile.
‘’Come on, Yanks, waste your depth charges as much as you want: you won’t catch us this deep.’’
‘’Uh, how deep can this submarine go, sir?’’ Asked Minoru Tokugara to Takeshi.
‘’It went once down to 360 meters during our trip to Japan, with no signs of the hull straining much. Captain Kretschmer told me that he believes that he could go as deep as 450 meters if need be before risking damages.’’
‘’Believes, sir?’’
‘’Don’t worry, Petty Officer Tokugara: American depth charges can’t be set to explode deeper than 200 meters. We won’t need to dive down past 400 meters…unless Captain Kretschmer decides to play cat and mouse with the Americans.’’
The face that Tokugara did then made Takeshi and the two other Japanese laugh briefly. A strong acoustic pulse then reverberated through the whole submarine.
BONG
‘’What was that?’’ Asked PO2 Isamu Hondo, nearly jumping back.
‘’That is the U-800 using its low frequency active sonar set to paint a tactical picture of the American fleet. Now that the effect of surprise is past, he is now free to use all the means at his disposal to continue his attack. I saw him at work off Pearl Harbor: he is far from finished with the Americans.’’
As if to lend extra weight to his words, an order arrived via the intercom.
‘’COMMANDER NAGAOKA’S TEAM IS REQUESTED IN THE FORWARD TORPEDO ROOM.’’
Taking a quick decision, Takeshi pointed at Genda and Hondo.
‘’You two will stay here in order to set the control boxes here for the next salvo. I will give you the settings in Japanese via intercom. Chief Nakamura, PO2 Tokugara, you come with me. My bet is that Captain Kretschmer is about to launch a second assault on the American fleet.’’
Takeshi then ran out of the stern torpedo room, followed by Nakamura and Tokugara.
In the intense forty minutes that followed, the U-800 conducted seven more attacks, reloading another two times and expending another fifteen torpedoes. All the while, it kept twisting around, accelerating, decelerating and diving while engaged literally in a dogfight with the escorting American destroyers. The latter however quickly found out that their adversary was out-turning them, evading with apparent ease their patterns of depth charges and proving very hard to pick up on sonar unless being at very close range, by which time torpedoes were on the way to their targets.
On the surface of the water, in their life raft bobbing up and down on the waves, a group of fourteen survivors from the heavy cruiser U.S.S. NORTHAMPTON watched the battle around them, their hopes diminishing every time an American ship was torpedoed. One young sailor, who had grown more and more agitated, shouted angrily when he saw that the three remaining destroyers, the last warships left intact in Task Force 17, stopped dropping depth charges in the water.
‘’WHAT ARE YOU DOING, GUYS? WHY ARE YOU GIVING UP?’’
‘’Calm down, Seaman Roundtree!’’ Replied Chief Petty Officer Bernie Stockwell, one of the other survivors in the life raft. ‘’They probably ran out of depth charges, considering the rhythm at which they had been dropping them.’’
As the young seaman accepted that with difficulty, another seaman paled visibly and pointed out at something nearby, his voice shaking.
‘’A PERISCOPE! I SEE A PERISCOPE RIGHT BEHIND US!’’
All eyes turned in that direction, with the Americans seeing at once that their comrade had seen correctly, something that sent chills down their backs.
‘’The fucking bastard! Is he trying to mock us?’’ Exclaimed a petty officer. As if it had heard him, the lens of the periscope turned towards the life raft and stayed on it, as if the captain of the enemy submarine wanted to look at the American sailors. Then, something happened that none of the Americans could have predicted: the periscope started flashing a light signal in Morse code, which CPO Stockwell read out loud.
‘’Mister John Kaiser, is that you? Uh?! What the hell?’’
A tall navy lieutenant sitting near him made a grimace and patted Stockwell’s shoulder.
‘’That’s me, Chief!’’
The officer, who was in his mid twenties, then waved with both hands at the periscope and even stood up to be better seen, stunning his companions.
‘’What are you doing, sir?’’ Asked Stockwell, shocked. ‘’How could that bastard know you?’’
‘’That bastard, Chief, is Captain Otto Kretschmer, commander of the U-800. Last January, while I was on my way with my family from Puerto Rico to the United States in order to be reactivated as a reservist officer, our ship sank in a storm. Only me, my wife and two kids and one Puerto Rican sailor survived the sinking in a raft. The day after, the U-800 surfaced near us and saved us, eventually dropping us off on a beach of the Dutch island of Curacao. Captain Kretschmer, along with his crew, proved most correct with us while we were aboard his submarine.’’
‘’Well, I’ll be!’’ Could only say Stockwell. Another Morse message then flashed from the periscope.
‘’Send my regards to your wife Jennifer and your kids, Helen and Robert. Good luck!’’
Another light message, this time sent towards the nearest destroyer, was flashed by the submarine.
‘’To U.S. destroyers, from U-800. Will let you pick up survivors if you refrain from attacking me further.’’
The American seamen could only look at each other in disbelief at that point, with only John Kaiser taking it in stride.
On the destroyer U.S.S. ANDERSON, Lieutenant-commander Richard Guthrie could hardly believe his eyes as he read the flashing message from the enemy submarine’s periscope.
‘’Damn! I don’t believe this! First, this bastard sinks most of our ships and kills thousands of our men, then he calls for a mercy truce.’’
‘’Uh, what do we do, Captain?’’ Asked the young bridge duty officer near him. ‘’We can shoot at that periscope with our forward five inch guns.’’
‘’Yes, but we would probably kill many of our surviving men floating over there at the same time, Lieutenant. I hate to say this, but that bastard could have chosen to sink all the rest of us while denying us a chance to retrieve survivors, especially now that we are out of depth charges. Signal back to that sub and say that we accept his truce offer. I will get on the TBS{26} in the meantime.’’
Going to the VHF radio set sitting in one corner of his bridge, Guthrie called the two other remaining destroyers of their decimated task force, getting quickly responses from their captains.
‘’To the HUGHES and RUSSELL, this is the ANDERSON. I just accepted an offer of a truce sent by signal lamp from the enemy submarine. He will let us pick up our survivors if we don’t attack him further.’’
‘’How could we know that he won’t torpedo us once we are stopped in the water and defenseless, Rick?’’ Asked a disbelieving Donald Ramsey, on the HUGHES.
‘’From what we know about the captain of that U-800, he is supposedly a man of honor. We either accept his offer or we flee at top speed to evade his torpedoes, leaving behind our men in the water. I believe that our choice is clear.’’
‘’I agree!’’ Said Glenn Hartwig, on the RUSSELL. ‘’We lost enough men already as it is. I will flash back my agreement by lamp.’’
‘’How about you, Donald? I need a consensus here before we can start fishing out our men.’’
‘’Alright!’’ Replied Ramsey, clearly reluctant. ‘’I will also flash my agreement for a truce.’’
‘’Good! In the meantime, I will send a top priority message to South Pacific Command, to pass the bad news.’’
Guthrie felt bile in his throat as he put down the radio microphone: what was now left of the naval forces of the South Pacific Area Command had little hope of being able to oppose any sizeable Japanese naval offensive around the Solomons, while the Marines landed on Ndeni were now in a precarious situation indeed.
22:11 (South Pacific Time)
Troopship U.S.S. McCawley (AP-10)
Anchored off Ndeni Island, Santa Cruz Islands
Rear-admiral Richmond Turner’s signals officer had a somber look on his face when he came on the bridge of the troopship, a message in his hands.
‘’A ‘Critic’ message from the destroyer ANDERSON, Admiral.’’
Having already received a number of distress messages from Task Force 17, the old and irascible officer took the message without a word, then read it slowly while sitting in his command chair. The men around him didn’t miss the mix of dejection and anger that the reading brought to his face. Still, Turner didn’t speak then, instead thinking over the operational and strategic implications of the loss of Task Force 17 and of his sole supporting aircraft carrier. If an eventual landing on Guadalcanal had appeared to be difficult and risky a mere three weeks ago, now it could be considered downright unthinkable. Even the present operation in Ndeni was now at serious risk if ever a strong Japanese force showed up. Turner’s stomach soured even more when he thought about the possible reactions of Vice-admiral Ghormley to this piece of news. The already skittish commander of the South Pacific Area was liable to crawl back inside his shell like a turtle and completely abandon offensive operations in his area of responsibility. If he did that, then Turner could predict serious long term consequences for Australia and the rest of the Allied forces in the South Pacific. Unfortunately, Ghormley outranked him and only Admiral Nimitz and Admiral King could either force Ghormley to act or replace him as area commander. Another concern Turner had was of more immediate importance to him: after having butchered Task Force 17, what would that damn U-800 do next? Where would it go?
03:56 (South Pacific Time)
Wednesday, August 19, 1942
U.S.S. McCAWLEY (AP-10)
Off Ndeni Island, Santa Cruz Islands
Rear-admiral Richmond Turner, who wasn’t able to go to sleep, had decided to go instead on the open bridge wing of his command ship to watch the bombardment of enemy positions on Ndeni by the ships of his fire support group. His heavy units were easy enough to spot in the night, being brightly illuminated every time that they fired their big guns towards Ndeni. The battleship U.S.S. NORTH CAROLINA was particularly easy to spot, thanks to the monstrous muzzle blasts from its sixteen inch guns. Three heavy cruisers and two light cruisers were also firing their guns at Ndeni, covered by six destroyers.
Turner was looking at the coast of Ndeni, watching the heavy shells land and explode, when one of the sailors acting as lookout let out a surprised expression that made him twist his head towards the open sea.
‘’Hey, that didn’t look like a departure shot!’’
Three of the cruisers fired a salvo at that moment, making it hard to Turner to spot what had attracted the sailor’s attention, so he approached the young man on the dark open bridge wing and touched his left arm.
‘’What did you just see, young man?’’
The Seaman Second Class stiffened on seeing that his admiral was speaking to him and nearly stuttered his answer.
‘’Uh, I saw a flash of light coming from one of the escort destroyers at our ten o’clock, sir, but it didn’t look like a gun firing.’’
Just then, another flash of light came from a destroyer in the distance. Turner stiffened at once on seeing it: the sailor had been right about it not being a gun flash. He then turned around and shouted towards the bridge officer of the U.S.S. McCAWLEY.
‘’WE ARE UNDER TORPEDO ATTACK! SOUND THE ALERT!’’
Turner then ran inside the bridge, swearing to himself. This could be a night attack by Japanese warships, which favored such types of engagement, or it could be torpedo boats or a submarine. Before he could do anything inside the bridge, the NORTH CAROLINA was briefly lit up by four explosions along its open ocean side. The heavy cruisers ASTORIA and PORTLAND were next to be hit less than two minutes later, each of them receiving four torpedoes. Frustrated, Turner shouted at the poor bridge duty officer, a young lieutenant.
‘’WHY AM I NOT RECEIVING REPORTS YET? AND WHERE IS CAPTAIN McFEATHERS?’’
The captain of the troopship actually arrived on the bridge a minute later, just as the light cruiser SAN JUAN was shaken by two torpedo hits.
‘’What is going on, Admiral?’’
‘’We are chewing on torpedoes, that’s what, Captain! Raise the anchor and get ready to dash to sea!’’
Turner’s chief of signals was next to show up and was set upon at once by his admiral.
‘’Commander Fielding, get reports from our ships about what is exactly going on and about their operational status. Nobody has reported to me yet!’’
‘’I’m on it, Admiral.’’ Said the signals officer before running out of the bridge. Turner then went to one of the large windows of the bridge and looked outside, fuming.
‘’What the hell were our sonar operators doing? Sleeping on the job?’’
The first battle reports belatedly arrived two minutes later and quickly set Turner on a grim, angry mood. The destroyer DALE had broken in half, while the MacDONOUGH had capsized. The battleship NORTH CAROLINA was battling extensive floodings and was down to six knots of speed, while the cruisers ASTORIA, PORTLAND and SAN JUAN were dead in the water and were all in imminent danger of sinking or were on fire. Thankfully, the rain of torpedoes seemed to have stopped for the moment. Turner swore to himself when he understood why.
‘’Shit! It must be that U-800 bastard: he withdrew in order to reload his torpedo tubes.’’
In that, he was partly right and also partly wrong. It was indeed the U-800 at work and it was in the process of reloading its torpedo tubes, but it had not withdrawn, far from it. In fact, Otto Kretschmer was using the utter confusion he had spread along the American battle lines to silently slip to a position between the outer destroyer screen and heavy units and the transport ships of Task Force 62. Seventeen minutes later, with its twelve tubes reloaded, a second salvo hit the heavy cruiser NEW ORLEANS, the light cruiser ATLANTA and three of the transport ships, which were thankfully empty of troops at the time, having landed them a few days ago. The NEW ORLEANS fared badly, hit hard by four Type 96 torpedoes, each with a 550 kilo warhead, and capsized within minutes. By now near panic was sweeping the transport fleet, with captains frantically raising anchor and firing up their boilers in order to be able to sail away from Ndeni, even though it meant leaving the Marines on the island without support. By the time that the first transport ships were pulling away from the island, a third torpedo salvo hit the American fleet. The troopship BARNETT and the destroyer HULL received two torpedoes each that crippled them seriously and left them with increasing lists, while the heavy units that had already been hit but seemed to have had a chance to survive received yet more torpedo hits that sealed their fate. Everything calmed down however before the Sun would come up over the horizon. Richmond Turner then guessed, correctly, that the U-800 had run out of torpedoes and was now withdrawing. To where was the million dollar question. As for the intended invasion of Guadalcanal, it was now for all intents and purposes dead in the water, at least for many months.
09:05 (South Pacific Time)
Rabaul, Island of New Britain
Bismarck Archipelago, east of Papua-New Guinea
The Japanese commander in Rabaul, Vice-admiral Nishizo Tsukahara, nearly ran across the gangway that had been put in place between the quay and the top deck of the U-800, so anxious he was to learn why the U-800 had returned to his base. He was greeted on the deck by Otto Kretschmer and Takeshi Nagaoka, the latter serving as translator for Otto. The three of them exchanged salutes before Tsukahara addressed Otto.
‘’I understood that, after a last refueling here on your way south, you would be on your way to Germany by now, Captain Kretschmer. Why did you come back?’’
‘’Because I about ran out of torpedoes, Admiral, and need to rearm and refuel.’’
Tsukahara’s eyes popped wide open on hearing his answer.
‘’You already expended nearly seventy torpedoes, Captain?’’
‘’I fired 63 torpedoes to be exact, Admiral. Here is the list of the American ships I sank, along with their location at the time.’’
Tsukahara took the list, which Nagaoka had translated into Japanese, and read it quickly. Instead of becoming instantly ecstatic, he looked back up at Otto with some misgivings showing on his face.
‘’That is quite a list of victory claims, Captain. Do you have something to back it up?’’
‘’I do have a few photographs, taken through my attack periscope, Admiral. I used infra-red films for the night photos.’’ Replied Otto, handing him a large, thick envelope he had held in his left hand. He understood perfectly well the skepticism shown by Tsukahara and wasn’t offended one bit by it. Opening the envelope, the Japanese admiral went slowly through the photos inside, stopping when he looked down at the photo of the sinking, half submerged U.S.S. HORNET. That photo finally convinced Tsukahara, who smiled at Otto.
‘’I will be most happy to refill your torpedo racks and your fuel tanks, Captain Kretschmer. Just make a detailed list of your needs and I will make sure that they will be satisfied.’’
‘’You are too kind, Admiral. I believe that there are some strategic and operational conclusions and decisions that need to be made after those sinkings, as the American fleet is now very weak in the South Pacific, particularly around the Solomons, the New Hebrides and New Caledonia.’’
‘’Indeed!’’ Agreed Tsukahara, who already saw many opportunities pop up inside his mind. ‘’We will of course have to discuss all this in front of a good meal tonight at my quarters.’’
‘’Of course, Admiral! I will be most happy to come.’’ Replied a smiling Otto. If he could entice the Japanese High Command into what he believed to be the needed set of actions, then maybe his goal of shortening this war to Germany’s advantage could become reality.