The Galloping Ghost (26 page)

On the afternoon of 8 June the submarine cast off without fanfare. But lookouts had raised a makeshift flag to the pinnacle of the periscope shears. Emblazoned on the cloth were the words “Fluckey's 8th Fleet.” As the black, unmarked submarine proceeded through the Pearl Harbor channel, battleships, carriers, and other subs sent a steady stream of blinker-signals and flag messages encouraging “Good hunting!” and “Good luck!” Commander Fluckey couldn't believe all the sailors waving and taking photos as the submarine motored past. Then another message arrived,
this from Admiral Halsey: “GOOD LUCK BARB AND FLUCKEY X GOOD HUNTING AND GIVE THEM HELL X HALSEY.” The skipper realized something was up, finally noticing what was written on the flag overhead. Completely embarrassed, he ordered it lowered and handed over but took no punitive action.

The skipper set a course that passed through Midway in a return trip to northern Japan and the Okhotsk Sea, where he soon would demonstrate the awesome future of submarine warfare.

With the war winding down, Commander Fluckey knew the pressure was on. In a letter to his wife, he sized up the task ahead:

As the sub passed through the lower Kuriles into the Okhotsk, an “eyes only” message arrived from Admiral Lockwood directing Fluckey to make his presence known, to “raise a rumpus.” Three wolf packs of nine submarines in the Sea of Japan were due to transit La Perouse Strait into the Okhotsk en route to Guam over the next few days. By drawing away air and surface patrols from the twenty-five-mile-wide passage, the
Barb
would enable the subs to slip through undetected.

Raise a rumpus? No problem. Fluckey would use all his bells and whistles—three kinds of torpedoes, more than seventy missiles, a larger deck gun, and saboteurs. He would create such havoc the Japanese would think the whole rim of the Okhotsk was under siege.

On the morning of 21 June the
Barb
attacked and sank two small, well-armed ships in the lower Kuriles northeast of Hokkaido. The sub continued down the coast, daring the Japanese by staying on the surface close to land
in the daylight. The boat bore steadily toward the mining and lumber city of Shari on the northern coast of Hokkaido. Two hours after midnight on 22 June the
Barb
crept into the harbor as the city of twenty thousand slumbered. At Fluckey's order, “Swish” Saunders and his gunners scrambled out onto the forward deck, where they unstrapped the missile launcher, raised it to a forty-five-degree angle, loaded the pipes with a dozen missiles, and connected an electrical cord to a firing switch in the conning tower. The men then went aft alongside the conning tower. The captain, on the bridge, flipped his polarized goggles to their darkest setting and barked the order, “Rockets away!”

An explosion of blue-white flame lit the deck. The missiles lifted off in less than five seconds and disappeared into the night sky. It was the first ballistic missile strike by an American submarine in the history of warfare.

“Right rudder! All ahead two-thirds!” yelled the captain.

The
Barb
heeled about and made for the open sea. Thirty seconds passed until multiple impacts lit the city. Chunks of buildings flew into the air as the sub began a high-speed, twenty-hour run across the Okhotsk to the eastern side of Sakhalin Island north of La Perouse Strait. Fluckey was pretty sure the attack on Shari would divert Japanese ships guarding the strait, enabling the wolf pack to scoot through. Confirmation arrived in an ULTRA from ComSubPac: three Japanese destroyers had departed La Perouse to sweep the north coast of Hokkaido in search of a reported wolf pack off Shari.

As the
Barb
entered Patience Bay (Taraika Wan) on the eastern side of Sakhalin, the sub made radar contact with a diesel trawler. Its seven-man crew saw the sub coming and tried to escape. But a burst of 40mm gunfire and 5-inch shells brought the ship to a dead halt, on fire and sinking. Enemy crewmen looked like they wanted to be saved. Fluckey decided one might be useful; he couldn't spare enough men to guard additional prisoners. A wounded sailor swam for the sub and was pulled aboard. The
Barb
abandoned the rest to the frigid Okhotsk. But two hours later the boat returned. “We wanted to give the survivors some food and water as well as direction to land if they had found a raft or something to get up on,” said Max Duncan, officer of the deck. There were no survivors.

The
Barb
resumed its coastal run north toward the city of Shikuka in Karafuto Province, the Japanese-held lower end of Sakhalin. Radar revealed a large number of pips on the city's waterfront, perhaps the remainder of the once powerful Japanese fleet. Fluckey envisioned a second Nam Kwan since the anchorage lay twenty-two miles inside the twenty-fathom curve.
The submarine closed to five fathoms where, to the crew's great disappointment, there were no ships—just numerous smokestacks. The boat returned to the open sea.

For the next two days the Barb journeyed north along the foggy upper half of Sakhalin, controlled by the Russians. Amid seals and ice floes the submarine sailed as far as the port of Urkt, where Fluckey thought the Soviets might be selling fuel oil to the enemy. No such activity or targets were encountered. But on the late afternoon of 26 June, during the return voyage, lookouts saw a southbound convoy dead ahead. When radar detected nothing, Fluckey realized it was an atmospheric anomaly. The skipper guessed the ships were about twenty-five miles over the horizon and initiated an end-around.

It took hours to get ahead of the convoy—two medium freighters, a smaller transport, a modern sub-hunter destroyer, two frigates, and two patrol boats. As was his habit while tracking ships on the surface, Fluckey sat on the bridge with his feet propped up, very relaxed, doing the math in his head. “He would ask his exec on the scope, ‘What's the range and bearing to that ship that was bearing zero three zero at 4,800 yards five minutes ago?'” explained Duncan. “And you'd have to keep up with him in your mind in order to do that. If you didn't, he would ask me what the current distance to the target was. And I would say, ‘Oh, about 2,200 yards.' And he would say, that's pretty good. It's 2,600 yards better than five minutes ago.”

Night fell under a full moon, too risky for a surface attack. The captain submerged to periscope depth ahead of the convoy and waited. The setup seemed ideal until the convoy turned sharply west away from the sub into Patience Bay. The only chance was an “up the kilt” shot at the lagging destroyer using one of the boat's new Mark 28 acoustic torpedoes. Fluckey had to act quickly.

“Open outer door tube four! Range—mark! Final bearing—mark! Fire 4!”

A blast of compressed air sent the torpedo on its way at thirty-two knots. It locked onto the sound of the ship's propellers and curved toward the target. The
Barb
's sonar operator counted down the approach. One minute, fifty-three seconds. One minute, twenty seconds. One minute. Forty-five seconds. Thirty-five.

Silence. The torpedo's motor quit short of the target.

Frustrated, Fluckey brought the sub back to the surface for a new approach. He cleared the bridge of all but he and Duncan as the flash of gunfire lit the horizon. The whine of shells flying over warned the sub
away. Fluckey set a zigzag course seaward, then headed farther down the coast. The convoy anchored overnight, and at sunup on the 27th resumed its southward trek. The submerged
Barb
was waiting. Morning haze had burned off, however, giving the convoy's aviators a perfect view of the sub's black hull etched against the shallow sea bottom. As Fluckey raised the periscope, two bombs exploded. Close. Then two more, followed by the thump of depth charges—getting closer. The boat made for deeper water as the destroyer raced forward, its spotter plane circling. The warship's side-throwing catapults hurled depth charges with abandon, clearing the ocean in a pattern never before faced by the
Barb
. Teeters plotted each detonation. Well above. One below. One astern. Another on the port side. The destroyer was off target, however. “Captain,” Teeters shouted. “Plot indicates she has lost
Barb,
probably attacking some poor seal or a whale heading north. We're in the clear.”

An hour later the submarine surfaced unseen. It was mid-morning and there was yet one more chance to do some damage before the convoy rounded the southern cape of Karafuto and disappeared through La Perouse Strait. Fluckey made another end-around, keeping the smoke of the convoy in view. The
Barb
arrived off the cape at dusk. There was no sign of ships. Again they had anchored somewhere up the coast. A sixty-mile search throughout the night was fruitless.

At dawn on the 28th the boat returned to its earlier position and submerged. A frigate appeared at one point, then departed. Also a plane flew over. But no convoy was sighted. With oxygen running low, Fluckey brought the sub back to the surface at dusk to recharge batteries and air out the compartments. Again the captain sought the anchorage without success before returning to the boat's submerged guard post at dawn.

At noon on the 29th a float plane flew past the sub's raised periscope. Startled, Fluckey had a good view of the pilot, staring straight ahead fifty feet off the glassy surface. Thirty minutes later, the skipper took another look. “Man battle stations torpedoes! Here they come!” he shouted. The sound of gongs mixed with cheers from below. The long wait was over.

The
Terutsuki,
with its scout plane, led the way. The
Barb
positioned itself for a stern shot. Fluckey took a look. “Angle on the bow still zero with plane weaving across his bow. This boy looks menacing. Coming left to give him a down the throat with stern tubes.”

Up above, the plane did figure-eights ahead of the hunter-killer. Pinging from the destroyer combed the ocean for the submarine. The destroyer maintained a steady course at 10 knots. Range closed to 1,700 yards . . .
1,000 yards . . . 960. . . . Then, without warning, five bombs exploded over the boat, so powerful the periscope acted like a whip antenna. Flecks of insulating cork broke loose, creating a dust storm in the compartments. Light bulbs shattered. Crewmen clung to any fixed object to stay upright. Fluckey, maintaining periscope depth, took aim with a Mark 28 homing torpedo.

“Fire 10!”

The torpedo bolted away. But the motor again failed. Another dud. “Damn it!” cursed the skipper. “Open the outer doors on tubes 7, 8, and 9! Max! New setup!”

A depth charge exploded, then another well below the boat—perhaps the torpedo exploding on impact with the ocean floor.

Fluckey raised the periscope and fed coordinates to Duncan at the TDC. The destroyer continued lobbing depth charges.

“Fire 7! Fire 8! Fire 9! All ahead full!”

Three conventional electric torpedoes sped away. The
Barb
accelerated for twenty seconds, ending with a large knuckling of seawater as the boat turned sharply, giving enemy sonar the impression the cavitation was the submarine. All stop. The boat coasted silently away from the water disturbance.

Sixty seconds passed.

The three torpedoes converged on the warship—and passed under it without exploding. “It can't be!” Fluckey anguished, issuing the command to close watertight doors between the compartments. “Hang on, everyone!”

The
Terutsuki
sped up, coming in fast to finish off the
Barb
. The shriek of the destroyer's twin propellers rose audibly, as if they would cleave their way through the boat's hull. Crewmen braced, ears tuned to the overhead. They could hear the heavy splash of countless depth charge canisters, followed by the sharp clicks of detonators. The depth charge direction indicator in the conning tower lit up like a runaway computer. Explosions ahead. Above. Below. Port. Starboard. Somehow the submarine remained watertight.

It was Fluckey's turn.

This time he would narrow the distance. Another Mark 28 couldn't miss. The skipper raised the scope. “Thrilling. The ship's doing a St. Vitas dance!” he shouted, describing the rocking motion of the destroyer, slinging depth charges side to side. “Geysers are flying up from a stream of charges shot from her side throwers.”

Someone in the crowded conning tower yelled back, “Captain, for God's sake, get that periscope down!”

“Fire 4!”

With a jolt, the torpedo left the bow. Moments later its motor also failed, and it fell harmlessly into the depths.

The destroyer paused out of range, listening and pinging. It turned and throttled up, bearing straight for the boat. Fluckey knew the
Barb
was in big trouble. “Open the outer doors on tubes 1, 2, and 3! Max! New setup!”

Screws of the speeding
Terutsuki
rose to fever pitch. Crewmen held their breath, pulses pounding. The sound man counted off the approach. “He's at 1,000 . . . 600 . . . 400 . . . 100.” The swish of the warship passed overhead. Then the splashdown of canisters, lots of them. Sledgehammers waffled the boat. Explosions too numerous to count.