The Galloping Ghost (9 page)

The sub docked periodically at the U.S. naval base of Guantanamo, Cuba, and in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Haiti, where Fluckey couldn't believe conditions. “I thought I had seen the low in poverty but this takes the cake,” he wrote Marjorie. “The people have nothing, have never had anything and the land seems to produce only dried up peanuts with an orange or so now and then.” In the Virgin Islands, officers and sailors of the Fleet went ashore in St. Thomas. It was there that Fluckey became an accidental ambassador for the Navy at the governor's house.

He had been relaxing on the veranda of the city hotel when a fellow officer arrived, dressed in white service and under the impression that the officers had to attend a reception at the governor's mansion. “I told him I would gladly hop up to the governor's with him save for the sad fact that the two suits of white I had were dirty,” Fluckey wrote to his wife. “The situation was cleared up by my returning to the ship, squeezing into one of the [officer's] suits and returning ashore to kill the fatted calf.” Arriving outside the mansion, he noticed officers milling about in the road and in the gardens,
not wanting to be first to enter the home. When Cdr. W. T. Waldschmidt entered the home, Fluckey strolled inside, signed the guest registry, and started up the stairway, expecting others to follow. He hadn't realized that the officers were to first go to a room on the first floor. The governor and his wife were on the second floor and dashed forward to greet the young lieutenant, who looked around with a jolt.

After the reception, Fluckey and his fellow officers adjourned to the hotel, where the orchestra off the
New York
and
Wyoming
battleships performed at a dance held at the hotel.

By the fall of 1939, with the S-boats continuing to troll the Caribbean, Germany's invasion of Poland had triggered war in Europe. Japan, meanwhile, was consolidating its conquest of China while threatening to overrun Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Indochina, and the Philippines, the territorial possessions of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States. Tokyo also began a massive buildup of its navy and its bases in the Mariana, Caroline, and the Marshall islands inherited from Germany by the peace terms of World War I. President Roosevelt and the Navy looked with alarm on these developments since the bases were like a strand of pearls strung along vital U.S. sea lanes linking Hawaii with the Philippines. The president retaliated by ordering the Fleet to shift its headquarters from West Coast ports to Pearl Harbor in order to bring the warships closer to the Philippines and hopefully dissuade Japan from further expansion. The administration also stiffened defenses in the Canal Zone, believing Japan might stage a surprise attack to put the canal out of commission.

The S-42 maintained its vigilance in the Caribbean through 1940 and the first half of 1941, with brief periods of liberty for the crew in Coco Solo. The boat was away for holidays, including Christmas and birthdays, the passage
of which were marked in letters between Lieutenant Fluckey and his wife. By June 1941 Mrs. Fluckey and her daughter returned to New London to await Gene's transfer back to the States, where he expected to assume command of his own submarine. Gene, along with his beloved Irish setter Penny, temporarily moved into a base dormitory and soon followed his family to New London—but not for long. Orders arrived for him to report as diving and engineering officer to the
Bonita,
one of the largest and most troublesome submarines in the undersea fleet.

Beginning with its V-class, the U.S. Navy began a tradition of giving many subs the names of fighting fish. Thus, the first three became the
Barracuda
(V-1),
Bass
(V-2), and
Bonita
(V-3). The Navy thought it was naming the
Bonita
after a fish with a streamlined, silvery blue body that must swim continuously because it lacks an air bladder and is migratory, often traveling amazingly long distances—an ideal name for the original promise of the V-3 as a transoceanic submarine. But that fish is spelled “bonito.” As it turned out, “bonita” is a Spanish adjective meaning “beautiful.” That, too, seemed an apt description for the startlingly large vessel as seen on the surface with its bulbous nose sweeping upward from the bow, its smooth white skin, and its tapered teakwood deck. In actuality the boat—like the rest of the V-class—was a miserable failure. Even later “improved” versions—the V-8 (
Cachalot
) and V-9 (
Cuttlefish
)—were beset by so many problems that they were known to some as “Breakdown Division One.” The Navy had pinned its hopes on the V-class with its range of 10,000 miles without refueling and a design speed of 21 knots, fast enough to keep up with the Fleet anywhere it went. But the Vs never measured up. They were unable to go faster than 18.7 knots. They couldn't meet the design goal of 9 knots submerged. And there were other problems. The fuel tanks often leaked, disclosing the sub's location when diving. The main diesel engines and electric motors failed frequently. And the vessels were heavy forward, making navigation on the surface and maneuverability submerged difficult. With its new fleet-type boats coming along, the Navy decided to decommission the V-class in 1937. But when a national state of emergency was declared by President Roosevelt in the spring of 1941 as conditions deteriorated in both Europe and the Far East, every sub was needed. Thus, the V-boats were recommissioned.

Originally the Navy intended, by terms of a secret agreement with England, to send the
Bonita, Bass,
and
Barracuda
plus twenty-two S-boats to Europe to operate under British command against German U-boats.
Navy Capt. Ralph Christie was selected to command the squadron. In order to train the crews, he began sending the boats on patrols to Navy bases in Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, and Guantanamo Bay. The performance of the Vs appalled Christie, who changed his mind and sent them back to Panama to help guard the canal.

In the summer of 1941 there was good reason for the Navy to worry about security in the Canal Zone. The Japanese had developed enormous
Jensen
-class cruiser submarines that could easily cross the Pacific. These I-subs were 373 feet long, could make 23 knots on the surface, carried 114 officers and crew, and had a range of more than 16,000 miles without refueling. Each carried a sealed hangar aft or forward of the bridge that housed as many as four catapult-launched planes or a midget submarine. It seemed to the Navy that the I-subs had been built with one purpose in mind—to attack American naval bases and especially to bomb the Panama Canal and stop the flow of war materiel once hostilities broke out. Another concern was the presence of German U-boats in the Caribbean. An alliance between Germany and Japan could imperil both ends of the canal.

Initially Fluckey was surprised to learn of his
Bonita
assignment. After serving so much time in S-42 in Panama, he had hoped for command of one of the old O- or R-boats operating out of New London. Instead, his orders were to become engineering and diving officer in the
Bonita
, which he joined in Bermuda on 11 June 1941 as a (j.g.) lieutenant.

Captain Christie considered the sub the worst of the V-boats. Even Fluckey had to concede he was right after reporting aboard. “I was shocked,” he recalled on reading the old ship's orders: “This submarine goes totally out of control if she has over a 2 degree down angle. Diving time is five minutes 45 seconds.” In sub school, instructors drilled into the young officers the necessity of getting submerged in about sixty seconds. Any boat on the surface longer than 60 seconds risked being spotted by a plane and being sunk. To Fluckey, the risk was unacceptable. “As we prepared for my first dive aboard
Bonita,
” he recalled sardonically, “I told the skipper that when war comes, we will be sunk by a plane whose pilot is still in the ready room when we start to dive.”

Just as startling as the diving characteristics was the average age of submariners aboard. Fluckey, twenty-six, looked at his chief petty officers and saw men in their sixties. Because of all the problems in the
Bonita,
the Navy had recruited volunteers from the original crew that put the sub into commission in 1925. “The average age of my chiefs was sixty-two,” said a chagrined Fluckey, who would in the coming months retire his chief electrician at age sixty-five.

Fluckey approached the
Bonita
like he did everything in life—with boundless curiosity as to how things worked and innovativeness in devising ways to solve problems. He didn't take “no” for an answer. Just as he had conquered his eyesight problem at the academy when doctors said it was impossible, he applied himself to solving the ills of the boat. He knew how important it was for the big submarine to dive quickly. So he soon came up with a unique solution: steepen the descent to twenty degrees while pumping water aft into ballast tanks to counterbalance the force on the bow going under. It would save time and bring the boat to level once fully submerged. It took precise calibrations, but the technique worked; the
Bonita
made the benchmark of achieving submergence in less than a minute.

With enthusiasm and goodwill, Fluckey was relentless, constantly pressing crewmen, the executive officer, and even the skipper for new ways to do what had become routine. In some ways this was annoying for those plodding along in the comfort of normal operations. Fluckey's modus operandi was well known to fellow officers in Coco Solo. In a poll among his squadron skippers, he was voted the officer least likely to succeed because he “rocked the boat” with too many new ideas. Nevertheless, the lieutenant pushed ahead, unfazed, realizing improvements could mean the difference between life and death, success or failure, in a coming war.

Until October 1941 the
Bonita
operated along the Pacific coast of Panama in search of Japanese submarines. Sometimes that would take the sub seven hundred miles offshore to check out Japanese tuna fleets. Unfortunately, as was the case with other V-boats, the sub left a telltale stream of oil from leaky tanks, making its presence known wherever it went. That was one problem Fluckey couldn't overcome; there was no way to get to the tanks without returning to a shipyard for a major overhaul.

The hunt for the enemy turned up nothing. Days at sea led to spells of boredom. Fluckey sat in on poker games in the wardroom, studying the skills of the skipper and the executive officer, making mental notes on how to beat them. As the boat's censor, he also read all the enlisted men's mail to remove anything that might disclose the submarine's location, tactics, and mission. His longing to be reunited with his family intensified with each and every letter.

By the fall Marjorie and daughter Barbara were preparing to return to Panama from New London now that Gene had secured housing at Coco Solo. Finding family quarters on the base had always been difficult, as housing was parceled out according to seniority. Arrangements had been made for a Navy transport to bring Fluckey's family, though Marjorie worried about being sunk en route because of war in Europe. Gene had urged her
not to worry. “Keep your chin up and stop letting things upset you. Sailing in the Atlantic is still very safe and I pray your transportation won't be canceled. However, if it does become dangerous, the Navy Department undoubtedly will cancel all transportation.”

On 25 November 1941 Fluckey wrote of his excitement that the family would be together for the holidays. “Tomorrow morning I'll order the Christmas tree. I could kick myself for not bringing the ornaments with me. As usual my heart is ticking off the seconds until you get here. Sweetheart, 'till you arrive I'll be singing ‘Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly.' It cheers me knowing we'll be together for Christmas, then ‘Joy to the World.'”

In New London Marjorie had all the family's belongings crated and stored for shipment, then learned the date for embarkation was to be 31 December, dashing any hopes of spending Christmas and New Year's with her husband. In a stroke of good luck, however, Fluckey's brother, Snowden, was able to secure passage for the family on an American Presidents luxury liner, due to cast off on 14 December.

Unaware of any of this on 6 December, Fluckey again wrote from Coco Solo: “Right now the best Christmas present I could possibly get would be to have you with me. For all I know, and if perchance the Gods have heard my prayers, you may be on your way down already. Please, God, make it so.”

The next day—7 December 1941—the whole world changed as the
Bonita
docked at Coco Solo. Japanese dive bombers and fighter planes dealt a devastating surprise attack on the Navy base at Pearl Harbor as well as a crippling bombardment of Manila and the big Navy base at Cavite in Manila Bay. At 1900 on 7 December the
Bonita
received an encoded message that a state of war existed between Japan and the United States. Lieutenant Fluckey and those on the sub hurriedly prepared for their first war patrol in the Pacific.