Final Patrol (12 page)

It was no consolation when the captain shared with his officers that the big blasts that had sent them deep had most likely not been depth charges at all, but bombs, dropped from an airplane. Burlingame told them he had glimpsed the aircraft through the periscope just before its pilot tried to send them all to Davy Jones's locker.

No matter the cause, they had emergency repairs to complete to get the boat ready to surface. When the coast appeared to finally be clear, Burlingame tentatively brought his boat to the top.

The ocean and the sky above them appeared to be empty.

“Anybody have a headache?” the captain asked those around him in the conning tower. They looked back at him, confused. “Headaches? From all that thunder? Seems like we might need some medicinal whiskey if we are experiencing any pain. Right?”

“Yes, sir!” they all agreed, many of them vigorously rubbing their temples.

“Then break it out. Oh, and Merry Christmas!”

Sure enough, Christmas Day had crept up on them while they were doing emergency surgery, dodging explosions, and nearly losing their boat to the clutching fist of the Pacific Ocean.

In his patrol report, Creed Burlingame wrote, “We added [the whiskey] to our powdered eggs and canned milk. With a lot of imagination it tasted almost like eggnog.”

Oh, and George Platter made a complete recovery from his emergency surgery. The young sailor was standing regular watch duty aboard “the Lucky Boat” only six days later.

 

 

 

The
Silversides
successfully completed fourteen war patrols and, in the process, sank twenty-three ships. She was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest award for a navy ship, for each of four patrols, and received twelve combat insignia battle stars for successful war patrols.

She completed a “hat trick,” sinking three ships in a single engagement, on four different occasions.

Creed Burlingame was on the bridge for five of her war runs, John S. Coye for six, and John C. Nichols for the final three. Along the way, she not only racked up amazing devastation against the enemy but also survived numerous depth charges, dive-bombings, and even a “hot run” in her own torpedo tube.

A hot run was when a torpedo became lodged in the tube and failed to swim away toward the target as it was supposed to do. The weapon is not supposed to be armed until it is out of the tube, but there is no way for the torpedomen to be sure of that. In some cases, captains had to slam the door closed against the torpedo's nose, trying to drive it back inside the tube, so it could be pressurized again and either refired or removed from the tube.

In the case of the
Silversides
, the captain simply ordered it fired again as he sent the boat “emergency back.” He wanted to get away from the device as quickly as possible if they could ever get the thing launched.

It worked. The torpedo was flushed from its tube with no damage to its mother ship. Only to the nerves of her crew.

Creed Burlingame is still recognized as one of the real characters of World War II. His bravado and good humor—not to mention his exploits while on liberty—made him a favorite with his crew members. And, of course, his success against the enemy earned him the respect of his superiors. Much to the chagrin of his straight-and-narrow executive officer, Roy Davenport, Burlingame kept a small Buddha statue that his crew members had given him close at hand as he peered through the periscope. He always rubbed the statue's belly before launching an attack. He said it was for good luck. Most of the crew figured he did it just to gig his XO.

Davenport did not let his skipper bother him. He went on to command two submarines of his own, taking them on a total of six very successful war patrols. He earned five Navy Crosses for those runs, more than any other submarine skipper in the war. Except for those who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, Davenport became the most decorated submariner of World War II.

After his final patrol, Davenport asked to be assigned to shore duty. He was sent back to Annapolis to teach marine engineering.

 

 

 

After the war,
the
Silversides
became a training vessel for naval reservists, based on Lake Michigan at Chicago. When her duty there was done, she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in June of 1969. She had someone waiting to adopt her. The chamber of commerce of South Chicago applied for custody of the boat and docked her at the Navy Pier. There she served as a memorial to veterans and, hopefully, a tourist attraction.

In 1973, the
Silversides
was moved across Lake Michigan to become part of what is now the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum at Muskegon, Michigan. Also at the memorial is the Coast Guard cutter USCGC
McLane
(WSC-146), which has been berthed near the submarine since 1993. She is still undergoing restoration. That vessel's service included chasing down bootleggers on the Great Lakes during the Prohibition era and patrolling the frigid Bering Sea during World War II.

The
Silversides
has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

For years, volunteers cared for the vessel from the waterline up, but now nature has taken her toll. In the past few years, it was determined that she needed her bottom sandblasted and repainted with a protective coating, and that operation would require that she be moved to a dry dock, more than fifty years since the last time she was in a dry dock for maintenance. In 2004 the museum and two different submarine veterans' groups formed a “Save the
Silversides
” fund to raise money to take care of the maintenance that the historic vessel required.

Visitors should be sure to look for the bronze plaque on the
Silversides'
deck, a memorial in remembrance of Torpedoman Third Class Michael Harbin, the young sailor killed on the boat's first patrol.

As with many of the museum boats around the country, the
Silversides
and the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum always welcome volunteers. They may contact the museum by phone or via the link on the Internet site.

Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

 

Class:
Gato
, one of seventy-three boats in that class that were constructed

Launched:
November 14, 1943

Named for:
a saltwater fish of the pompano family

Where:
Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut

Sponsor:
Mrs. Merrill Comstock, the wife of U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Merrill Comstock

Commissioned:
February 29, 1944

 

Claim to fame:
She sank the
Shokaku
, one of the Japanese aircraft carriers that participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor and one of the most coveted targets of World War II, not only for revenge but for tactical reasons.

T
he submarine USS
Cavalla
(SS-244) was another boat that tried to lay claim to the title “Luckiest Ship in the Submarine Service.” Her record certainly justified the nickname. So did her “birthday.”

When her commissioning crew realized she was scheduled to be commissioned in the middle of March 1944, they formed a committee and went to her new skipper with an idea. Lieutenant Commander Herman J. Kossler liked the plan but doubted very seriously that the navy brass would go along with it.

What the crew members wanted to do was move the commissioning date up to February 29, leap day. They felt strongly that sending the new boat out on that particular day would give her good luck. And where she was going, luck was a much-needed commodity, no matter where it came from. Kossler dutifully sent the request along to his superiors, openly stating his reasoning in the paperwork: “My crew thinks it would mean good luck for the boat, and so do I.”

To everyone's surprise, the navy went along with the date change, for no better reason than the chance it might bring good fortune. And that is how she became a “leap year ship.”

Whether or not luck had anything to do with it, the
Cavalla
immediately had an impact against the enemy when she relayed vital information about a Japanese task force on the move toward a key showdown with the Allies. And her rookie skipper did a good enough job that he remained at the helm of his first command for all six of her war patrols. Although she had close escapes and was damaged severely several times by Japanese attacks, she still survived to be present for a momentous event in world history. The
Cavalla
was among the armada that sailed into Tokyo Bay on August 31, 1945, and she was berthed there not far from the battleship USS
Missouri
(BB-63) for the Japanese surrender ceremony on September 2.

Maybe it was luck that placed the
Cavalla
near the San Bernardino Strait not far from the Philippines in June of 1944, but it required skill and determination to accomplish what Captain Kossler and his crew did on that trip. On her maiden run, she ran headlong into a submerged whale. For a while, the skipper was afraid damage had been done to his new vessel, but everything seemed okay. Not so for the whale. That animal broached in a pool of blood, quite dead. The
Cavalla
was ordered to proceed to a rendezvous point to relieve another submarine, the
Flying Fish
(SS-229). Before she could get on station, though, the
Cavalla
received an abrupt change of orders, a course correction that would make history for the new submarine.

The
Flying Fish
reported some big news back to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attack force was out of harbor, on the move from Tawi-Tawi between the Philippines and Malaysia, crossing the Celebes Sea and possibly heading toward the Mariana Islands. If so, that meant they were on the way to try to repel “Operation Forager,” the American offensive that was already taking place there. It was expected that the enemy would attack the Allied Fleet with its deadly dive-bombers once they got close enough to send off the aircraft. The truth was, the Japanese had decided to launch a devastating attack, called Plan A-Go, and destroy the American Pacific Fleet in one glorious blow.

Admiral Charles Lockwood had a plan, though, and “the Lucky Boat” was a major part of it. He wanted the
Cavalla
to stop and lie in wait for the enemy fleet to come her way. They were not necessarily there to attack but to observe, to report on exactly how big the enemy contingent was, what its components were, and how fast and which way it was headed.

If the enemy could surprise the American fleet it might, indeed, be the turning point in the war that the Japanese so desperately needed. But if the Allies only knew what was coming and when, they could prepare for it.

It was about eleven p.m. when the
Cavalla
's radar operator let out a gasp and breathlessly reported what he saw on his tiny scope.

“Convoy, bearing two-nine-zero. Looks like a couple of tankers and three escorts.”

Captain Kossler grinned. This was not the main component of the IJN fleet, but it still looked like a bunch of promising targets were about to parade right past them. They were almost certainly the forerunners of the big group of warships, sprinting ahead with precious petroleum to fuel the ships and aircraft that would try to knock out the Allies.

Kossler hastily maneuvered on the surface for an attack, making an “end-around” run to get ahead of the ships, bathing the enemy vessels with his radar to keep them within range. But just as he was ready to dive and prepare to shoot, one of the escort destroyers peeled off and headed directly for the
Cavalla
. Either the submarine had been spotted on the surface already or it would be as soon as the destroyer got close enough.

Kossler lost his grin.

“Take her deep. He's probably seen us or detected our radar. Either way, he knows we're here now.”

It was almost two hours later before they could surface with any reasonable safety and see if the convoy was still up there. It wasn't. The sea was empty.

All Captain Kossler could do now was report what he had seen to Honolulu, then stand by, as originally ordered, to wait for the rest of the enemy fleet to possibly come his way. Losing such a group of delicious targets had Kossler and his crew deeply depressed.

Here they were, just out on their initial run with a chance to send three tankers loaded with precious fuel to the bottom and deal a big blow to whatever the IJN fleet's plans were. But all they had been able to do was turn tail and hide from the sharp-eyed destroyer. There was little chance of doing any damage at all while they stayed deep and waited for the targets to steam away.