Hellcats (34 page)

After an all-day submerged crawl
from their starting points in the western approaches to La Pérouse Strait, the eight Hellcats surfaced after dark. Formed up in two columns of four ships each, they began their dash to safety, diesels roaring at full song. A heavy fog provided cover for the subs, a fog that Hydeman claimed was the only good fog he'd ever seen. Up ahead there was no way to know what they might encounter. Anything was possible, from a flotilla of enemy patrol boats to drifting mines to a convoy of plodding
marus
. The Hellcats also had to stay alert to avoid any Soviet ships that might be in the strait.

Hydeman and the other skippers would have to rely solely on radar bearings and ranges for navigation through the strait and for keeping position on the other Hellcats running in two columns two miles apart, a mile-and-a-half separation ahead and astern of one another. Their challenge was to keep from running into one another at night in fog in unfamiliar waters. Leading the way in the
Sea Dog
, Earl Hydeman's job was to see that they didn't.

La Pérouse Strait is approximately sixty miles long, depending on where a navigator plots the start of its western end and cares to mark its eastern terminus. The fifty-mile-wide open crab claw of Karafuto lies north of the strait. Its twin-taloned points, Nishi Notoro Misaki and Naka Shiretoko Misaki, form a large bay trawled by fishermen. It also provided a base for Japanese patrol boats. One of those points, Nishi Notoro Misaki, protrudes into the strait, pinching its navigable width down to less than twenty-five miles. East of this point the strait opens wide toward the northeastern coast of Hokkaido and, beyond, the Sea of Okhotsk. For the Hellcats, passage through the pinched area around Nishi Notoro Misaki posed the greatest risk. If they didn't run into any Japanese patrol boats there, it would be clear sailing all the way to the Sea of Okhotsk.

 

 

The first indication of trouble
arrived when the
Sea Dog
's radar failed—again—forcing Hydeman to slow down and drop astern of the
Skate
and relinquish the lead to the
Crevalle
. “A questionable distinction,” said Steinmetz, thinking about mines. Ozzie Lynch in the
Skate
coached the radar-blind
Sea Dog
into position behind the
Skate
as the pack sped southeast on a course that would keep them away from the coast of Hokkaido.

Then, at 2245, more trouble—radar contact on a big ship due east of the Hellcats and on a course opposite their own. Was the ship Russian or Japanese? Steinmetz in the lead closed in on the contact. He saw two lights that he judged too bright for masthead lights. He decided that the ship was either a Russian freighter or a Japanese hospital ship. He peered into the gloom. Or was it a Japanese destroyer trying to sucker the Hellcats? Had it spotted them racing east low in the water? There was no way to tell. Steinmetz relayed his assessment down the line to the
Skate
and to Hydeman in the blind
Sea Dog
. Like Steinmetz, the other Hellcats watched the blip on their radar screens grow bigger and bigger as the unidentified ship approached. Still hidden by fog except for two muted running lights, the ship plodded steadily west without any sign of having spotted the band of submarine raiders, now less than a half mile distant, coming up on her port side.

All at once she loomed up out of the fog, machinery pounding away, propeller thrashing, dazzling lights haloed by swirling fog. To make certain there was no confusion over her nationality, the crew had rigged a bright light to shine on the Russian flag flying from a staff at her stern. And, as if curious about all that noise growing louder and louder off her port side—the muffled pulse of thirty-two diesel engines running wide-open—the Russians snapped on a big searchlight whose fog-streamed loom of white light they played over the Hellcats.

“Shut that goddamned thing off or I'll shut it off for you,” Steinmetz raged. A gunner's mate on the
Crevalle
's bridge caressed the triggers of a .50-caliber Browning machine gun, ready to hose down the Russian ship if Steinmetz gave the order. As if the Russians had heard Steinmetz raging, the searchlight snapped off, plunging the strait into full dark. The Hellcats jinked to the right to give the ship a wider berth, then jinked back on course. As the ship vanished into swirling fog, Operation Barney came to an end.

“It was fantastic to believe,” Steinmetz later wrote in his patrol report, “that we could have gotten away with what we did against even mediocre opposition.” But, he warned, “The Japs won't be napping next time, if there is a next time.”

 

 

At daybreak on the twenty-fifth
the
Sea Dog
, her radar back online, resumed the lead. After clearing the strait, Hydeman radioed Lockwood with an after-action report that included more information on the missing
Bonefish
. Worried that she had been damaged and unable to radio for help, Hydeman still held out hope that she might show up. He cautioned Pierce to stay alert for Japanese sub hunters while he stayed behind to wait for word from the
Bonefish
. When the forty-eight hours allotted for this by Hydeman were up, and if there was no contact, Pierce was to get under way for Pearl Harbor.

Lockwood received Hydeman's latest report with jubilation. They had done it! They had proved that subs could get in and get out of the Sea of Japan relying on FM sonar. The gadget worked. It proved too that Lockwood's plan was sound and that there was no way the Japanese could stop future raids. Their fate was sealed. All the hard work he and his staff had poured into Operation Barney had paid off. The submarine force was assured of having an important role to play in the final downfall of Japan. His submarines would finish off the Japanese by strangling them in their island bastion.

Lockwood drafted a rousing reply to Hydeman's message, which he intended should set the stage for their homecoming. They were due in Pearl Harbor for a grand reception by Lockwood and his staff. Clear of La Pérouse, seven Hellcats set their courses for Midway to refuel and take on torpedoes. Pierce waved them on as he dropped out of the pack to begin a vigil for the
Bonefish
. If Edge showed up needing help, Pierce would assist if he could.

His vigil proved lonely and fruitless. Hour after hour Pierce urged the
Tunny
's radiomen to peak the ship's transmitter to the tactical frequency and to try again and again to raise the
Bonefish
. “
Tunny
62V607 to
Bonefish
67V607—62V607 to 67V607.” But hissing static and the silence of the missing submarine confirmed what they'd suspected all along. When Pierce stopped by the radio room the radiomen just shook their heads. “Sorry, Captain, nothing.” Reluctantly, sadly, Pierce shoved off to rejoin the Hellcats.

 

 

The Hellcats arrived in Pearl
Harbor in two separate groups on the fourth and fifth of July. Though the missing
Bonefish
dampened the jubilation of their arrival, they nevertheless received a tumultuous welcome. Admiral Nimitz, a submariner himself, was there to shake hands with each member of the Hellcat crews. Lockwood and the ComSubPac staff had streamed out of their offices en masse to meet the returning Hellcats at the sub base piers. Lockwood had even rounded up another bevy of good-looking nurses to join the homecoming festivities, which included a Navy brass band playing “Anchors Aweigh” and Broadway show tunes.

Though Lockwood was a realist when it came to submarines that were overdue from patrol and presumed lost, he held out hope that the
Bonefish
might yet show up. Despite her apparent loss, he pronounced the mission a complete success, believing that Japan had been irrevocably weakened by the sinking of twenty-eight more ships and numerous small craft she could not afford to lose. He allowed that in the midst of rejoicing over Barney's success, there was no time for mourning losses or to question whether the sinking of a Hellcat submarine was a price worth paying to prove that FM sonar worked, and to avenge Mush Morton and the
Wahoo
.

Lockwood wasn't then in the mood to reflect on such matters. That would come later. He was too busy laying on a meeting in the sub base auditorium, which he filled with the officers of the sub force. Barney Sieglaff introduced the Hellcat skippers, each of whom got to tell his story, which they repeated during a formal press conference that followed the meeting between the skippers and the staff. Reporters were not informed that Edge and the
Bonefish
were missing. ComSubPac allowed that the eight skippers present at the news conference were the only ones involved in the raid. The reason for not revealing that a sub had been lost was to protect the identities of any possible
Bonefish
survivors captured by the Japanese, slim as those chances were. Speaking at the press conference, Lockwood announced that more subs would soon follow the Hellcats into the Sea of Japan. In fact, he'd already compiled a list of seven FMS-equipped boats slated for training and deployment as soon as the Hellcat skippers underwent debriefing by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). As the news conference ended, and to groans of displeasure from the assembled reporters, the ComSubPac press officer announced that the Navy had embargoed the release of all news stories about Operation Barney until further notice.

After concluding the grueling business of meetings, news conferences, and debriefings, Lockwood hosted a dinner dance for the skippers. Lockwood, still the big-picture man, saw to it that each officer had a lovely female companion to keep him company. Enlisted men from the Hellcat boats made do with beer and booze on notorious Hotel Street in Honolulu. As for female companionship, they probably had the better time of it.

 

 

Soon enough it was back
to work for the Hellcat submariners; there were still regular war patrols to prepare for, and, for Lockwood, more FMS training at sea. Lockwood was as busy as ever; demands on his time had not slackened a bit. Toward mid-July he had to face the fact that continuing to hope for the
Bonefish
's return was futile. If she'd been able to get out of the Sea of Japan or radio for help, she would have by now. As for the possibilities of survivors, he was certain there weren't any. Decrypted Japanese reports of attacks on the Hellcat subs during their raid had been so garbled that no information concerning the
Bonefish
could be extracted from them by the experts at ICPOA. Her loss remained a mystery.

Lockwood had no choice but to send a letter to Admiral Nimitz that served the purpose of formally recording the
Bonefish
in the official casualty record kept by the Pacific Fleet. Lockwood titled his letter, “The USS Bonefish (SS-223)—loss of.” In it he wrote, “It is with the deepest regret that I report the USS Bonefish is overdue from patrol, and must be presumed to be lost. This was the eighth patrol of the Bonefish and the fourth patrol for Commander Lawrence L. Edge. Commander Edge was an exceptionally brilliant officer, and had been awarded a Bronze Star for the Bonefish's fifth patrol and the Navy Cross for the sixth patrol. He was awarded but not presented with a Gold Star in lieu of a second Navy Cross for the Bonefish's seventh patrol. The Bonefish has a long record of many successes during her war career. She is credited with inflicting [heavy] damage upon the enemy.”
⁴

Admiral Nimitz forwarded Lockwood's letter to Admiral King, saying, “Forwarded with profound regret. The combat records of both Bonefish and her Commanding Officer, Commander Edge, were in accordance with the high standards of the Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet. The loss of both will be keenly felt.”
⁵

On July 28, one month after the
Bonefish
's disappearance, with Admiral King's approval, BuPers sent missing-in-action telegrams to the families of the men lost aboard the submarine. It was Navy policy to list men who had disappeared under such circumstances as missing, not dead. They would not be officially listed as killed in action until after a full year had passed from the time of their disappearance. This wording of the telegrams served to keep hopes alive among the families that at least some of the men might have been taken prisoner and that, with the war coming to an end, they might be found in POW camps. At the time of the announcement, no one, least of all ComSubPac, knew the facts surrounding the loss of the
Bonefish
. It would take many postwar months of searching through Japanese records to learn her fate.

An official telegram informing the families that their loved ones were missing in action was a cold, impersonal, and heartbreaking thing. It didn't tell the whole story of Edge's and his men's sacrifice; only Lockwood could do that. He noted in his diary what he had to do to rectify that situation: “Must send a letter to Mrs. Edge.”
⁶