Hellcats (35 page)

Even as Lockwood made this note, events that would change the world forever began to unfold. And as they did, Operation Barney passed into history.

L
ightning erupted across the night sky. The rumble of distant thunder portended a possible break in the terrible heat and humidity gripping Atlanta. It couldn't happen soon enough for a very pregnant Sarah Edge. Though a fan moved the soupy air around in the apartment on Collier Road, the rooms still felt like ovens. Uncomfortable as Sarah was, it hadn't diminished the joy she felt over the pending birth of her and Lawrence's child, and her eagerness to share that joy with her husband. It had been two months since she'd received a letter or cable from Lawrence, longer than any period so far. A dram of fear began gnawing at her. Perhaps writing a letter to him would make it go away.

Sarah never mailed this letter. Before she could post it she received that telegram from the Navy with its awful, heart-stopping news that Lawrence was missing in action.

Desperate for information, she had no one in the Navy to turn to for answers in her moment of agony. What kind of mission was Lawrence on when his submarine disappeared? Had the
Bonefish
been sunk by the Japanese? Or had it been an operational disaster, flooding or fire, or something equally terrible? Were there any survivors? If so, had they been captured by the Japanese? Who could answer her questions and those of the families of the men under Lawrence's command? Sarah was a woman of deep faith. Until she had answers she would have to pray with all her heart and soul that somehow Lawrence was still alive somewhere, even in a POW camp. She told herself that as long as she clung to her faith things would work out okay. She had to believe that Lawrence would return home and wrap her, Boo, and their soon-to-be-born son in his arms.

 

 

Thousands of miles away on
Guam, just days before Sarah Edge received her world-changing telegram, Admiral Nimitz and his invited guests, Admiral Spruance, General Curtis LeMay of the AAF's XXI Bomber Command, and certain officers of their respective staffs, received a visit from Captain William S. Parsons, a naval ordnance expert assigned to the Manhattan Project. He had come to brief the officers on recent developments concerning the atomic bomb.

A lot had happened since the first briefing Nimitz had received in February. The U.S. Third Fleet had about completed its destruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy; LeMay's B-29s had reduced vast areas of Japan's major cities to ashes; Japan, seeking a possible end to the war on terms less onerous than unconditional surrender, had sent nascent peace feelers to the Allies through its ambassador to the Soviets; and, while planning continued for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, Washington prepared for a possible Japanese surrender by assembling staffs of experts in the fields of civil affairs, reconstruction, and, most important, war crimes. The issue of Japan's extending peace feelers seemed to indicate that the empire had reached the end of the road. Still, just as before, no one thought the final collapse would come without a bloody fight on the Tokyo Plain.

Parsons screened a color motion picture of the successful test of the world's first atomic bomb at Alamogordo on July 16. To a man the officers found it a sobering, if not frightening spectacle. It didn't take much imagination to picture what such a weapon would do to a city and its population, and it changed some minds regarding its usefulness as a weapon to force Japan to capitulate. One of those minds may have been Nimitz's. He'd once told King that he believed America's objectives in the Pacific would more likely be realized by continuing to blockade Japan and destroying her military forces than by relying on a secret weapon. But it was clear to him now that the sheer visual effects produced by the bomb, to say nothing of its destructive power, would shock and demoralize the Japanese people and sap their resolve to fight on.

The officers also learned from Parsons that the heavy cruiser USS
Indianapolis
(CA-35) was on her way to deliver the subcritical core of U-235 to the scientists on Tinian assembling the atomic bomb, which, if President Truman gave the order, would be dropped by B-29 on Japan. Washington hoped that with the announcement of the Potsdam Declaration, setting forth the terms for Japan's surrender, Tokyo would agree to end the war. But the refusal of Japan's leaders to face reality had deflated those hopes.

Nimitz, frustrated over Japan's intransigence, believed that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, it was just a matter of time before they caved in. But how much time and how many more lives it would take were questions neither Nimitz nor anyone else could answer. And until the Japanese did cave in, Spruance would continue launching air attacks, LeMay would keep dropping incendiaries, and Lockwood would keep on sending subs into the Sea of Japan to mop up
marus
.

 

 

Within ComSubPac operations at Guam,
as in every other command, there was a growing belief that the end was near. Aboard the last wave of seven FMS subs already headed for the Sea of Japan the sense of urgency was palpable; the submariners wanted to get in their last licks before the war ended.

Edward L. Beach, skipper of one of those boats, the USS
Piper
(SS-409), felt there was a good possibility he'd be too late.
²
“One decision I made,” wrote Beach, “and clung to tenaciously: we were going to get
Piper
into action or break our necks trying.” Beach described this overwhelming need for action when he wrote, “[We] raced for the war zone. Somehow I felt it was slipping away from us—receding faster than we approached it.... I felt an overwhelming impatience to be back in it before it ended.” And, Beach added, now that the Japanese were near defeat, he wanted to destroy what was left of them just as they had destroyed the
Wahoo
and so many other subs.

As Beach and the
Piper
raced for the Sea of Japan, the war itself raced to its conclusion. On August 6 an atomic bomb devastated Hiroshima. On August 9 another atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki.

While a world stunned by the use of this frightening new weapon waited for news of Japan's capitulation, Admiral Lockwood officially announced the loss of the
Bonefish
. Thus, a notice appearing in the August 12 edition of the
Atlanta Journal
announced the end of one life and the beginning of another.

By coincidence an article about American POWs appeared in the same edition of that newspaper. The POW story surely must have strengthened Sarah's resolve to believe that Lawrence was alive and in enemy hands. “Jap Surrender to Free 16,700 U.S. Prisoners,”
⁴
headlined the article reporting that American POWs were incarcerated in prisons across Japan and in occupied territories. The numbers were incomplete because it had been impossible for the Red Cross and other neutrals to visit the camps during the war to assess the situation. It was known from official records, the article added, that there were over two thousand naval personnel alone being held. For Sarah and the families of the
Bonefish
crew, it meant that there was indeed a good chance that Lawrence and his men might be among them.

Following Lockwood's announcement about the
Bonefish
, the Navy lifted its embargo on news about Operation Barney. Within hours of its lifting the
Los Angeles Times
published a long article entitled “Sub Flotilla Returns After Taking Nip Toll.” Written by Kyle Palmer,
LA Times
war correspondent, the story provided a reasonably accurate account of Operation Barney, its objectives, and its results, including the number of enemy ships sunk and damaged. In his article Palmer went on to say, “Not a man nor a ship of the striking force was lost in the operation—one of the most daring and spectacularly successful of the Pacific war.”
⁵
Palmer and the other reporters who had attended the Hellcats news conference in Pearl Harbor were apparently still unaware at the time of release and publication of the story that the
Bonefish
had been lost during the raid.

Sarah Edge and the families of the missing
Bonefish
crew still didn't know that the
Bonefish
had been lost in Operation Barney. Sarah learned that her husband had been in the Sea of Japan only when she received a letter from Lockwood fulfilling his pledge to write her. The letter, which arrived while Sarah was still in the hospital after the birth of her son, provided information about Operation Barney and, based on sketchy details then available to ComSubPac, Lockwood's explanation of how Lawrence and his crew had likely perished. Meant to bolster Sarah's spirits, the letter only raised more questions, and, later, invited controversy and criticism by
Bonefish
families regarding Lockwood's judgment in the matter.

Shortly after receiving Lockwood's letter, Sarah received one from Lawrence's division commander, Captain Lucius Chappel. After concurring with Lockwood's description of the raid, Chappel sounded a hopeful note.

Confined to a maternity ward after the birth of Lawrence Jr., Sarah felt helpless. There was so much that she didn't know and wasn't being told. Lacking official information and ignorant of the facts surrounding Operation Barney except for what she'd learned from Lockwood and Chappel and from what had been published in the paper, she was desperate to know what had happened to the
Bonefish
. Adding to her confusion were a host of unanswered questions. For example, given that the war was almost over, why had it been necessary for the
Bonefish
and the other submarines to penetrate the Sea of Japan? What, if anything, aside from proving how audacious and daring submariners were, had it accomplished? Was the mission supposed to have ended the war? If so, it had failed; it was almost mid-August and the Japanese still hadn't surrendered even after being hit by two atomic bombs. How, then, could a small task force of submarines possibly bring about the end the war? Most important of all, was there a real possibility that there may have been survivors from the
Bonefish
who were being held in Japanese POW camps? Chappel seemed to think there might be, while Lockwood seemed to hold out little hope for their survival. Given all the uncertainties, Sarah pledged that she'd never abandon hope for Lawrence and his men until there was incontrovertible evidence that they were dead, not until every last Japanese POW camp was liberated and every man in them identified. Lucius Chappel had begged her not to despair, said that it was possible that they had survived. Sarah desperately wanted to believe that that was true.