War Beneath the Waves (10 page)

It was a tense time. The men, their hands wet with perspiration, slowly and carefully pulled the exploder from the weapon. When it was finally loose, they cautiously lifted it from where it nested inside the torpedo.

Thresher
was now safe. But the torpedomen’s ordeal was not yet over.

Both sailors held on to the exploder tightly, just in case the other sneezed or lost his grip with his sweaty hands.

They could not relax yet. Any kind of unexpected current that caused the boat to shift suddenly could also make them lose their balance and drop the dreaded thing onto the deck.

One of the men then cradled the device to his chest, holding tightly with both arms. The torpedoman, his clothing soaked with sweat, seawater, and oil, the exploder mechanism hugged to his chest with both burly arms, made his way over to the ladder that led up to the escape hatch that opened onto the deck outside.

The captain had brought the boat gently back to the surface as soon as he got word that the men had successfully extracted the exploder. Gingerly carrying his volatile package held close to his body with one hand, the torpedoman carefully climbed up the ladder using his free hand to hold on to the rungs. He hoped he could maintain his grip with his wet fingers. His buddy followed closely, ready to catch his shipmate or his parcel should he slip or drop it. Once topside, the men walked cautiously across the slick, wet surface of the deck. They slowly made their way over to the edge.

It was a warm night, the sky filled with stars but, luckily, no moon. However, the torpedomen did not pause to admire the tropical evening. With a big heave, the one with the exploder in his hands tossed it as far from the boat as he could send it. Then he braced himself for any possible explosion.

Once again, there was none. This time no blast was a good thing.

“Moke” Millican had made all the right moves. The crew had performed flawlessly during the “hot run,” one of the most dreaded occurrences on any submarine.

And a young submarine officer named Charlie Rush had taken note of both. He had never been prouder of a skipper or a crew than he was at that moment.

Rush went on to make a total of three submarine war patrols on
Thresher
with “Moke” Millican in command. Then he made two more runs as a member of the wardroom crew under Lieutenant Commander Harry Hull. However, even after the first run with Millican, he was more convinced than ever that he had made the right choice in moving from surface ships to the diesel boats. Here, he was making a difference in the war almost every day. He continued to be impressed with the caliber of men who volunteered to man and command these stealthy vessels.

Admiral Charles Lockwood was equally taken with Millican and his crew. He began dictating that his most promising prospective commanding officers go out on patrol with Millican so they could see firsthand how a submarine should operate, and how a skipper should run his boat.

Lockwood wrote to his commanding officer, “He [Millican] is really a remarkable type, and I wish I had a couple dozen more like him.”

Others did not agree.

When “Moke” Millican returned to Australia from his fourth patrol at the helm of
Thresher
, he complained once again to his superiors about the failure rate of the Mark XIV torpedoes. The duds were putting boats and crews in jeopardy and were seriously hampering the submarines in their attempt to cut the Japanese supply lifelines.

Millican and most of his fellow submarine captains and their fire control parties were competent and able to fire the weapons accurately. They were hitting their targets consistently. The torpedoes simply did not explode when they did.

The failure was in the detonator. Ralph Christie’s detonator.

That fact did not deter Millican’s efforts to let his superiors know his opinion. When his complaints ended up in a written report submitted by one of the skipper’s superiors, Admiral Christie was livid. He was tired of the griping, and especially from the skippers in his own squadron, like Millican. The detonators worked as they were supposed to if the skippers fired them at the recommended angle.

“There is to be no wrangling in print about torpedoes,” he ordered bluntly. “The torpedoes are fine.”

Whether it was his opinions about the torpedoes that caused it or not, “Moke” Millican was summarily sent back to the States for what was described as rest and relaxation—R & R—even though he maintained that he was fit and ready to take
Thresher
back out for another run.

It was not to be.

After that involuntary leave, Millican’s orders sent him to take over command of USS
Escolar
(SS-294), a new submarine then under construction at Cramp Shipyards in Philadelphia.

It was to be an ill-fated assignment.

In September 1944, with Millican in command,
Escolar
was part of a wolf pack known as “Millican’s Marauders,” operating in the Yellow Sea, between Korea and China and not far from the Japanese Home Islands. On September 30, one of the other boats in the pack received a message from Millican that he and the crew were having a spirited fight with another vessel. Reading between the lines in the dispatch, it appeared the aggressive skipper was having a good time out there. In true Millican fashion, he was using his deck gun in the engagement, just as he had with
Thresher
.

Escolar
routinely reported her position a few days later to one of the other boats in the wolf pack, USS
Perch
(SS-313). From that point on, she missed all of her other scheduled check-ins.

No one ever heard from Millican and
Escolar
again.

The new submarine and her crew were officially declared lost when they did not return to port at Midway on the expected date, November 13, 1944. Naval records indicate that the most likely cause of her loss was that she hit a mine.

That may have been the case, but it was a well-known fact that most of the submarines built at the Cramp Shipyards had mechanical and structural problems. There is a possibility that
Escolar
was lost to something other than enemy fire or a mine blast, but we will likely never know for sure.

She was the forty-first of fifty-two submarines lost in World War II. Her crew is listed among the approximately thirty-six hundred submariners who died in the war.

William John “Moke” Millican received two Navy Crosses for his actions as captain of
Thresher
during his four patrols at her helm, both awarded while he was still her commander. The Navy Cross is the highest award that can be issued by the Department of the Navy and is second in stature only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. The citations noted that the awards went to Millican for “gallantry and intrepidity,” and for “extraordinary heroism and distinguished service.” Both citations also read, “His conduct throughout was an inspiration to his officers and men and in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

There is no point in speculating about what might have been, and especially in the chaos of war. If Millican had been allowed to continue to serve as captain of
Thresher
, would he have survived the war? We will, of course, never know.

Did petty differences over the effectiveness of the torpedoes lead to Millican’s reassignment and, ultimately, his death? Or, as was typical, was the prescribed trip home and the assignment to new construction destined to happen regardless, even if there had not been the issue of his being so vocal with his opinions about the torpedoes?

Did Millican’s daring combat tactics finally get him and his boat into a situation they could not get out of?

Again, we will likely never know.

Today, one of the primary athletic fields at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, bears the name Millican Field in his honor.

USS
Thresher
ultimately completed fifteen war patrols. Decommissioned in July 1946, her service to her country completed, the submarine was, like so many of her sisters, eventually sold for scrap in 1948.

Another ship named
Thresher
plays an especially tragic role in submarine history. The second
Thresher
(SSN-593) was the lead boat in a new class of nuclear-powered vessels. While still undergoing sea trials on April 9, 1963, she went down, almost certainly due to mechanical problems, about two hundred miles east of Cape Cod.

A hundred and twenty-nine men died—crew members, other representatives of the military, and civilian technicians—making it the deadliest submarine accident in U.S. Navy history. Her loss led to the development of the Navy’s sub-safe program, which has been a big factor in preventing any other accidents of that magnitude since.

—General William Westmoreland

L
ieutenant Charlie Rush had himself one monstrous tooth-ache.

After five submarine war patrols on
Thresher
, he returned to Fremantle with a mouthful of trouble—a couple of badly infected wisdom teeth. He had not seen a doctor or dentist in almost two years, since leaving the Naval Academy. The Navy dentist he consulted told him that the situation was potentially life threatening. He was not to go back out on patrol until the sulfa drugs had the infection under control and the teeth were yanked.

The irony that bad teeth might do the job the Japanese had so far failed to do was not lost on Rush. Still, he was disappointed that his dental problems had interrupted his time aboard
Thresher
or kept him off whatever his next boat would have been.

It all worked out, though, when he recovered from the bad choppers and quickly drew an interesting assignment. The Navy put him in charge of relief crews for all the submarines operating out of that port. When a boat came in from patrol, Rush and his team assessed what personnel needs the skipper and his officers had before the vessel returned to the war. He kept track of which enginemen, electricians, torpedomen, officers, and other key crew members might be available for reassignment, as well as newly trained recruits who showed up, ready to go to work.

It was a crucial job. The goal was to get the right recipe of experienced men—especially in the more critical roles—and mix in the green newcomers so the crew would mesh. If the proper makeup was reached, the experienced sub sailors could help train newcomers so they could effectively gain experience and ultimately train and relieve the next batch, all while sinking enemy ships and making it back to port safely after the run.

Rush enjoyed the duty very much, even if he did often wish that he could rejoin his shipmates on
Thresher
or another boat. Still, he knew what was going on out there and was well aware that shore duty was not necessarily a bad thing. It gave him the opportunity to work with all the skippers, execs, and other officers, to get to know them. That could only help him when he did go back to a boat, and later in his Navy career, too. Besides, even if he was not launching torpedoes, diving the boat, or blasting away with Millican’s deck gun, he was performing a vital role in helping to win the war.

There was the fact that he had a girlfriend in Fremantle whom he liked very much, too, and he could now be with her almost every night, not waving good-bye to her from the bridge of a submarine as she watched from the pier. The Australians were a warm people anyway and were most appreciative of what the Americans were doing for their country. They recognized that the American presence was a factor in Japan’s not invading their country. Fremantle and Perth were wonderful places to recuperate from the rigors of the war, and the Aussies made certain that the submarine crews and support staff wanted for nothing.

It was, quite frankly, good duty.

Meanwhile, a new submarine, USS
Billfish
, was just completing her first war patrol under the command of Lieutenant Commander Frederic Lucas. She was plying the waters of the Indian Ocean, on her way back to the Squadron Sixteen headquarters in Western Australia.
Billfish
was one of a new breed of submarines—the
Balao
class—which featured a thicker hull, greater range, the newest radar, and other capabilities that made her arguably the most advanced warship in history. She was about 312 feet long, could make just over twenty knots on the surface and about ten knots when submerged, and typically carried a crew of sixty-six men. She boasted ten twenty-one-inch torpedo tubes, six forward and four aft, and usually had twenty-four torpedoes aboard when she departed on patrol.

“Test depth,” the deepest point to which the submarine could safely go, was listed as 412 feet. Beyond that, the crushing pressure of the sea would begin to deform the thick steel hull and wreak all sorts of havoc on the boat’s plumbing, if not the nerves of her crew. Still, unlike her predecessors, this class of submarine could achieve a “crush depth”—the point at which water pressure would likely cause the hull to begin to fail—of more than six hundred feet.

When leaving on patrol, their fuel tanks were filled with heavy diesel fuel. No fuel tank was allowed to have air in it. If it did, the tank would collapse if submerged very deep. The diesel fuel, which was lighter than seawater, was drawn off from the top of a fuel tank and burned by the engines. The heavier seawater was pumped in to compensate so that the fuel tanks were kept full of liquid at all times.

Also, when the boats left port on a patrol, every nook and cranny was filled with provisions for the run. Even the decks were covered with cans of food, and the crew literally had to walk around on their groceries until they were used up. That, too, had to be calculated and tracked. If the boat became too heavy on one side or one end, it could make a dive or surface an even more challenging adventure than it was already.

Oddly, even though they were built to run on and under the sea, water was a precious commodity aboard submarines. Seawater could not be used in the storage batteries, of course. Only distilled water was pure enough for that purpose. Submarines carried distilling systems that converted seawater to pure, clean distilled water.