us after Truman’s victory.
I was assigned to the USS Pomfret (SS-391) on graduation from submarine school and had to hurry to its base in Honolulu before it departedthree days later on an extended cruise to the Western Pacific. Rosalynn decided that she and Jack would stay in Plains with our relatives for about four months until my return to our home port. The Pomfret was one of the 320 standard types of submarines that served during World War II, of which 132 were almost identical to it. They were designed for seventy-five-day patrols, and from Hawaii could cover the entire Pacific Ocean with their normal range of twelve thousand miles, at an average cruising speed of ten knots. Each ship had a crew of about seventy-five men and officers.
A submarine has a very strong inner cigar-shaped hull, which will withstand pressure at maximum operating depth (then about 450 feet under normal conditions), and ballast tanks surrounding this hull, which hold diesel oil or are kept empty on the surface and filled with seawater when it is time to dive. When the vessel is surfaced, about 80 percent of the pressure hull is below water level, and we had a slatted wooden deck on which the crew could walk when we were in port or cruising in calm weather. At the bow, this deck was about 10 feet above the water level, but at the stern this “freeboard” was only 4 feet. Our pressure hull was 16 feet in diameter and 312 feet long, and we lived within this space with our engines, torpedoes, and batteries. On top of this hull was a small pressurized cylinder known as the “conning tower,” from which we could raise the slender periscope above the surface while the ship was submerged and survey the surrounding area without being detected.
Our primary offensive armament was twenty-four torpedoes, stored and launched from directly ahead or astern of the ship, which could turn to a preset course. In addition, we had a five-inch-diameter gun located on the main deck just aft of the conning tower, 20-mm and 40-mm antiaircraft weapons above the main deck forward and aft of the conning tower, and a heavy 50-caliber machine gun that could be used against aircraft or small surface ships.
These submarines were propelled on the surface with a top speed of about fifteen knots by diesel engines, and by 252 batteries while submerged. The batteries had to be charged while on the surface. Although each of them weighed about a ton, they had very limited total energyto propel the ship and run all the equipment while we were submerged. We could cruise for about sixty miles if we crept along at only two knots, but at a maximum speed of thirteen knots—to get close to a moving target—the batteries lasted only half an hour, giving us a range of about seven miles. These limitations established our normal routine of operating on the surface when it was dark while charging our batteries and making progress toward our destination but remaining concealed and at low speed during daylight hours. At that time we had no way to draw air down into a submerged submarine to be breathed and to permit the diesel engines to run. The “snorkel” system was first made operational in a U.S. ship in 1947 but was not widely used when I began my submarine duty.
When our ship surfaced, the duty officer and two lookouts would open a sealed hatch and hurry upward from the conning tower through a steel tube to the bridge. The floor on which the officer stood was slatted like the main deck and about ten feet above the surface of the sea. The lookouts had a place to stand alongside the periscope tower, with their feet a short distance above the duty officer’s head. With excellent training, we could resubmerge in about thirty seconds when necessary, by flooding the ballast tanks and turning our bow and stern planes downward as we moved forward rapidly.
I was familiar with these basic facts when I arrived on the ship, having operated on similar submarines while in training, and I was
I was assigned to the USS Pomfret (SS-391) on graduation from submarine school and had to hurry to its base in Honolulu before it departedthree days later on an extended cruise to the Western Pacific. Rosalynn decided that she and Jack would stay in Plains with our relatives for about four months until my return to our home port. The Pomfret was one of the 320 standard types of submarines that served during World War II, of which 132 were almost identical to it. They were designed for seventy-five-day patrols, and from Hawaii could cover the entire Pacific Ocean with their normal range of twelve thousand miles, at an average cruising speed of ten knots. Each ship had a crew of about seventy-five men and officers.
A submarine has a very strong inner cigar-shaped hull, which will withstand pressure at maximum operating depth (then about 450 feet under normal conditions), and ballast tanks surrounding this hull, which hold diesel oil or are kept empty on the surface and filled with seawater when it is time to dive. When the vessel is surfaced, about 80 percent of the pressure hull is below water level, and we had a slatted wooden deck on which the crew could walk when we were in port or cruising in calm weather. At the bow, this deck was about 10 feet above the water level, but at the stern this “freeboard” was only 4 feet. Our pressure hull was 16 feet in diameter and 312 feet long, and we lived within this space with our engines, torpedoes, and batteries. On top of this hull was a small pressurized cylinder known as the “conning tower,” from which we could raise the slender periscope above the surface while the ship was submerged and survey the surrounding area without being detected.
Our primary offensive armament was twenty-four torpedoes, stored and launched from directly ahead or astern of the ship, which could turn to a preset course. In addition, we had a five-inch-diameter gun located on the main deck just aft of the conning tower, 20-mm and 40-mm antiaircraft weapons above the main deck forward and aft of the conning tower, and a heavy 50-caliber machine gun that could be used against aircraft or small surface ships.
These submarines were propelled on the surface with a top speed of about fifteen knots by diesel engines, and by 252 batteries while submerged. The batteries had to be charged while on the surface. Although each of them weighed about a ton, they had very limited total energyto propel the ship and run all the equipment while we were submerged. We could cruise for about sixty miles if we crept along at only two knots, but at a maximum speed of thirteen knots—to get close to a moving target—the batteries lasted only half an hour, giving us a range of about seven miles. These limitations established our normal routine of operating on the surface when it was dark while charging our batteries and making progress toward our destination but remaining concealed and at low speed during daylight hours. At that time we had no way to draw air down into a submerged submarine to be breathed and to permit the diesel engines to run. The “snorkel” system was first made operational in a U.S. ship in 1947 but was not widely used when I began my submarine duty.
When our ship surfaced, the duty officer and two lookouts would open a sealed hatch and hurry upward from the conning tower through a steel tube to the bridge. The floor on which the officer stood was slatted like the main deck and about ten feet above the surface of the sea. The lookouts had a place to stand alongside the periscope tower, with their feet a short distance above the duty officer’s head. With excellent training, we could resubmerge in about thirty seconds when necessary, by flooding the ballast tanks and turning our bow and stern planes downward as we moved forward rapidly.
I was familiar with these basic facts when I arrived on the ship, having operated on similar submarines while in training, and I was
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