Hellcats by Peter Sasgen Page A

dodging a Wakataki -class destroyer and a Mitsubishi 96 bomber, the Narwhal encountered a spate of clear weather and took advantage of it to battle surface six miles off the beach, and at
    2020 ... began bombardment of air field on Matsuwa To. Red rays of setting sun still visible in northwest. Eastern edge of Matsuwa in shadow. NARWHAL against dark background of eastern sky ... Our fire was slow but seemed accurate, using hangars as a point of aim. . . . Fire was concentrated on hangars and landing strip, hoping to keep planes grounded. . . . One large fire started ashore. Enemy returned fire after about four minutes from one gun and in ten minutes, fire was being returned from a battery of about seven five-inch guns. . . . Return fire was haphazard.
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    2030 Enemy return fire getting closer in range, shells whistling overhead.
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    2031 Enemy in range, splashes dead ahead ...
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    2032 Secured guns, changed course away and dived. 4

    â€œWhere we had expected our submarines to find an abundance of targets, they found few worth the expenditure of a $10,000 torpedo,” said Lockwood. Disappointed with the results, he was cheered that the four subs had returned unscathed.
    He and Voge immediately began planning a second mission, one that would build on and take advantage of the lessons learned. The most important lesson was that U.S. subs could operate in the Sea of Japan, proving that no part of the empire, no matter how remote, was immune from attack. Lockwood believed that the next time subs entered the sea they would sink everything in sight. He might have kept his fingers crossed that when they did, the problems still plaguing Mk 14 torpedoes would be solved once and for all. If the submariners were going to risk their necks again getting into the Sea of Japan, they had better have a reliable weapon to take along.
    Ray Bass, skipper of the Plunger , immediately volunteered to go back in. Another volunteer was Mush Morton, skipper of the Wahoo , which had just arrived in Pearl Harbor after a West Coast overhaul. Even then Morton was one of Lockwood’s stars. He’d already sunk sixteen marus totaling about 49,000 tons and was clearly on his way to outpacing every skipper in the force.
    Lockwood gave Bass and Morton the okay and saw them off from Pearl Harbor on August 8. Lockwood had confidence that the experience Bass had gained from the earlier raid would come in handy. According to their operation orders the Wahoo and Plunger were to enter the Sea of Japan through La Pérouse Strait on August 14 at night and on the surface via the safe channel that the Plunger , Permit , and Lapon had used in July and had plotted so other subs could use it in the future. According to the latest intelligence assembled by ICPOA, there was no reason to believe that the Japanese had made any alterations to the layout of the existing minefields or that they had sown any more mines below the surface of La Pérouse Strait. Like the Plunger , Permit , and Lapon that had ventured in before them, as long as the Wahoo and Plunger didn’t submerge in the strait and didn’t stray from the confines of the channel, Bass and Morton had nothing to fear. Furthermore, if ICPOA developed any information that the Japanese had altered the minefields, SubPac would alert the skippers by radio.
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    The Plunger developed engine and motor problems that crippled her port propeller shaft, forcing her to steam on only one screw, which delayed her entry into La Pérouse Strait for two days. Rather than turn back, Bass decided to run the strait submerged during daylight rather than on the surface at night, which would require speed and maneuverability that the Plunger lacked. It was a death-defying decision on Bass’s part, given that any mines anchored at seventy feet—never mind any moored at forty feet—allowed only a five-foot margin of safety between the tops of the mines and the Plunger ’s keel,