Two WWII submarines stories by Jack Woltjen

[Annces]

My father was a radioman in the submarine service and typed up a few of his stories. Here are two of them. The first is light-hearted and the second is a battle story.




“Sometimes It’s Best to Leave Well Enough Alone”
by Jack Woltjen (Blackfish)

It was August 1943. We had just departed Brisbane, Australia and were headed for Milne Bay, New Guinea. I was a radioman on board the United States Fulton, a submarine tender. Before we left Brisbane, we were lectured by an Australian officer on what New Guinea was really all about. During that lecture, he mentioned a tribe know by the Australians as “fuzzy wuzzies”, because of their hair. We were told that they were very tall, onyx black and feature perfect. We couldn’t wait to see them.

Two weeks passed after arriving in Milne Bay and we still hadn’t gone ashore. I asked Commander Ross if he could arrange a visit for us and he said he would make inquiry.

Ross came back about an hour later with the chaplain. The chaplain told us that we could not go ashore because we would be putting ourselves in an extremely serious occasion of sin… that the women in the tribe did not wear anything over their breasts and we would be flooded with impure thoughts that we would not be able to deal with. He said that sooner or later, we would all be put to sea on a submarine war patrol and were we to die with these thoughts on our mind, we might have some trouble talking our way past St. Peter. We were kids, most of us in our 18s and 19s. It made some sense, especially to those of us who were Catholic and had this sort of thing drummed into us since our first confession. Commander Ross suggested to the chaplain, that perhaps there was a chance that he could talk to the tribe chief into ordering the women to wear navy skivvy shirts while were ashore… solving a couple of problems.. no impure thoughts and a chance to see what life was like in New Guinea. The chaplain said that he would talk to the Captain of the Fulton and get back to us.

That evening, the chaplain returned. He had received permission to take about 200 skivvy shirts to the village. He said that he went ashore.. talked with the tribe chief of the “fuzzy wuzzies” and received his assurance that, if the crew members came ashore the next day… all the women in his tribe would be fully clothed. We were delighted.

Early the next morning, we boarded a landing barge and headed for shore. When we arrived at the dock, we were told that we had to stay inside the village and return to the dock in exactly four hours. We happily agreed and headed for the village.

To my surprise, bewilderment and a slight lack of chagrin, we found ourselves in the village, surrounded by beautiful, onyx black women, wearing super white, now skivvy shirts with holes cut in them so that their breasts could be free. We spent four hours in the village and when we returned to the Fulton, we quietly thanked the chaplain for enabling us to go ashore.






“Depth Charged for Seventeen Hours”.
By John T. Woltjen (19 years old at the time)

The following is a true tale, written several days after the incident, which took place January 15, 1944. The locale was off the island of Truck in the Carolinas, southwest Pacific. The submarine was the USS Blackfish, SS221. She was Captained by Commander Davidson. The patrol was the second for the Blackfish, in the Pacific and besides the two marus sunk in this individual attack, she accounted for two Terutsuki tincans before she returned to port. The author was a radioman and soundman aboard the Blackfish and stayed with her until the war’s end, at which time she returned to new London for her decommissioning.

We were closing now. Range approximately thirty five hundred yards. We were closing and ready. This would be our fifth approach. Four times we had crept towards this convoy and four times our periscope was spotted. They apparently had many lookouts. Probably survivors off the eleven ships previously sunk on their way to Truk from Yokohama. We were tense now. Never in this close before. We were positioned in the mouth of Truk harbor and our hope was that those lookouts would be looking at that long awaited island and not at our periscope. The seconds ticked cautiously as my heart pounded within me, each beat tightening the knot in my stomach, each beat closing the gap between the living and the dead. The skipper wet his lips, mopped the sweat from his forehead and “upped scope” once more. Just a few inches, a very few inches, had to be careful, oh so careful for we were close now and the sea calm. “Down scope” he breathed. “Bearing 350 degrees, range 2600, prepare to fire”. I had them on sound gear. That steady, heavy whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, so typical of lumbering, heavily ladened merchantmen.

The skipper beamed now. We had a solution and would fire very shortly. They were four in number. Two fat marus and the remainder in sleek, new Terutsuki tincans. Everything was readiness. Both torpedo rooms were waiting for the bang of high pressure air and the release of four, maybe six of their tenderly coddled mark 18s. The lead tincan powered over us and into the harbor. The marus came slowly toward us. The clock seemed to stop as I awaited the Captain’s word. Fire 4, Fire 3, Fire 2, Fire 1.

The boat lurched and lunged and the “old man kept his eye glued” to the scope. I followed the first one out on sound gear, followed its virgin wake as it churned the sea towards its target, toward its rendezvous with death. Soon a dull throttled explosion, then three more in rapid succession and all the lookouts in the world would not be able to atone for the damage done. The skipper screamed something about one settling fast and one rolling over like a dog playing dead.

I spun the sound head around searching frantically for that destroyer and found her approaching our stern. The Captain spun the scope, screamed tin can and down we went. The angle was bad but no one cared. We wanted depth. The depth gage seemed to be standing still in a stage of shock. I rose to my feet to tap it when the first pattern went off. Three in succession and I had to be on my feet at the time.



I felt the concussion whistle through my ears and found myself lying flat on my stomach with cork, black paint and an officer sprawled on top of me. I got to my knees and after a quick glance around, knew we were still in business. The Captain leveled off at four hundred, maintaining a direct course, putting us between the two sinking ships. It was sickening hearing those ships break up when sea pressure crushed their closed compartments. For a moment, I forgot those tincans topside and just sat there listening to steel grind into steel, like death.

Then a wham and a bam and a snarling of seams, more cork off the bulkhead, more paint off the beams. I was once again jolted back into the reality of the situation. The skipper kept calling for bearings and I gave them as fast and as accurately as I could. The soundman on the destroyer was busy pinging every inch of the ocean in search of us and once he’d find us, he’d stay right on us until a few more invitations to infinity were released. I felt apprehensive now. This seems to be the core of fear. It isn’t what is happening to you, it’s what might happen a second, a minute, an hour from now. It’s the next one, the one coming up, the one you’re waiting for. Will he be down the old drainpipe, will he give up and go home. Why doesn’t he give up and go home, please God, please make this guy give up and go home.

The minutes build into hours and it was hot, miserably hot and I wanted to douse my head in cold water, but I couldn’t cause he’d hear and I couldn’t let him hear. The sweat streaked down my body in rivulets, my stomach felt weak and my heart seemed intent on smashing its way through my ribs. He’d drop two and sometimes three, then slowly drift out of sound range. I’d hope a little, hope and try to grin and try to believe that he had gone home until I’d hear that pinging, then double pinging, then those high speed screws and I’d know he hadn’t quit. Kisella, the executive officer tried to convince the captain that a “battle surface” was our only alternative. We had been depth charged for ten hours now and each run by one of the destroyers chipped away at our morale. The skipper would have no part of it. He argued that we had made it this far and we could make it the rest of the way. I listened to their discussion and was giddy with delight when the Captain turned him down.

The destroyers would drop all of their charges, return to Truk, reload and come back pinging for our location. They were getting tired too though, because they weren’t jarring my teeth and clubbing my eardrums. Why, I could even hear their detonators. That was good, oh so good. Just stay tired, go home, go to bed, you’ve done your bit, now go home. I guess he couldn’t hear me because he stayed, stayed for seventeen ungodly long hours. By that time, I guess I didn’t really care one way or the other. I was washed out.

It was dark topside, it was dark and I could hear myself mumbling, “He’s going Captain, he’s increasing speed and moving away Captain.” The “old man” looked up and murmured something about this being a hell of a price to pay for a couple of damned scows as we slowly moved further away.

[brentspeak]

1. Thanks for posting that

[OutWest]

2. Thanks for the post

My father also served in the submarine service. He was active in the club that was called Run Silent, Run Deep I believe. As a youngster I read from cover to cover the entire log book of the WW11 submarine records. Since my dad passed I do not know where his copy of this large volume ended up. Your story should definitely be included.

[Divernan]

4. Welcome to DU.

nt

[Annces]

6. I have read a little on submarines

I went into one docked at Navy Pier. Living life as an adventure is really the best way to live it.

[Divernan]

7. Adventures make you feel so alive.

I raised my kids to try to have one adventure a year. And they have had some pretty great ones.

I note you are from Madison. My kid (age 59)brother lives there and has just returned from two weeks in Ghana, Africa, volunteering on a project to build a medical clinic. By profession, he's a lawyer, like me, but by avocation he is one hell of a carpenter. I wanted to go too, but there were no volunteer spaces left. He usually spends two weeks a year in South America on similar projects, and I hope to join him on the next trip to either Peru or Chile. I'm no carpenter, but I can wash dishes and cook pretty well.

[Annces]

9. An adventure a year - that is a good plan

I am in Madison now. I lived in California during my 20s and 30s and returned to Chicago, but I don't like city life. Madison is a nice place.

I have never taken an adventure out of the country, other than Mexico. But I hope to have adventures and be active until the day I die.

[Divernan]

3. Interesting to me because I've dived on the sunken Japanese fleet of "marus" at Truk Lagoon

Your father wrote very well. To add some information to the second story, the island in Micronesia used to be called "Truk". The little country changed its name to "Chuk", but the lagoon is still called Truk Lagoon. It's irregularly shaped, and about 40 miles across, and with small islands inside of it.

In July of 2002, I had the rare opportunity and good fortune of spending a week scuba diving there on the most fantastic wrecks a diver could ever explore. They are sometimes referred to as The Ghost Fleet of Truk Lagoon.

"One of the great battles of World War II was the American attack on Truk Lagoon, called Operation Hailstone. Truk Lagoon was the Japanese Navy's Central Pacific fleet anchorage. It was a mysterious, heavily fortified bastion, projecting Japanese military power throughout Micronesia and beyond. Beginning on Feb. 17, 1944 Truk was attacked by wave after wave of American carrier based bombers and torpedo bombers. The U.S. wreaked havok on the Japanese forces at Truk, neutralizing the Japanese presence there. In the process they sank a vast fleet of Japanese ships. That fleet of ships is now a wreck diver's paradise."

That's one description of the history. It really wasn't a battle, though. When an American spotter plane came over the lagoon, the Japanese immediately started evacuating it - starting with their battle ships. The next day when the the U.S. started their attack, there were only ships from the Japanese merchant marine still there. There was no air defense, and at most the ships had an anti-aircraft gun mounted on their bows. So it was really a slaughter - like shooting ducks in a pond. Thousands of young Japanese merchant marine men died, and every year, family members come to hold a Shinto service on the waters of Truk Lagoon. The ghosts are not just of the 60-some ships which were sunk, but of all the young men who went to watery graves there. After the war, as many bodies as possible were recovered and given burial ceremonies. But some of the ships were too deep for recovery, and the ships were so large, averaging 400 feet in length, that there are still bodies deep within the holds. And then there were the sharks.

You can imagine that this is a very eerie and unique diving experience. With underwater visibility at 60-80 feet, you will be swimming along and suddenly a 430 foot ship will loom up before you, filling your vision from as far as you can see from left to right.

I was also interested that you father referred to the ships as "marus". It is a tradition that Japanese merchant ships include the word "Maru" in their name. It translates to the word, "circle", and represents the hope of all sailors that their ships will come full circle and return them safely to their home ports.

I dove on ships named the Shinkoku Maru, Fujisan Maru, Fujikawa Maru,and Rio de Janeiro Maru, among others. The Fujikawa Maru had several intact Zero fighters in one of its holds. We also saw jeeps, tanks, airplane engines, amunition, bicycles and mines. One ship had a hold carrying boots and insoles, which spilled out on to the ocean bottom from a shell hole. It was called the ship of lost soles. The only thing more eerie than the day dives, were the night dives, when divers would be scattered around the ship with their dive lights illuminating small areas of the superstructure and deck.

After 60 years sitting on the bottom of the lagoon, each ship is also like a wonderful coral reef, covered with soft corals and anemones, and home to thousands of colorful fish. And there would be a shark or two resident at every ship. We were told where they tended to hang out and kept out of the way. But that was the first time I saw sharks up so close and it really got the adrenaline going. They are magnificent creatures. And the ships are slowly rusting away - in 50 years there will not be much left to see - it will all be overgrown by coral.

Thanks for triggering some great memories.

[Annces]

5. That is so amazing imagery

I would love to snorkel there. I had a close encounter with a shark once in Florida at Ft. Myers. We were out in a canoe, my father and a few kids. The shark came up and we heard a tinkling noise. My sister pulled up the anchor without anyone saying a word and we got the heck out of there.

The Japanese have beautiful cemeteries. I have a pic of where some Americans are buried.

[Divernan]

8. It's a very remote part of the world - but I think you would get a very special

meaning from it, knowing what your Dad had experienced there. We explored the main island, including some of those caves which the Japanese cut out of the rock in the hillside to hide their huge cannons, which could fire shells miles at a time against ships. There were still some of those guns in there.