Dust on the Sea by Edward L. Beach Read Free Book Online Page B

to search for him, how he had almost blundered into his own trap, but, by good fortune, had identified the Japanese submarine before it dived, and sank it with a single torpedo fired on sonar information alone.
    Perhaps it was the drinks. With the eager attention being paid to him, he found himself very quickly with his second amber-colored drink in his hand. The Jap submarine had dived just outside the entrance to the Bungo Suido. He had seen her dive, and Stafford had picked her up immediately on sonar. Once she had gained a submerged trim, she would be at periscope depth, ready to attack any American sub making a surface attack on the nearly unsinkable Q-ship. She would be on steady course, not zigzagging. There had been no reason to silence her machinery: the submarine she expected to attack would be on the surface. Eel , entirely shut down for silent running, found it absolutely simple to maneuver into perfect firing position. He had not dared to use his active sonar to obtain a “ping” range, had estimated the range, instead, by the ancient triangulation method. But he had compensated for this by firing on a ninety track angle—his torpedo aimed to hit at exactly ninety degrees to the target’s course. In sucha case, range drops out of the calculation. No matter what the range, any properly aimed torpedo will hit, if it runs long enough, for the angular geometry of the firing triangle remains identical regardless of its size.
    Suddenly aware he was the only one speaking, that he was being loquacious, he stopped, momentarily embarrassed. There was a ring of attentive, eager faces around him. He had set down his drink, was illustrating the maneuvers with his hands. Even the steward, a blue embroidered submarine insignia conspicuous on his starched white jacket and three blue hashmarks on his sleeve, lingered unobtrusively within earshot. Admiral Small, his eyes alight with interest, forced him to continue.
    Stafford had switched the sonar from earphones to loudspeaker. Everyone in the conning tower had heard the torpedo running, had heard it merging with the enemy sub’s propeller beats and machinery noise, had unconsciously held his breath waiting for the explosion. It came with startling loudness, eight seconds after the computed running time of the torpedo. Everyone heard the grim results: the water hammer within the doomed hull, the frenzied speeding up of the motors, the blowing of tanks, the bubbling escape of the precious air. All heard the sudden cessation of the propellers, thought they heard but more likely imagined the violent arcs of electricity as sea water shorted out the motors or their controls. The last clearly identifiable sound was the crunch as the now overweighted hull crashed into the bottom. There was no hope for any of the Japanese submariners; the depth of water was too great for escape even if they had escape gear. Admiral Small shook his head solemnly; they had no such equipment, according to the best intelligence reports.
    Richardson’s description was followed by a rush of questions. What depth had he set on the torpedo, and how had he made the determination? The submarine had seemed to be about the same size as the Eel herself, and he had simply set the torpedo for what he thought would be the best setting had Eel been the target. Did he know the Japanese submarine periscopes were slightly shorter than those of United States submarines, and that he should have set the torpedo a little more shallow? No, he had not. The few feet involved would have made no difference anyway, provided the torpedo ran at the intended depth which now they all uniformly did.
    Why had he not fired a spread of three torpedoes at the submerged submarine instead of only one? Because three torpedoes would be three times as noisy as one. They might havealerted the submarine, given it time to maneuver. Three explosions would undoubtedly have alerted Bungo if all three had hit, or if those which