Escape From the Deep by Alex Kershaw Read Free Book Online

we have propulsion?” asked O’Kane, speaking into his bridge phone.
    There was no answer.
    O’Kane again shouted into the bridge phone.
    The men in the conning tower below could hear him. But O’Kane received no reply. The explosion had knocked out the microphone on his bridge phone. 10
    “Radar!” shouted O’Kane, “I want to know how far it is to the closest destroyer and what the course is on that destroyer.” 11
    Caverly picked up his microphone in the conning tower.
    “The radar is out of commission,” said Caverly. “I have no bearing or range right now.”
    “Radar,” barked O’Kane, “I’m asking for information and I want it now! ”
    Caverly realized that O’Kane’s microphone was out of action so he stepped over to the hatch and called up: “The radar is out of commission.”
    Caverly then gave the Tang ’s last bearing and range, but O’Kane did not hear him. He had stepped away from the hatch.
    “I want information, radar!” 12 O’Kane shouted again.
    Frank Springer grabbed Caverly by the nape of the neck and seat of his pants and began to shove him up the hatch.
    “Get up there and talk to the skipper!” said Springer. 13
    Caverly climbed up the ladder to the bridge. As he stepped onto the bridge’s deck, he saw a lookout man, Radioman Charles Andriolo, who had grown up in Massachusetts. He was clinging to a guardrail, his binoculars hanging from his neck.
    Andriolo looked terrified. He said he couldn’t swim.
    Caverly stepped over toward O’Kane, who was a few feet from Bill Leibold.
    A second or so later, Leibold noticed Caverly standing right next to him. Both men looked aft, in the direction of the explosion.
    “I’m not going back down below,” said Caverly. 14
    Water started to rise up toward the bridge. It had soon covered the aft third of the submarine.
    “Close the hatch!” cried O’Kane.
    But it was too late. The Tang began to sink, tons of water pouring into the conning tower. The after section of the submarine had flooded. 15
    Leibold glanced around and saw Andriolo frozen to the spot, in “a death grip,” clinging to a guardrail, as more of the Tang slipped below. Andriolo was one of the Tang ’s four lookouts who would never be seen again. It is thought that they became entangled in the sheers as the Tang sank and were quickly drowned.
    Caverly knew it was now time for every man to look after himself.
    To hell with those Japanese destroyers or anything else.
    Caverly moved to the edge of the Tang ’s wooden decking. Suddenly, she seemed to roll to port a little and then came back up and righted herself. The water flooding her deck appeared to subside.
    Maybe everything is going to be all right .
    But then Caverly saw the stern begin to slip beneath the waves. He stepped over to the guardrail. As soon as the water came up to his hips, he swam off, striking out, determined not to get sucked down after the Tang . 16
    Caverly paddled away from the boat. When he looked over his shoulder, he could see the Tang disappear gradually, as if on a practice dive, slipping gently beneath the ocean, stern first. Then he saw that she had stopped sinking. Perhaps five or six feet of her bow remained exposed.
    Thankfully, the Tang had sunk in relatively shallow water—it was no more than 180 feet to the seabed. Because she was 315 feet long, her stern had hit bottom after a few seconds. Clearly, enough air was still inside to keep her bow above the surface, like some upturned bottle.
    It was fortunate that the Tang had not gone down in the north Atlantic or near the Aleutians, where Caverly could expect to last only a few minutes in icy water. He was now trying to stay afloat in the relatively warm and calm Pacific off the coast of China, but the slightly choppy sea felt cold all the same.
    Caverly swam farther away from the stricken Tang. Was anybody still alive in the submarine? There was no way for him to know whether any men in the boat had been able to seal the Tang for