Sherry Sontag;Christopher Drew by Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage Read Free Book Online Page A

no shouts. Some of the men ran to help, but there was almost no place to grab onto Wright without causing him more agony. In silence they watched him take one labored step after another.
Men on both subs were already working to secure a narrow plank between them. Nobody was left below now. Everyone was on deck. Most were near the plank, a twenty-foot-long swaying teeter-totter that reached from the side of one sub to the side of the other, with barely an inch to spare on either end. Some men grabbed lines, holding the plank in place. But as the ships rolled in the violent surf, the plank would drop from its perch, and have to he hoisted back in place. If that plank dropped while a man was making his way over, it was clear that he'd be smashed between steel hulls that were crashing together where the subs were widest, just beneath the water line. It was one of the least-inviting escape routes ever designed at sea.

Wright was the first man to walk toward the plank, the men parting before him in stunned silence. One measured, agonized step at a time, he reached the makeshift bridge and then kept going, across the plank, across to Tusk.
That was it. That was all the rest of the crew needed. If Wright could make it in his condition, they could too. One by one, they skittered across, the wounded first. They timed it, waiting as one boat was picked up by the waves, then the other, waiting for that short moment when the boats were level. Nobody cued them. They didn't need masterminding from the bridge now. Each man picked his own moment to rush across.
No more than two or three men would get over before the plank would drop and again need to he pulled in place. Miraculously, no one had fallen. When about one-third of the crew had made it to the Tusk, the waves pulled the subs apart so far that several of the lines between them parted. Tusk made her way back, but it was clear the remaining lines would not last long. It seemed that the rest of the men made their way across the narrow plank in a matter of seconds-all except Benitez, who still stood on Cochino's deck.
Benson called across to Benitez. "Are you abandoning ship?"
"Hell no," Benitez yelled back, "I'm not abandoning ship." He wanted Tusk to stand by and take him in tow. He believed he could still save his boat. It was about 1:45 A.M. on Friday. Cochino was listing to starboard. The rear torpedo-room hatch was underwater. And the sub began to take an up angle, leaning back toward the sea.
As the angle became more pronounced, Benitez watched tensely, waiting to see whether the sub would stabilize again. A few more degrees and she would be lost.
"Now!" men shouted to him from Tusk's deck. "Now!" they called out again. They saw it before he did, saw that he had no choice.
Benitez stood there, as Cochino's stern slipped down, as the sea encroached further and further onto the deck. "Well, this is it," he said to himself. Then he called over to Benson, called out the worst words any captain had to speak: "Abandoning ship."
He made it across the plank bare seconds before the wood shattered.

Worthington was already calling out the orders that would take Tusk clear of the sinking sub as Benitez began urging his men below. Then he went to the bridge to watch Cochino's final dive.
His sub was listing about 15 degrees to starboard. Water was now past her sail. She stood, almost straight up in the air, as if taking one last look at the sky before leaning back and slipping gently below the waves.
Cochino sank in 950 feet of water about 100 nautical miles off the coast of Norway. It was fifteen hours since the fire began. Benitez watched until she was gone. He didn't say a word, not then, not for nearly an hour after. It was only when he began to speak that Benson and Worthington told him that Philo and six Tusk crewmen were dead, their bodies lost.
Six hours later, Tusk pulled into Hammerfest. Some of the men were taken to the hospital. The others were given a choice. They could fly home