Читать книгу The History of the West. Through the Eyes of Bears and Balalaikas - - Страница 9

Service on submarines has always been a matter not for the faint-hearted. In a way, it is at the opposite pole in relation to the service of a fighter pilot. For the latter, the whole life boils down to brief moments: takeoff, flight, a fleeting air battle, and if lucky, landing back home. Everything happens so quickly that you hardly have time to be properly scared.

The work of a submariner is mostly about waiting. Moreover, it’s waiting in the most miserable conditions for this: in an eternally leaking, stuffy coffin where you can’t even properly stretch out, let alone walk normally. Endless silence and intense listening, as vision is practically useless here.

For submariners of World War II, it was even worse. Their submarines were quite slow, and only precise calculation could bring them to a point from which they could attack. The attack itself was usually a long, tedious pursuit, trying to cut the corner and cross the course, constant calculation of torpedo triangles, finally a salvo and escape. Often so quick that you don’t even have time to assess the results of your attack, as the submarine is practically defenseless against surface ships.

Escape is also about waiting. A dash, a stop: you can’t make noise with the propellers for too long, lie low, be silent, hide. Then another dash and another stop. The roar of depth charges, and you will either surface someday or not. We deduce the fate of many submarines and their crews later, solely from the results of studying enemy archives: pursued, bombed, and an oil slick surfaced. We verify yes, there was a submarine in that area, and yes, it did not return. And several dozen people, at best, drowned in obscurity, at worst, suffocated for many hours in their box, having no chance to reach the surface.

So, in September 1942, when the Americans were losing everything possible in the Pacific, the Japanese submarine I-19 was quietly humming with electric motors in the Solomon Islands area, where a major tropical slaughter had begun a month earlier. By her luck, American ships were hurriedly passing by: two large carrier groups led by “Wasp” and “Hornet.” In fact, they included almost all the major modern vessels that the USA had in the southern part of the Pacific at that time.

I-19 chose the fattest and closest target, fired a torpedo salvo in a fan, and as expected, quickly and successfully slipped away into the distance. The fat target – the aircraft carrier Wasp – received two torpedoes out of six in its side, and since Japanese torpedoes were far superior to American ones, having no defects, it soon went to the bottom. This was recorded by the sonar operators on the submarine, and the commander reported it upon arrival.

There would be nothing remarkable about this story if not for one circumstance: the sonar operators recorded nothing regarding what happened to the other four torpedoes, and the Japanese command only learned about it after the war. Here’s what happened: these torpedoes did not hit the “Wasp” but continued on their course for the full range of their design, which was 15 nautical miles. They traveled there for half an hour, and in the meantime, the second carrier group – “Hornet” and its escort ships – arrived in the same area. No one could have foreseen that they would be there, as fifteen miles is practically beyond the horizon, and in half an hour, the warships of World War II could cover almost the same distance. Nevertheless, one torpedo found the battleship “North Carolina” and another hit the destroyer “O’Brien.” The explosion caused enough damage to the massive battleship – at that time the only modern battleship of the Allies in the Pacific – to send it into long-term repairs. The destroyer, although not immediately, eventually went to the bottom. So, it wasn’t just Captain McClusky who had luck in the war.

About their own luck, the Japanese sailors, unlike historians, never found out at all. A year later, a resting submarine56 in a surfaced position was discovered, caught up with, and sunk with its entire crew by another American destroyer. The year was ending.

The third year – Japanese luck was finally coming to an end.