Eric Mentzer

Pearl Harbor - 1942

 

         The rain came down hard as Captain Alvin Parks stood on the pier at C dock watching his submarine being loaded with torpedoes. C dock was a seldom used dock hidden away in a remote area of Pearl Harbor between several old mothballed W.W.I  battleships and far out of the normal traffic pattern on shore as well as at sea. Tonight, however, the whole area was crawling with sentries, and heavily armed marines lined the pier.

            Captain Parks was the only member of the crew aboard the submarine, Starfish, who knew the importance of his new mission. His orders had come directly from the President. The National Intelligence agents that had briefed him made it clear that even his Executive Officer was not to be informed of the particulars of this mission until they had put to sea.

            The Secretary of the Navy chose Parks to command this mission, because of his reputation for completing his missions in the face of grave danger with calm and cool efficiency. Ensign Alvin Parks had been out of Annapolis only five months when he found himself standing the morning watch on the bridge of the cruiser, USS Cassidy, on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. The captain and his exec were ashore attending church service. As the Japanese bombs rained down around him, the yard tower issued an emergency sortie to all ships. The young ensign ordered the Cassidy’s boilers to be lit off, and as soon as she had enough steam built up he ordered the helmsman to set turns for twenty knots through the channel. Disregarding the objections of the other junior officers on the bridge, he decided not to wait for the captain and the exec to return from shore, a decision that would save his ship and earn him several commendations and a promotion to lieutenant.

            The Cassidy was the only ship to break out of the harbor that fateful morning. Admiral Husband Kimmel made the statement that “punishment was the order of the day for commanding officers, and the navy would soon be making commanders and captains out of ensigns and lieutenants that showed some courage and initiative.” Confirming that prediction, Parks’ request for transfer to submarine school was immediately granted.

            Three months later he received orders to report aboard the Starfish as executive officer. She was a guppy type submarine that looked like a pregnant whale. During their first patrol, their mission was to support an air strike on an island in the South Pacific and rescue downed pilots. The captain was killed when a Japanese fighter strafed the Starfish. Parks jumped into the water, rescued the downed pilot, and then dragged the captain’s lifeless body from the water. When they returned to port he was again promoted. This time to commander and he was given command of the Starfish for this classified mission.

            As the last torpedo slid below deck, Parks made his way to the forward torpedo room. After ensuring everything was properly secured, he returned to the conning tower.

            “Ex O, cast off the aft mooring lines.”          

            “Left full rudder. Ahead dead slow.”

            “Cast off the starboard mooring lines”

             “Ahead one third power. Bring us into the channel. Mr. Limpet”

             “Aye, Aye, Captain,” replied the Ex O.

             The rain had slowed as the Starfish entered the channel on her way to the Pacific. Parks was not wearing his foul weather parka as he stood on the bridge. He knew that after the storm had passed he would soon be dried off by the South Pacific heat. Pearl Harbor was still littered with twisted and mangled ships. The blue white glow of the welders’ torches lit up the night as work went on 24 hours a day to salvage what little was left of the Pacific fleet. Aboard the Starfish, all hands lined the topside decks, reverently standing at attention and rendering colors as they slowly passed by the USS Arizona whose twisted masts rose out of the water. She sat on the bottom of the harbor entombing more than a thousand sailors in a cold, dark, watery grave.

            They next passed by the USS Oklahoma. Her keel was illuminated by dozens of workers’ lights as they tried desperately to cut through her hull to recover the bodies of the sailors still trapped in her flooded bowels. Her mast was buried deep in the soft silt of the sea floor just below where she had once been moored. During the attack she had taken three torpedoes in her side and quickly capsized trapping hundreds of sailors inside.

            As they neared the mouth of the harbor, Parks looked up at Widow’s Point. It is the last point of land where you can still see the ships as they enter or exit the harbor. He thought of the wives who often gathered there and waited to wave good-bye to their husbands and boyfriends as they went out to sea, or to pray for a glimpse of them coming back into port, reassuring them that they were still alive. Tonight there would be no one waiting and watching for them to leave the harbor. Their mission was so secret that even the crew had no idea that they would be putting to sea until they arrived at the dock. They were assured by the captain that their families would be notified of their departure once the sub had made it to open waters.

            The sub and its crew had two days’ sailing time to reach their destination and Parks used that time to his advantage. He ran drill after drill. His men were already experts at their jobs, but they didn't mind the extra drills, because they had a tremendous respect for their captain and they gave their all for him.

            On the second day the Starfish approached an obscure uninhabited volcanic outcropping near the end of the Hawaiian island chain. It was chosen by the nation’s best geophysicists for its volcanic activity and large diameter underwater lava tubes. Their mission was to approach the island underwater and fire an experimental torpedo into a lava tube, retreat two miles and observe the reactions. All the while they were to be taking atmospheric readings and testing the air and water quality.

            The Starfish approached the island under the cover of darkness at a depth of 400 feet.

 At one thousand yards out, Parks ordered, “Bring us up to periscope depth.”

            “Periscope depth, aye, Captain,” replied the Ex. O.

            From their position and the reports that he had read, Parks knew that he would be looking at the southern end of the island volcano. It was an island approximately 10 miles in diameter with a volcano rising 300 feet into the air at the northern end. At the western and southern ends the beaches were made of black sand, attesting to its recent volcanic activity. Although there was quite a bit of vegetation and animal life, it had somehow remained uninhabited by humans, thus making it the perfect test zone for the Starfish’s ominous task.

             “Captain, we’re at periscope depth,” the Ex. O said.

            “Up periscope,” Parks replied.

            Parks knew that the most dangerous time for a submarine that is rising to the surface is the last 100 feet. As a matter of habit, while the periscope was on its way up he would spin it 360 degrees while peering through the lens for precaution sake. Suddenly his eyes went wide in horror. Just off the port side was a merchant marine super freighter heavily laden with war supplies headed for Pearl Harbor and she was on a collision course with the Starfish.

            Parks yelled, “Crash dive, dive, dive, dive!”

            “Sound the collision alarm!”

             “Close all water tight doors!”

            “Rig for impact!”

            The klaxon sounded as the men ran to their stations and started closing and latching the watertight doors. But sadly it was not enough. She had barely flooded her ballast tanks when the freighters bow slammed into the Starfish’s aft port side. The submarine shuddered from stem to stern and the eerie sound of ripping and tearing metal was heard as the freighter tore a gaping hole in her side.  Her propeller was torn completely off and the rudder was jammed.

            There were six men in the aft torpedo room when the freighter hit. It sliced into the sub like it was opening a can of tuna, cutting two of the men completely in half. As the water rushed in, the two halves of each man were sucked out into the sea trailing blood and intestines. Two other men were sucked out along with the mangled bodies of their shipmates. They drowned almost instantly. The last two men were standing near the hatch to the next compartment when the sub was struck, but the watertight doors had already been shut and dogged from both sides. There was no way to open the hatch. The men beat frantically on the hatch with large pipe wrenches. They tried desperately to get someone’s attention, to open the outer dogs on the hatch that held them prisoner in a room violently filling with sea water. Unfortunately the men on the other side were too busy trying to maintain control of the boat and no one heard the metal pings made by the wrench. The pings soon lessened as the last two men lost their fight to remain alive. While the torpedo room flooded they tried to keep their heads above the water. An ominous sight appeared as the red night operation lights made an eerie glow through the murky water that was rushing in. The water level quickly rose filling the compartment. The water pressure pushed the air from their chests and finally forced the briny salt water down their throats and filled their lungs. Their vision began to blur and everything turned to black. The men could fight no longer. They both gave up the ghost and died together in a cold, dark, watery grave.

            Captain Parks yelled orders to his damage control parties, to seal off the flood of incoming water. He knew his beautiful boat and precious cargo were doomed to a watery grave. But true to his reputation as a leader, he did not let his crew see his concern.  He and his crew worked feverishly to save the boat, but she was helplessly adrift. He quickly realized that with her propeller gone and her rudder jammed she was drifting straight into the very lava tube that she was to send a torpedo into moments earlier. With his ballast tanks blown and his aft torpedo room flooded, he could not bring her to the surface either.

            Within minutes the Starfish had traveled the remaining few hundred yards to the lava tube. She entered the black hole with her bow up slightly. Her stern heavy with the water in her torpedo room and aft bunk rooms, scraped the mouth of the lava tube and was shoved hard upwards. She came up slamming the conning tower into the roof of the lava tube causing a tremendous rock slide that rained rocks and boulders down on her aft end. The heavy weight of the rocks pushed her to the bottom and slowed her to a stop 200 feet from the entrance. The rock slide effectively sealed the submarine inside the lava tube like a mummy in its pyramid sarcophagus.

            Chief petty officer, Thomas Jefferson Jackson, stepped quickly onto the bridge. He was the fourth generation grandson of the great Civil War General “Stonewall” Jackson. He was a tall lanky lad with curly blond hair and a deep southern drawl.

            He looked up, “Cap’n, I think you better come look at this.”

            “What is it, Jackson?” Parks asked.

            “I think you ought-ta see for yourself, Cap’n.”

            Parks followed Jackson's lead as he jumped down the ladder from the bridge and headed for the forward torpedo room. As they ran through the tight passages, Parks noticed the air was getting thick and acrid. He worried that the salt water was getting into the battery compartment and would soon react with the battery acid and fill the boat with toxic gasses. Then as he came to the entrance of the torpedo room he realized that the batteries were not yet the problem. There on the floor lay a torpedo that had been knocked from its rack when the sub hit the mouth of the lava tube. There was a thick amber liquid oozing from the nose cone. It was foaming and there was a yellowish green gas rising in the compartment as it spread across the floor. The six men inside had a strange look of horror and agony on their faces. Blood was pouring from their noses, ears, mouths and even their eyes. Their flesh was mottled and blistering. It was as if the skin was beginning to fall from the bone. Parks threw his hand up quickly blocking Jackson's entrance into the compartment. He quickly slammed the watertight door shut and dogged the latches.

            Jackson’s face went white with terror, “The men, sir! There are six men in there! They will surely die! We must go in there and save them!”

            Parks replied in a low mournful voice, “They’re dead already.”

            He knew that all the men in that room would not survive the next few minutes, and he also knew the fate of the rest of his crew. They would be lucky to survive the night even if they did find a way out of this watery tomb.

            As Parks returned to the bridge there was a loud crack like the blast of a cannon echoing through the boat and everyone on board instinctively knew that the sea water had finally reached the hot electric engines in the engine room. The cold sea water hitting the hot engines split their casings wide open. Now it was only a matter of time before the salt water made it to the batteries, creating deadly gasses that would seep throughout the entire ship.

            Parks said to no one in particular, “God help us, for I fear we have all been killed.”