Crash dive

An American submarine officer tells a vivid story of his dangerous service.

“Rig ship for diving!”

Having just come from the submarine school at New London, I had yet to make my first “crash” dive, as the old-timers so aptly call it when you slam a submarine down and out of sight with full diving rudder, as if the enemy had suddenly come upon you in a fog.

The other officers on the ship, who had been “in the boats” for years, didn’t seem to be much excited. Bud Tyler the executive, and Jack Lansing the engineering officer, were arguing away just as if they were discussing something important.

Their arguments usually had three stages—an extravagant statement by Bud, a flat contradiction by Jack, and a bet. Apparently, they had reached the third stage, so I joined them to act as judge.

“Any bet yet?” I asked.

“Yes, and I want you to bear witness that Bud bets me the first day’s duty at Pensacola that the division commander will pester us with more, ‘_Why did you not do so and so?_’ messages on this trip south than, ‘_Cannot understand why you did so and so’s._’”

“Does that include semaphore signals as well as radio?” I wanted to get the bet straight. “For we join the division commander and the other submarines after we finish our engineering runs, don’t we?”

“Yes,” said Jack, “it means all messages from the time we left New London until we arrive in Pensacola.”

That afternoon we “rigged ship for diving.” As I wanted to learn all I could, I decided to make the rounds with the “chief-of-the-boat” to acquaint myself with the details—and there were a surprising lot of them. The chief-of-the-boat is, more or less, a sea-going top-sergeant.

The diving-log was consulted to check up on the weights that had been added to, or taken aboard since the last dive. Any change of weight was compensated for by blowing out of, or flooding water into, special tanks designed for this purpose. The trim or balance, fore and aft, was also inspected and adjusted. All hatches and outboard openings, except those necessary for ventilation purposes, were closed and secured; batteries were charged, and air-tanks filled with compressed air for blowing water out of tanks.

“Ship rigged for diving, sir,” reported the chief-of-the-boat.

The Captain decided on a “slow dive,” as he wanted to accustom all hands to their stations, since the ship had been in the Navy Yard for some time being overhauled. Moreover he wanted to check the diving trim under actual diving conditions before making a crash dive.

At three o’clock the general alarm was sounded. The Diesel engines were stopped and the engine clutch thrown out. We then shifted to our electric motors, which are always used for the submerged run. All outboard openings, such as the engine exhausts and ventilating systems, were closed. The conning-tower hatch was closed and secured. The Kingston sea-valves were opened, flooding the six ballast tanks, and the ship slowly submerged.

We were then in a state of approximate neutral buoyancy—that is, neither heavier nor lighter than water.

The Captain, who was at the periscope, keeping an eye out for any approaching vessels, gave the order: “Depth twenty-eight feet.” The diving officer, noting that more “rise” than “dive” rudder was being used, ordered four or five hundred pounds of water pumped from the adjusting tank to sea. This helped, but we were still a little heavy forward. By pumping water from the extreme forward tank to the extreme after tank, a proper balance or trim was obtained.

She now held her depth easily. But to get a fine check, it was necessary to slow down to a very low speed, so that after a few more small adjustments of water, the ship would almost hang at any depth with very little rudder.

As soon as the Captain saw that the diving officer had his trim, he lowered the periscope and ordered different depths and speeds to give the diving-rudder men practice at depth-keeping.

Finally we reached one hundred feet. Everything went smoothly, so the Captain decided to come up. As we had been considerably below periscope depth for some time our motors were stopped and the hydrophone man trained his listening tube all around to see if there was any propeller noise from ships in the vicinity. Hearing none, the ship was brought rapidly to the surface by blowing the water from the ballast tanks, and soon we were cruising ahead again on our engines, Pensacola-bound.

Word was passed shortly before eleven next morning to “rig ship for diving.” We had just about completed our full-power engine run and were preparing for our full-power run submerged. According to the rules, the dive on this run must be a crash dive, with a penalty applied against our yearly engineering standing if we did not get our conning-tower under water and out of sight in less than sixty seconds after the diving siren was sounded. A good diving crew could make it in considerably less time, but even with sixty seconds, each man had to know his job and do the right thing at exactly the right time.

The ship was rigged for diving; the crew was standing by diving stations, and all was in readiness for the diving alarm which was to be sounded at eleven sharp.

There was a feeling of alertness in the air. Everyone kept glancing at the clock.

The chief-of-the-boat, an old-time chief gunner’s mate with years of submarine service, was standing by the “main induction,” which he was to close upon diving, and after that keep an eye on the other stations in the control-room, ready to supervise and help in any emergency.