No Ordinary Joes by Larry Colton

In addition, the captain had to be calculating his ship’s escape route immediately after firing in case an escort ship chased down the torpedoes’ bubbles. This required that the sub dive neither too steeply, which could structurally endanger the ship, nor too shallow, which would leave the shears (external housing and support for the ship’s periscope) exposed and make them vulnerable to counterattack.
    But the biggest problem facing the
Gudgeon
, as well as all American subs at the onset of the war, was the growing concern that these subs were equipped with defective torpedoes; in prewar testing these Mark XIV torpedoes, the only ones the United States had produced, either had run too deep or their Mark VI magnetic exploders had not detonated. By design, a trigger in the Mark VI allowed the torpedo to explode at a distance beneath a ship, where it had no armor. When this explosion reached the hull, it would cause catastrophic failure to the keel.
    Following a perfect approach by the
Gudgeon
, the small coastal freighter was dead-center in the crosshairs. “Fire torpedo one … fire torpedo two,” ordered Grenfell. Everybody on board waited for the explosion. Nothing.
    The
Gudgeon
escaped, but now the real possibility existed that they were deep in hostile waters armed with useless torpedoes.
    After almost two weeks of patrolling near Bungo Suido, the
Gudgeon
started the trip back to Pearl Harbor, Captain Grenfell surprised that they had gone over a week without spotting anything despite patrolling in a busyshipping lane. But shortly after turning for home, they encountered another freighter, this one estimated at 5,000 tons. It was night, and the
Gudgeon
was on the surface, recharging its batteries. Grenfell maneuvered to within 2,500 yards, and despite orders not to fire more than two torpedoes at merchant ships, he fired three. From his place in the hull, Chuck felt the shock of an explosion. As the
Gudgeon
fled the area, everyone on board shared in the jubilation of believing that they had sunk their first ship and that their torpedoes weren’t ineffective after all.
    Like everyone else on board, Chuck felt relieved to be returning to Pearl Harbor. They’d been gone over six weeks—six weeks of unrelenting tension. Rumor had it that the whole crew would be housed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. What a treat after the cramped and foul-smelling quarters of the submarine—fresh air, good food, big beds, and, who knew, maybe even a woman.
    The sense of relief was short-lived. On January 24, the
Gudgeon
received a coded message that three Japanese submarines were headed in their direction.
    The tracking of Japanese submarines by naval code breakers had been made a high priority after December 7. As later confirmed, Japanese submariners were irresponsibly chatty, communicating almost daily to their commanders or home base in a code that was easy for the Americans to decipher. The three subs for which the
Gudgeon
now lay in wait had brazenly been patrolling off the California coast, firing a few shells into a refinery near San Pedro that did no damage but caused great fear with the citizens of Southern California. This alerted Navy intelligence, which began tracking the subs, their job simplified by the subs’ frequent radio transmissions as they proceeded on a great circular route back to their base in Kwajalein. Perhaps emboldened by sneaking so close to the California shoreline, the subs also fired a few shells onto Midway Island as they passed, further betraying their position.
    At 9:00 a.m. on January 27, just as projected, one of the subs crossed the path of the submerged
Gudgeon
. Spotting it through the periscope,Grenfell was dumbfounded. “Look at this,” he said. “They’re coming along, fat, dumb, and happy. They’re not even zigzagging. The men are lounging on the deck, sunbathing and smoking.”
    Grenfell ordered battle stations, then fired three torpedoes from the bow tubes. Eighty-one seconds later,