Escape From the Deep (30 page)

31
Wall Street Journal,
December 31, 2001.

32
Marsha Allen, interview with the author.

33
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang,
” p. 251.

34
Larry Savadkin, interview with the author.

35
Barbara Lane, interview with the author.

36
Ibid.

37
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang,
” p. 251.

38
William Tuohy,
The Bravest Man
(Stroud, England: Sutton Publishing, 2001), p. 323.

39
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang,
” p. 251.

40
Experiments have shown that the “break point” comes at 87 seconds. But if a person hyperventilates first, getting rid of carbon dioxide, it can come as late as 140 seconds.

41
Savadkin.

42
James F. DeRose,
Unrestricted Warfare
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000), p. 216.

43
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang,
” p. 252.

Chapter 7

1
“Loss of the U.S.S. Tang” (ComSubPac report, 1946), p. 252.

2
Clay Decker, oral history, Regis University.

3
Flint Whitlock, “Tragedy Aboard the
Tang
” (
WWII History
, March 2005).

4
Decker, oral history, Regis University.

5
“Trapped at Thirty Fathoms,” Jesse DaSilva’s story, as told to Bill Hagendorn, Indiana Historical Society.

6
Cindy Adams, “
USS
Tang
Survivors
” (
Polaris,
February 1981).

7
Edward L. Beach,
Submarine!
(Annapolis, Maryland: Bluejacket Books, 2003), p. 178.

8
DaSilva’s story, as told to Bill Hagendorn.

9
Adams.

10
Ibid.

11
DaSilva’s story, as told to Bill Hagendorn.

12
Ibid.

13
Beach, p. 180.

14
DaSilva’s story, as told to Bill Hagendorn.

15
Adams.

16
James F. DeRose,
Unrestricted Warfare
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000), p. 218.

17
DaSilva’s story, as told to Bill Hagendorn.

18
Adams.

19
Adams.

20
The
S-48
was soon considered the worst and most unlucky submarine in the U.S. Navy. Within months, one of her young lieutenants, Hyman George Rickover, the
S-48’s
engineering officer, would selflessly go below and extinguish a serious battery fire. On January 29, 1935, the boat was again in trouble, running aground off Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She would remain in service, after being refloated, throughout World War II, acting as a training boat. Rickover would eventually become an admiral, most famously responsible for the U.S.’s first nuclear powered submarine.

21
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 253.

22
Decker, oral history, Regis University.

23
Adams.

24
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 252.

25
Ibid., p. 251.

26
Floyd Caverly, interview with the author.

27
DeRose, p. 219.

28
Adams.

29
Whitlock.

30
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 253.

31
Ibid.

32
Ibid.

33
Ibid.

34
Adams.

35
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 255.

36
Decker, oral history, Regis University.

37
Ibid.

38
DeRose, p. 218.

39
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 255.

40
Ibid., p. 253.

41
Charles Bowers “Swede” Momsen had been thrown out of the United States Naval Academy in his first year for bad results. He persisted and graduated a year early. In 1923, he took command of his first submarine, the 0-15
(SS-76
), and was then given command of
S-1
, the latest design of submarine in the U.S. Navy. On September 25, 1925, another submarine, the
S-51
, hit a cargo ship and sank in 130 feet of water. Momsen was ordered to search for the downed boat. He found an oil slick but could not locate the submarine. Momsen felt helpless. Later he became determined to find a way to help men escape from a submarine and be rescued. The result was the Momsen Lung and an escape trunk used to rescue men from the
Squalus
in 1939.

42
The first recorded escape from a submerged submarine occurred in 1851 when the German submarine
Brandtraucher
plunged to the bottom in just sixty feet of water. Her captain, Wilhelm Bauer, who had designed the boat, stayed remarkably calm, assuring two other men aboard that if they waited for sufficient water to pour into the boat, the external and internal pressure would equalize and then they would be able to open a hatch and rise to the surface. This is exactly what happened. “We came to the surface like bubbles in a glass of champagne,” Bauer recalled. The earliest American submarines, the first of which was commissioned by the U.S. government in 1895, were intended to operate in shallow coastal waters where Bauer’s escape procedure could be repeated. Over the next century, enormous time, effort, and expense were directed at finding other ways to escape from a submarine, and yet none was as simple or effective at depths below three hundred feet as the method demonstrated by Bauer, much later dubbed “blow and go.” Nevertheless, navies became slaves to technology, blinding many to the most basic method that Bauer had pioneered. Indeed, as submarines developed, so too did the quest for an artificial breathing device when none was arguably required.

43
Nine months later, after Herculean efforts, the U.S. Navy finally managed to raise the submarine.

44
DeRose, p. 219.

45
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 255.

46
Ibid., p. 253.

47
Some of the men had not been trained in escape procedures. There had been precious little time to train them properly given the need to provide crews for the Silent Service. Some had practiced escapes in the towers at New London and in San Diego, rising in controlled circumstances with divers close by to help them. But what they were about to attempt was altogether different. In fact it had never been attempted before.

48
Ann Jensen, “Why the Best Technology for Escaping from a Submarine Is No Technology” (
Invention & Technology Magazine
, Summer 1986).

49
Decker, oral history, Regis University.

50
Pete Narowanski later stated, “The system of tapping on the bulkhead gave our position to the enemy.” “Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 256.

51
Ibid.

52
Caverly.

53
Ibid.

54
Ibid.

55
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 252.

56
Ibid.

57
Ibid., p.254

58
Caverly.

59
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 256.

60
DeRose, p. 220.

Chapter 8

1
William Leibold, e-mail to the author.

2
Ibid.

3
Floyd Caverly, interview with the author.

4
Ibid.

5
Leibold, interview with the author.

6
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
” (ComSubPac report, 1946), p. 253.

7
Clay Decker, oral history, Regis University.

8
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
” (ComSubPac report, 1946), p. 258.

9
Decker.

10
William Tuohy,
The Bravest Man
(Stroud, England: Sutton Publishing, 2001), p. 329.

11
Decker.

12
Ibid.

13
Tom Burgess, “First Man Up, Last Man Out” (
Historical Diver,
Spring 2002).

14
Leibold, interview with the author.

15
Flint Whitlock, “Tragedy Aboard the
Tang
” (
WWII History
, March 2005).

16
Decker.

17
Ibid.

18
Ibid.

19
DeRose, p. 221.

20
Whitlock.

21
Decker.

Chapter 9

1
Pierce was thought to be one of the few men aboard who had actually practiced an escape from one hundred feet at the New London submarine school. “Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
” (ComSubPac report, 1946), p. 254.

2
Ibid., p. 255.

3
Ibid., p. 256.

4
Ibid.

5
Ibid., p. 255.

6
Ibid.

7
James F. DeRose,
Unrestricted Warfare
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000), p. 222.

8
Richard O’Kane,
Clear the Bridge!
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1977), p. 458.

9
The survivors from the forward torpedo room, as well as O’Kane and Savadkin, all agreed that death from asphyxiation was certain if the men weren’t killed by an explosion caused by the fire in the battery compartment first. “Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 256.

10
DeRose, p. 222.

11
William Leibold, interview with the author.

12
Ibid.

13
Tom Burgess, “First Man Up, Last Man Out” (
Historical Diver
Spring 2002).

14
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 254.

15
Ibid.

16
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 252.

17
Clay Decker, oral history, Regis University.

18
Cindy Adams, “USS
Tang
Survivors” (
Polaris,
February 1981).

19
Jackie Morris, interview with the author.

20
Ibid.

21
DeRose, p. 223.

22
Ibid.

23
“This Month” (Los Angeles: Pacific Southwest District of the Lutheran Church, February 1994).

24
Joyce Paul, interview with the author.

25
Paul, e-mail to the author.

26
DeRose, p. 223.

27
Jesse DaSilva, interview with Douglas E. Clanin.

28
DeRose, p. 223.

29
DaSilva, interview with Douglas E. Clanin.

30
Ibid.

31
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 256.

32
“Trapped at Thirty Fathoms,” Jesse DaSilva’s story, as told to Bill Hagendorn, Indiana Historical Society.

33
Adams.

34
DaSilva’s story, as told to Bill Hagendorn.

35
DaSilva, interview with Douglas E. Clanin.

36
Morris.

37
Floyd Caverly, interview with the author.

38
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 254.

39
DaSilva, interview with Douglas E. Clanin.

40
Decker.

41
This was all the more remarkable in light of the fact that a later study figured that 94 percent of men known to be alive when submarines were disabled in WWII died inside them as they sank or rose to the surface. Ann Jensen, “Why the Best Technology for Escaping from a Submarine Is No Technology” (
American Heritage of Invention and Technology,
Summer 1986), pp. 44-49.

42
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 254.

43
Caverly, oral history, University of Minnesota.

44
Caverly, interview with the author.

45
Leibold, interview with the author.

46
Ibid.

47
New York Times
, September 1, 1945.

48
Leibold, letter to the author.

49
Caverly, oral history, University of Minnesota.

50
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 252.

51
Larry Savadkin, interview with the author.

52
DaSilva, written account of his time aboard the
Tang
.

53
Pete Narowanski later maintained that he raised his arm in the air to indicate his position and the Japanese shot him through the wrist. Morris.

54
“Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 254.

55
Decker.

56
In an official report on the escape, another of the survivors recalled seeing Larson’s body on the deck of the P-34. The Japanese were kicking and slapping him to try to revive him, but without success. “Loss of the U.S.S.
Tang
,” p. 254.

57
Adams.

58
O’Kane, p. 19.

Chapter 10

1
Floyd Caverly, interview with the author.

2
Caverly, oral history, University of Minnesota.

3
Caverly, Leibold, and O’Kane had been in the water for about eight hours when they were picked up. “There had been nine men on the bridge when the
Tang
went down,” recalled Leibold. “Three of us had stayed afloat and the other six had drowned.”

4
William Leibold, interview with the author.

5
Ibid.

6
Clay Decker, oral history, Regis University.

7
Larry Savadkin, “Saga of POWs” (
All Hands
, June 1946). 8 Decker.

9
Caverly, interview with the author.

10
Ibid.