The Sinking of a Supercarrier
Ryan, Joseph Enright and James
THE SINKING OF A SUPERCARRIER by Joseph Enright and James Ryan A bedtime story for John Lehman B efore departing as secretary of the Navy, John E Lehman Jr asked Congress for money to...
...I kept watching the nearby carrier through the scope...
...The carrier, built in secrecy, had left Tokyo Bay on her maiden voyage the previous afternoon...
...The seawater could be heard rushing into the tanks...
...As the range closed rapidly we prepared our torpedoes for firing...
...Captain Kono was then ordered to flood the three outboard port boiler rooms in a desperate effort to reduce the ship's list...
...Dive...
...Okay, John, let's take her down...
...Lieutenant Inada replied, "Thank you very much, sir, but I'm already prepared to die...
...Luckily, he caught on to some loose trash snagged to the flight deck...
...It resounded throughout Archer-Fish: Ah-00000h-gah...
...But what about you, sir...
...Mikami returned to the No...
...Torpedoes fired I was the captain of that submarine, the Archer-Fish...
...The same ominous high-pitched noise came from pipes, ventilation ducts, and electric cables that passed through bulkheads...
...Stand by for a setup," I ordered...
...Captain Abe, however, believed Shinano could withstand the damage caused by the enemy's torpedoes—which, he knew, were substantially inferior to the Empire's...
...By 9:00 a.m...
...What a tough sort he must have been to linger down there to express humor no one would ever see...
...Prayers and pumps Ensign Shoda, the carrier's chief quartermaster, had been enjoying a peaceful nap when a torpedo exploded close enough to knock him out of his bunk...
...Some of the valves are not working properly now...
...Would she drop the ash-cans...
...Akagi had turned in huge circles to port until Japanese ships were forced to scuttle the carrier with torpedoes...
...Well, let the enemy do his worst...
...We have already shifted 3,000 tons of water into the port bilges...
...Flood the tubes...
...2 tube and waited for the eight-second interval, then fired the second torpedo...
...I followed the lookouts down the ladder but stopped at the conning tower, positioning myself between the pair of periscopes...
...They say one's heart leaps into one's mouth, and that is exactly what I felt...
...Where were the hits...
...Now they were trapped in the rising water...
...Get to it" Abe seethed inwardly...
...If we had been permitted time to air test the compartments, we would be able to control this flooding now, he thought...
...Even though it was still dark on the surface, I didn't want the periscope breaking the surface any more than was necessary...
...Then we all felt the unmistakable jolt of our fifth torpedo swooshing away...
...Reprinted with permission...
...Incredibly, she was listing already...
...He dashed out of his tight quarters and headed for his battle station at the emergency steering station, choking on the heavy brown smoke and the odor of cordite explosive...
...THE SINKING OF A SUPERCARRIER by Joseph Enright and James Ryan A bedtime story for John Lehman B efore departing as secretary of the Navy, John E Lehman Jr asked Congress for money to build two new aircraft carriers...
...She would hang for a moment as the seawater pounded through her to flood the remaining space, then plunge 4,000 meters to the floor of the Pacific...
...Holding it fast, he was able to secure his position until he spotted a rope dangling from the flight deck and managed to grasp it...
...I saw the second explosion rip the target's hull eight seconds later, about 50 yards forward of the first blast...
...Soon she was dead in the water, without electricity or steam pressure—little more than a hulk...
...Shinano now had a list of more than 20 degrees...
...Captain Toshio Abe stood, as if transfixed, at Adapted from Shinano...
...There was a tremendous roar, and a huge ball of red and orange flame rolled up the starboard side of the ship and shot into the dark sky...
...Some of the sayings were patriotic and wished long life to the Emperor and the Imperial Navy...
...If we lose the pumps, he thought, it will be impossible to keep the ship righted...
...Now I had time to stare at the target and take in all the details...
...Shinano's list to starboard had increased to 13 degrees, making it difficult to walk along the decks...
...Submarines seldom remained stationary, and in those two days she could have moved in any direction, and for a considerable distance...
...Shinano would be passing only 25 miles south of the site of the report, well within the range of a patrolling sub...
...Captain Abe ordered the men on watch in the firerooms and engine rooms to leave their posts and proceed to higher decks...
...Captain Abe's mind was in turmoil as he thought about the fate of the carrier Akagi, which had been deprived of its electric steering by the Yankee bombs at Midway, resulting in a jammed rudder...
...Their only escape door had been jammed shut by water pressure...
...The members would try to burn their way into the enclosed compartment with acetylene torches...
...Make ready all tubes," I ordered...
...The carrier was there, clearly visible...
...Shinano's speed dropped below 10 knots...
...Then we heard the noise of the first hit, carried to us through the water...
...Rig for depth-charge attack ." Gaping holes It was at 3:15 a.m...
...Immediately...
...Nine...
...Ensign Shoda's group had propelled themselves almost 200 yards from the ship when the officer heard a tremendous hissing sound...
...Captain Mikami informed the lieutenant over the voice tube that a rescue team was on its way...
...Fake her down to 400 feet," I ordered...
...He wondered whether he should break radio silence to notify headquarters of the attack...
...The room was already ablaze when he arrived...
...The starboard engine room became hopelessly flooded and Shinano's list increased again, to 20 degrees...
...Bill Sykes raised the scope for me for quick looks at the target...
...The water is now almost at the top of our compartment...
...steady...
...Overhead the moon was beginning to drop but visibility remained excellent...
...Lieutenant Inada called the bridge...
...Aboard the destroyer Yukikaze, Lieutenant Shibata kept a running account of the ship's rescue efforts to Captain Terauchi, who was then at the helm...
...He was changing course and heading straight for our piece of the ocean...
...Although Mr...
...The ensign climbed to the flight deck, which was covered with crew members and panic-stricken civilian workers...
...Quartermaster Sykes called out, "Seven thousand yards" "Bearing, mark...
...Many compartments had flooded due to leaks in the bulkheads and around doors...
...If the signals could no longer be detected, it would have dived, with the assumed intention of attacking the carrier...
...Some held on until the men aboard the destroyers could haul them up...
...Archer-Fish, sank the 72,000 ton Japanese supercarrier Shinano, killing more than half the 2,515 crew members...
...Captain Mikami, staff officers, I shall remain aboard...
...Captain Mikami, grasping the back of a chair, was the first to speak for the staff...
...Captain Abe ordered the cables released...
...The bodies of many of the sailors, killed in their sleep by a torpedo blast, floated eerily on the surface of the ocean rushing in from a gaping hole in the hull...
...The principle for firing torpedoes is almost the same as for firing a rifle: "Settle down...
...What was happening...
...There were no lifeboats or rafts for this rescue work...
...Lieutenant Inada's courage and that of his men are in the finest tradition of the Imperial Navy...
...He would be later rescued by one of the destroyers...
...Behind him staff officers and crewmen went about their tasks quietly and efficiently...
...Shinano's stern dipped deeper into the ocean, raising the bow in a final salute to the sky...
...On the flight deck 1,000 or more men milled around, most of them clutching any object that would help them to maintain their balance on the sloping deck...
...I yelled...
...Dive...
...Captain Terauchi, viewing the hordes of men trying to clamber across several gangplanks between the ships and the hundreds of others jumping into the sea, said, "Lieutenant, don't pick up any sailors who cry or call for help...
...I got one more fast look at the carrier as we felt and heard further torpedoes rip into her hull...
...He figured that given the great weight of the flight deck well above the waterline, any additional weight high in the carrier—in the form of flooding—would tend to capsize her, perhaps even more effectively than a greater amount of flooding lower in the hull...
...Storerooms, refrigerated spaces, and sleeping quarters had been blown apart...
...Then the destroyers attempted to put on headway...
...It was time for Captain Abe to give the able-bodied men permission to leave the ship...
...Sucked down with her were Captain Abe and Ensign Yasuda, the entombed living and dying, and hundreds of the men clutching helplessly to her hull and decks...
...The explosion also ruptured the starboard-ready oil tank...
...The other men continued below to the control room and their various battle stations...
...To critics who say carriers are too vulnerable to air and sea attacks to justify the expense—the new carriers will cost $7 billion, not to mention the risk of life—Lehman responds that the Russians have just built a supercarrier of 75,000 tons, and "We don't know how to sink that carrier...
...I knew then that the ship was doomed:' In the pumping station far below, Lieutenant Inada and eight enlisted personnel had struggled in vain to pump water from the ship...
...by Joseph Enright and James Ryan, St...
...Ensign Yasuda relayed the gallant officer's final words and sentiments to Captain Abe, who shook his head sadly...
...The cross wires were fixed right on our target...
...I was at Midway and witnessed the decision of Admiral Yamaguchi and Captain Kono not to abandon the Hiryu...
...Can't you do more...
...That hasn't helped ." Mikami realized that Shinano probably would not make port...
...Shinano was heeling, far too quickly...
...We brought in timbers to strengthen the closed hatch of the lower compartment, which was flooding...
...No depth charges...
...1 damage-control station and instructed all personnel to proceed to their stations and secure all watertight doors...
...Then the third and fourth torpedoes were fired...
...The ship's list had increased to 30 degrees...
...Chief Carnahan, almost like an automaton, turned the selective switch to the No...
...He surveyed the mutilated decks above and below him...
...If he could constantly detect the radar signals, it meant the American boat was running surfaced and posed no real threat...
...Despite their screams and thrashings, a tremendous waterfall pulled them into the huge opening, where they disappeared from view into the maw of the ship...
...Ensign Yasuda was standing by...
...Several of the men began to thrash about in the water and to scream out in terror...
...I pressed my head against the rubber cushion around the glass before the scope was fully raised and glared into the eyepiece...
...Captain Abe had ordered all the seamen and petty officers assigned to the bridge and command post to save themselves...
...Bearing three three zero...
...I put the cross wires on the carrier's island and called: "Mark, bearing" "Stand by," I ordered...
...This is Lieutenant Inada in the pumping station...
...Have the order passed to the men as quickly as possible...
...When one of the reports told him that the flooding was close to the starboard pumping station deep in the ship, he again felt a chill for the safety of everyone aboard...
...His lookouts would spot it long before it came within torpedo range...
...Seaman Sua recorded in his diary: I went below, struggling because of the terrible list...
...The explosion burst through the deck above, killing engineering personnel who were asleep in their compartments...
...A pair of two-inch-thick steel cables were relayed to both escorts...
...Up and down it went, silently within its smooth casing...
...3 fireroom within Captain Abe spoke through the speaker tube: "Keep up your spirits, men...
...It was like bailing out a small boat under a waterfall...
...Gaskets were leaking...
...Ensign Shoda could peer into what had been one of the seamen's quarters...
...Shinano was still making almost 18 knots...
...Her weight was too much for the small ships...
...1 damage-control station, where he received a new order from Captain Abe: "We're going to try to make Shiono Point...
...When the auxiliary generator kicked on, the dim light revealed that the water in the generator rooms was rising to waist height...
...The less experienced men began to jump over the sides...
...Again they were taken aboard the destroyers, but this time they were secured around heavy gun mounts...
...The asbestos flooring, supposedly unable to burn, was in flames...
...It was then that panic took hold of some members of Shinano's crew...
...She filled the scope...
...Got the son-of-a-bitch...
...As he covered the length of one corridor, he noticed that a section of the bulkhead had been peeled back...
...Only moments earlier he had been knocked out of his bunk...
...The third torpedo flooded the No...
...They will all be remembered for generations" Desperate graffiti The cries of the wounded and terrified civilian and Korean workers echoed throughout the ship...
...Unless the target zigged, the next move was ours...
...Casualties...
...now ten degrees to starboard" Abe glanced through the window fronting the bridge...
...Just keep coming, sweetheart, I murmured to myself...
...The engineroom personnel managed to escape...
...A ship this huge, with so many inches of armor—something was wrong...
...The muffled screams of men trapped by rising water could also be heard...
...I want them to have the best possible chance to save themselves...
...The carrier was fatally stricken...
...Archer-Fish's down angle increased to 10 degrees as we started to slide beneath the Pacific...
...An hour earlier, Captain Mikami had gone below to convey the captain's compliments to the ship's officers and men at the celebratory sirouka meal...
...Set depth on the torpedoes at 10 feet ." Rear Admiral Freeland A. Daubin had once told me that if he ever had an opportunity to torpedo an aircraft carrier, he would set his torpedoes to run shallow...
...Could four torpedo hits cause such a situation...
...Lehman, it seems, has forgotten his naval history...
...Archer-Fish was lined up...
...It swooshed away in a cloud of bubbles at a depth of ten feet, with a 28-degree right gyro angle steering it on course...
...Seawater, reeking of bunker crude oil, swirled above his knees...
...Range, mark...
...Scores of men were ordered to pass among the throng jamming the tilted deck and relay the captain's command: "You are all released from duty...
...But right next to them were several drawings of our officers with such descriptions scrawled alongside as: "You stupid bastard...
...Pick up only the strong ones who remain calm and courageous ." Lieutenant Shibata cringed and said to himself: "What a price to pay for the lack of spirit...
...Almost immediately, great numbers of the crew began to jump into the sea to join hundreds of others who had done so earlier...
...Save yourselves...
...We'll soon be unable to communicate with you ." Lieutenant Inada then shouted his last words into the speaker tube: "I'm going before you, and I will pray for Shinano and her company...
...Kobari heard Captain Abe announce over the loudspeaker system that Shinano would not sink...
...The sea rushed in and flooded the outboard engine room...
...squeeze the trigger gently...
...I have concluded in the years since that their way was correct for a commanding officer...
...Then came the report that the trimming tanks on the port side could no longer be used to correct the list because their flood valves were now above the waterline...
...I heard more torpedoes strike the target...
...But we'll keep trying to fix that valve as long as we can" The rescue team worked feverishly to cut through the steel plate to Lieutenant Inada's party, but as the ship continued listing and the water level rose the team had to withdraw...
...I take this action alone...
...Our people are cutting their way into your area from above...
...Because of the urgent order for Shinano to depart Yokosuka Naval Shipyard, there had been no time to detect and repair them...
...He staggered through the dimly visible, suddenly unfamiliar passageways...
...The buckets were left to sink in the flood waters, and the men began to clamber topside on ladders throughout the ship...
...As he gave the orders, he was filled with resentment toward headquarters and the builders of Shinano...
...In the following account, Commander Joseph Enright, skipper of the Archer-Fish, tells what happened next...
...Any object that would float was tossed into the sea by the veterans to aid the men in the water or those who fell into it while attempting to board one of the destroyers...
...Some drowned, but most were able to stay afloat until rescued...
...Shortly, the cables parted...
...The carrier's huge elevator, used to raise and lower the aircraft, was wide open, causing an enormous suction that was pulling mobs of sailors into it...
...In the glass I saw a huge fireball erupt near the stern of the target...
...On patrol in the region, the Archer-Fish spotted the carrier and stalked it for hours...
...Our people are cutting their way into your area from above . " minutes...
...I whirled around to Lieutenant Andrews...
...To save themselves...
...Mikami reached the No...
...All about him the sailors in the sea were staring back wide-eyed for a final glimpse of their ship and hundreds of their desperate comrades still clutching the rails and decks, awaiting their end in a resigned and benign fashion...
...Captain Mikami rushed toward the damaged areas...
...The torpedo ripped into large refrigerated areas and one of the empty aviation gasolinestorage tanks...
...Surely you will leave the ship with us...
...An expert swimmer, Yamagishi swam away from Shinano as fast and as straight as he could...
...The officer's efforts to calm them were useless...
...Damage-control status reports...
...We just looked at each other and listened...
...As the water rose higher, forcing the trapped men to tread water or clutch for a hold overhead, Captain Abe spoke to Lieutenant Inada through the speaker tube: "Keep up your spirits, men...
...Sato had also guaranteed that the ship was impregnable, I shivered when I saw the main steam pipe under water...
...Fire one...
...Reports of many dead and wounded were being called out to teams of medical corpsmen who were making their way to the crew's sleeping compartments...
...Shinano failed to move...
...the front of Shinano's bridge...
...The man hours and millions of yen spent on Shinano's construction made it nearly inconceivable that a few torpedo hits would put her out of action...
...I peered through the scope and saw an unexpected maneuver by the screening destroyer on the carrier's starboard beam...
...Ah00000h-gah...
...Navigator Nakamura, order the helmsman to maintain our top speed...
...Sound battle stations—all hands...
...Instantly the Lieutenant Andrews bellowed, "Lookout below...
...The destroyers Yukikaze and Hamakaze duplicated Isokaze's unpredictable movements off both beams of the carrier...
...He thought about her almost obsessively...
...Far more men fell from lines and drowned than were rescued...
...Farewell, gentlemen ?' The navigator, however, had no intention of jumping from Shinano and said, "I intend to stay with Captain Abe until the end ." The small party of Shinano men moved slowly away from the dying ship, passing through similar groups and lone seamen who were trying to make it to safety...
...Just below the flight deck there was a large hole where antiaircraft guns had once stood...
...Captain Abe was silent for a moment...
...The number two torpedo thudded into the stuffing box compartment for the starboard outboard propeller shaft...
...Mikami recognized that the air being vented was caused by the pressure of seawater entering the ship...
...1987 Joseph Enright and James Ryan...
...All too soon, however, she again started to heel to starboard under the weight of the water...
...From the dreaded sound of the first explosion, Captain Abe recognized that Shinano was under submarine attack...
...Then the destroyer was roiling the water right above us...
...He looked about to see Shinano's red hull standing almost straight up, with the bow pointing skyward...
...We shall never fail Dai Nippon...
...Got 'em...
...On November 29, 1944, a lone attack submarine, the U.S.S...
...His eyes widened in horror...
...The whistling sounds of escaping air were everywhere as he passed closed watertight doors...
...Quickly...
...As the tons of water filled the spaces, the carrier began to right herself...
...The Japanese carrier was moving directly towards us...
...Don't turn away...
...He then climbed across the width of the deck, swung himself over the port railing, and slipped and slid along the port side into the sea...
...He felt the water tugging at him with what seemed a hundred hands...
...Inside the conning tower not a word was spoken...
...Archer-Fish jerked as if she had been smacked by a whale, as the huge compressed air blast ejected the first torpedo from its tube...
...Weren't the antitorpedo blisters along the hull effective...
...Others, too exhausted to help themselves, were abandoned to drown...
...Do everything possible to right the ship" Mikami then called Lieutenant Inada...
...Lieutenant Sawamoto interjected almost immediately: "Captain Abe, the ship is listing...
...We squinted and listened...
...Radioman Petty Officer Yamagishi was tossed into the sea when Shinano suddenly increased her list...
...Shinano had lost all power...
...God, she was big...
...Things were getting tense...
...It could be anywhere...
...One was already headed for us from the carrier's starboard quarter...
...Chief Carnahan pushed the firing button...
...The last torpedo detonated against the side of the starboard air compressor room, flooding it and the neighboring magazines...
...Optimism was mounting that Shinano would pass safely through the Pacific waters believed to be swarming with Yankee submarines...
...It has now increased to 13 degrees...
...Then Archer-Fish felt the shock waves created by the 680 pounds of torpex explosive...
...Then she was past us, the sound of her propellers diminishing rapidly...
...She looked as though she would capsize any minute...
...On November 29, 1944, the Imperial Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano was steaming along eight hours into her maiden voyage...
...12 boiler room when the torpedoes struck...
...Every man on watch was killed...
...He was certain that he, too, would be sucked into the maelstrom with the other victims...
...Lieutenant, we must do more to correct the list...
...We must proceed with every knot the engine rooms can provide...
...There were about ten of us crowded into the conning tower...
...Ours was a typical approach, one that many of us had rehearsed hundreds of times on training runs...
...Captain Mikami," he said, "it truly saddens me, but it's time now for the officers and men to leave the ship...
...We did not appear to have been detected by the destroyer...
...The beat of the big propellers so close was breathtaking...
...Mikami made his way to the first generating room next to a flooded compartment...
...With a combined displacement of some 5,000 tons how could they hope to tow a 72,000-ton carrier flooded with thousands of tons of water...
...How cruel he is" All the time, Yukikaze was dropping lines to the sailors in the sea...
...Abe realized that this action was his last resort if Shinano was to be kept from capsizing...
...Martin's Press, New York...
...The huge carrier was approaching at about 600 yards every minute...
...Bucket brigades were formed to control the flooding, but the water swirled around the men and continued to rise...
...The escorting destroyers circled around her...
...Sometime after 8:00 a.m...
...Within minutes he received reports of four large gaping holes in the hull...
...In addition, Shinano's list was becoming so severe that it appeared she could plunge below at any moment...
...he was firm in his belief that Shinano could sustain this kind of damage...
...Periodically, Abe went back to look at the bridge chart to study the chart and Shinano's plot...
...Elements of the carrier's huge power plant were still operating, but engineering and machinery officers expressed doubts about how much longer the engine and firerooms could function...
...I swung the periscope to watch the reaction of the destroyers...
...The crew turned the series of valves on seawater lines through the bottom of the hull, which allowed the sea to enter the port boiler rooms on the higher side of the ship...
...Do otherwise and the bull's-eye is missed...
...when the first torpedo smashed into Shinano's hull some ten feet below the surface...
...Counterflooding had reduced the list to seven degrees, but there was little time to be optimistic...
...When we dropped to a keel depth of 62 feet, we would have about 10 feet between Archer-Fish's upper periscope support and the destroyer's keel...
...In the control room below the conning tower, the chief on watch was already opening the vents to the ballast tanks...
...Archer-Fish lurched again...
...He was concerned about the enemy submarine that had been detected 48 hours earlier...
...Sir, your gratitude and compliments are most welcome...
...The air it forced out whined through the topside vents like so many tornadoes...
...Ensign Shoda shook his head in disbelief as he watched the two destroyers approach and assume stations off the bow of Shinano...
...Captain Abe sent a semaphore message to Hamakaze and Isokaze requesting that they approach to take on tow lines...
...Yet the sea poured into her broken hull...
...Such faint hearts can do our Navy no good...
...Seaman Kobari ran to his station in the No...
...All of us could now hear the sharp sounds of the destroyer's propellers as she headed our way...
...We're in total darkness down here, and the water is rising all the time...
...Enemy torpedoes, gentlemen...
...We are pumping from starboard as fast as we can...
...Off Shinano's bow, the destroyer Isokaze raced about erratically...
...The one that had gone pounding overhead only a minute before was completing a tight turn to head back toward us...
...He went deep, but a few sweeps of his strong arms brought him to the surface...
...The whole submarine vibrated and rolled from the shock waves...
...When the tow was ready for a second try, it was obvious to all that the cables would undoubtedly snap again, injuring many sailors aboard the ships...
...I supposed one of the officers must have harassed the artist unmercifully, but even so, it seemed rather humorous that some sailor had taken the time while Shinano was sinking and listing to vent his feelings before hurrying topside...
...I quickly motioned "up" with a jerk of my thumb, and Sykes raised the scope...
...Seaman Sua was attempting to steady himself on the flight deck when Commander Araki ordered him to go below to retrieve several important files...
...He sounded the diving alarm simultaneously...
...The generator was out of commission...
...After I had obtained the stupid files, I noticed graffiti written on the bulkhead...
Vol. 19 • May 1987 • No. 4
