and even history.
Furthermore, our two weeks' refit was summarily cut in half and the following Monday found S-16 getting under way again.
Cutting short our repair and upkeep period was hard on the ship and crew. Jobs which had long wanted doing had to be again postponed; some of the very urgent ones had to be hastily rushed to completion. Our topside paint job had to be foregone, the rust spots merely scraped and daubed with red lead. Nor was this all for the members of the Examining Board also had to give up what plans they might have made.
One, Roy Savage, had already received his orders to the Needlefish, soon to be launched at Mare Island. Carl Miller was awaiting his orders any day. Only the third, Stocker Kane, was like myself apparently fated to stay in his old R-boat a while longer.
After thinking over the prospect of leaving my ship to Jim, I was not too happy either. Against my better instincts I had pushed him into a situation for which I knew he was not yet ready. I had officially signed my name that, in my opinion, he was ready for the examination, when in my bones I felt this not to be the case. True, Jim could handle the ship well and he had studied-and therefore presumably knew-the sub- merged-attack doctrine. But now that the question had come to issue I was convinced that, so far as Jim Bledsoe was concerned, it, was much too soon. His judgment under pressure or in emergency situations was still an unknown quantity.
Somehow I felt unsure of him. Under these circumstances how could I, seeking my — own advantage, blithely leave S-16 and her crew of forty men to him? And yet, having started the train of events, I was powerless to stop it.
Qualification for command of a submarine is probably the toughest formal test of a submarine officer's career, and it is almost equally tough on the Examining Board and his own skipper. Successful qualification usually does not carry with it an immediate command assignment, though in Jim's case it would, and somehow he had guessed it. No special insignia exists for it like the gold dolphin pin for qualification in submarine duty. A mark is merely placed opposite your name in the submarine force roster, — but no man can be ordered to submarine command without that mark.
A submarine is a demanding command in peace or war, probably more so than any other ship. The submarine skipper personally fights his ship, giving all the commands and making all the decisions. During war his is the responsibility for success or failure; his the praise for sinking the enemy, the blame for being sunk himself. In peacetime there are still the hazards of the malevolent sea-ever-ready, with its sequence of inevitable consequences, to pounce mercilessly upon momentary disregard for its laws.
Appearance before a Qualification Board, a serious matter for the candidate, is thus equally serious for the members of the board themselves. On the one hand, they hold the career of a brother officer in their hands, but on the other, and much more important, they must consider the lives and well- being of his future ship's company as well. And it is serious, also, for the person or persons recommending him, whose own judgment in so doing is under inspection.
On Monday we were-somehow-ready. The disassembled pieces of machinery had been put back together, mostly unrepaired, and great patches of red preservative on our decks and sides betrayed the areas we had been scraping free rust and loose paint. Prior to the arrival of the Qualification Board, Jim, at their dictum, had made all preparations for getting under way; this was something he normally did every third clay anyway, when he had the duty-though not, of course, under quite the same degree of pressure. The engines were warmed up and primed, the batteries fully charged, the crew at stations. All lines to the dock bid been 'singled up,' which means that the usual three strands of mooring line to each of our four cleats had been reduced to one, ready for immediate release. I waited on the forecastle, swathed in muffler, foul-weather jacket, and sea boots, turning my back to the freezing wind sweeping the river. Jim, of course, was on the bridge.
Three figures suddenly appeared from behind the parked cars at the head of the dock, marched toward us. I recognized them immediately: Carl Miller, skipper of the R-4, Roy Savage of the S-48, and Stocker Kane of the R-12. Savage was the senior in rank, a Lieutenant Commander of several years, and had been designated 'Senior Member' of the Qualification Board. He was a stocky, taciturn individual, whose usual imperturbability seemed only intensified by this assignment.
Bluff Carl Miller, also a Lieutenant Commander, had gone through submarine school with me several years before.
Stocker Kane, junior member of the board, and my closest friend of the three, was another hard-to-know person, though one soon learned to like and respect his careful thinking.
Jim hurriedly climbed down on deck and stood with me to welcome the three other skippers aboard. Gravely we acknowledged their salutes. 'Good morning, sir,' I said to Savage. 'Morning, Carl. Morning, Stocker.'
Roy Savage didn't believe in wasting time., 'Take her on out as soon as you're ready' he said to Jim. 'Rich,'- turning to me, 'Bledsoe is skipper of this ship today. You and I are just passengers. You are only to take her over to avoid danger of casualty, and you know the consequences, of course, if you do.'
This was customary for the under-way qualification, and Roy Savage knew I knew it. His care to spell it out for me, therefore, somehow tinkled a warning note in my mind. Savage, I had heard, had been indignant at Blunt's sudden directive to head the board on Jim. He was the senior skipper in our squadron, and had already received his official orders of detachment from the S-48, though there was as yet no sign of his relief. Perhaps he felt that his pending detachments should have absolved him from the duty. Perhaps this was an inkling of the attitude we might expect from him through- out the day.
Stocker Kane now spoke, handing me a typewritten sheet of official stationery. 'This will save your Yeoman a little trouble. I've got a copy for the Quartermaster, too.' He smiled faintly as I reached for it.
S-16's Yeoman, Quin, a young, eager-faced lad, stepped forward and took, the piece of paper from me, attaching it to another sheet he carried in his hand. The papers constituted our 'sailing list,' a list, corrected as of the last possible moment, containing the names, addresses, next-of-kin, and other pertinent information on all persons embarked, which is sent ashore whenever a submarine gets under way. This was an outgrowth of one of the early accidents wherein difficulty was encountered in determining exactly who had been aboard the ill-fated craft and how to reach their relatives.
Rubinoffski, our Quartermaster, who had been loitering-near the conning tower, also received a list of our passengers and forthwith disappeared to enter their names in the log.
Noticing the unobtrusive efficiency of these two, I felt a glow of pride at the fact that they so obviously knew exactly what they were doing.
Jim had returned to the bridge and was waiting. I could well appreciate how he must have felt, remembering how I had sweated under the eyes of my Qualification Board on Octopus' bridge. But I had never really given thought until this moment to the feeling my skipper must have experienced.
Despite the qualification gimmick, nothing relieved me of responsibility for S-16. And yet I had to stand idly on her red- lead-spotted deck, too far from the bridge to take corrective action should anything go wrong, while one of my own officers, as a result of my recommendation, held my career as well as his own in his nervous hands.
There was reason for Jim to sweat. There was a strong ebb tide, aided by a north wind, in the Thames River that morning. The signs in the river were obvious, — heavy current making around the buoys and a slight chop in the channel.
One of the ways to handle this situation is to back out rapidly, getting the whole ship in the body of the current as quickly as possible, thus allowing the vessel to drift bodily down stream while maneuvering to turn. Backing slowly would result in our stern being caught by the current first, thus getting the ship awkwardly backward in the river.
Jim surveyed the situation, then cupped his hands and bellowed to the dock: 'Take in the brow!' Quin hounded over the gangway, handed an envelope to the petty officer who had appeared to superintend casting off our lines, sprang light-footedly back. Kohler, our Chief of the Boat who was in charge topside, waved to the same man, and two dungareed sailors on the dock pulled the gangway up and pushed it out of the way. Jim leaned over the hatch on the bridge.
'Stand by to answer bells on the battery,' he ordered. Then to the men on deck, 'take in Two and Three.' Our two middle lines to the dock were lifted off their cleats by the line handlers on the docks and tossed to us. Our men quickly snaked them aboard and passed them into the stowage bins under the deck.
'Take in Four,' Jim called to the stern.
As Number Four, our stern line, came in, S-16 remained moored only by Number One line from our bow to a
