at headquarters. “Jesus,” said Captain Freeburg. “Right here we got the CNO and COMSUBLANT acting on information from Arnold Morgan. That’s not big. That’s monstrous. Guys, we better find this sucker.”
The trouble was the sheer size of the new search area. Basically the Americans would have to take a NW/SE line 500 miles from the strait, and conduct their search in a seascape of almost 200,000 square miles. The fixed- wing aircraft would be crucial to the operation, and the carrier itself would need to operate from the center of the area.
Admiral Barry made his course adjustments and reduced the speed of his flotilla. Meanwhile, nearly 3,000 miles to the southwest, Commander Krause searched in vain for a sign of the vanished Unseen. But there was nothing.
On the morning of May 4, the first two Lockheed S-3B Viking ASW aircraft roared off the deck of the Ronald Reagan, heading in toward the Omani coast, cruising at 300 knots. Both of these Navy ASW aircraft could carry four Mark 5 depth charges, or four Mk 46 torpedoes. But today their mission was not to destroy, just to locate.
Like Columbia, they found nothing. And they searched for three days in relays. But on May 7, one of them picked up a radar contact 400 miles to the south of the strait. The Viking came in low and dropped sonobuoys, but the contact had long since disappeared. To the trained Navy pilot, that meant one thing… the submarine was snorkeling when it picked up the radar of the aircraft, which caused it instantly to slip away beneath the surface. But the Viking pilot was definite. He had it. The clue was strong, the contact was snorkeling 180 miles east of the Omani port of Al-Jawarah.
The Americans knew two facts. They had interrupted and hopefully prevented the submarine’s full battery- charge, and from now on it must be continuously harassed. Unseen must come to periscope depth again soon, probably within 100 miles. Art Barry’s pilots were ready. They got it again, surprisingly, 110 miles to the north, and this time they had a guided-missile frigate within strike range: Captain Bill Richards’s 4,000-ton Oliver Hazard Perry-Class USS Ingraham, patrolling 15 miles to the east.
Right now Unseen was 90 miles east of the southern tip of the island of Masirah, and again she picked up the Viking’s radar and instantly vanished below the surface. It was early in the afternoon, and the Americans knew the submarine would be forced back, within hours, to charge that battery. And, on his way in, at high speed, was Captain Richards, the former XO of the destroyer O’Bannon, his face still terribly scarred from flying glass from the same nuclear blast that had destroyed the Thomas Jefferson.
He ordered Ingraham to her maximum 29 knots and the sleek, heavily armed frigate, with her crew of 206 at battle stations, came swiftly into the main search area, just to the north of Unseen’s last known.
The Americans now had a hot datum. They had two radar fixes from the Viking. They knew the submarine’s speed of advance, 5 knots, and they knew her course, zero-four-zero, which would probably go to zero-zero-zero as she struggled north, now in desperation, toward the Gulf of Oman, gateway to Gulf of Iran. Essentially they had 270 miles to catch her before she turned into more populated narrow waters, patrolled by the navies of Oman and Iran.
Captain Richards had an excellent intelligence assessment from Langley. “Your target has acoustic characteristics of Brit U-Class. Mission: hunt to exhaustion, board, POSIDENT submarine, arrest crew. Shoot only in self-defense.”
Tactics for the frigate commander were clear. He must use every available asset to flood the quite limited area with fixed-wing, helicopter, and surface-ship radar. That way Unseen could not come up without being detected. That way Captain Richards could home in for the final moves in this elaborate and lethal game.
At 2205 the rogue submarine was forced to periscope depth by her dying battery. Again she put up her snorkel mast, because by then she was gasping for air — air to flow through the diesel generators while she tried to restore her electric power. Unseen was like a drowning whale, and the American harpoonists picked her up instantly on the radar screen of their patrolling helicopter. The U.S. pilot began tracking the submarine, reporting her every move back to Ingraham.
Captain Richards reacted swiftly, ordered his sonar active, and sent his own helicopter in to assist. Unseen picked up the American’s electronic beam immediately, but her latest fifteen- minute battery charge was insufficient. The battery had been just about dead flat a half hour previously. Time was running out for the stolen submarine.
Lieutenant Commander Alaam ordered Unseen deep. But he knew it must be for the last time. The submarine was simply running out of power, and the American frigate was very close. Unseen was caught in the classic chess position — Morton’s Fork — when the rook checks the king but threatens the queen at the same time. If Unseen stayed deep, it would run out of power completely. If it came to periscope depth, the Americans would force it deep again or blow its mast away. If it came to the surface, the Americans would capture them all and execute them. There was no escape. Lieutenant Commander Alaam must have known. This was checkmate.
Captain Richards knew his opponent was trapped.
Five minutes later, at 2255, Unseen’s lights and other systems suddenly wavered. Lieutenant Commander Rajavi reported the battery was at zero percent charge. Flat, that is. So flat you could barely see it sideways. And shortly before 2300 Lieutenant Commander Alaam ordered Unseen to periscope depth to try to snorkel for the last time.
Captain Richards, 4,200 yards off her starboard beam, picked her up before the submarine’s diesels had even started. And he ordered his Italian-built OTO Melara 3-inch gun into action. Sixty seconds later they had blown off the top of Unseen’s ESM mast, ending all communications. They had blasted the periscope, rendering the submarine “blind,” and they had obliterated the snorkel mast, making further recharging impossible at PD.
And now Unseen was finally forced to the surface. She came rising out of the dark Arabian Sea, the water cascading down her hull, but there was no sign of her crew. The American helicopter circled the submarine and, with the aid of flares, photographed her unique missile system from several angles. But the pilot reported no activity.
The frigate commander ordered two Mk 46 torpedoes to be readied in tubes one and two. Then he sent an immediate communication to the Flag, explaining that Unseen is stopped on the surface with a flat battery, no communications and no periscope. Engines not running, so probably all hatches shut. He believed boarding might be difficult. The crew has not surrendered, nor even come to the bridge. Indeed, it appears to be battened down inside the hull. Captain Richards was afraid the crew might just scuttle her. However, he confirmed he was quite prepared to press on and break into her, using whatever explosive was necessary, then neutralize the crew. He would await further instructions.
Admiral Barry considered this was one for the hierarchy and sent an immediate signal to SUBPAC, who appeared to be running the operation. The three American admirals, Morgan, Mulligan, and Cattee, separated by thousands of miles, spoke tersely on the conference line.
“Look, I’m not sure we need this bullshit,” said Admiral Morgan. “We know exactly who these guys are. We know where they got their ship, and we know what they’ve been doing. We also know they’re Iraqi. We’ve got their goddamned former commanding officer just up the road calling the shots for us.”
“Right.” Admiral Mulligan concurred. “And boarding is dangerous. These maniacs might just blow the ship apart with a lot of our guys on the casing. I really do not want to run those sorts of risks, because they are not necessary…my decision, therefore, is that we should bang it out right now, before the fucking thing breaks loose again.”
“Agreed,” snapped Morgan. “Go to it, Alan.”
The message relayed via the satellite to the Ronald Reagan was, as ever, crisp. “Cancel existing ROE. Sink your contact.”
The order reached Ingraham before 2330, and there was still no sign of life from the crew trapped in HMS Unseen. Captain Richards again sent the helo up for one final look, and something amazing happened. A figure showed up on the submarine’s bridge and began rattling away at the U.S. Navy helicopter with some kind of a machine gun. It was like writing a suicide note. And the pilot wheeled
