conning tower, the bridge above, and a whole series of chart drawers located in the wardroom. Our cook on S-16, Russo, couldn't spend enough time in his new galley.
He had never seen anything so beautiful, he said, watching with delight as two new electric stoves were lowered into his new domain.
Jim, Keith, and Tom as a matter of course kept their original assignments as Exec, Gunnery-and-Torpedo, and Engineer. In addition we were informed that two more officers, junior to Keith, might be expected before the ship went into commission. They would become our Communications Officer and Assistant Engineer, we decided.
Getting a new ship organized and supervising her construction is in many respects a time-consuming and seemingly thankless chore. The prospective skipper and crew never quite see eye to eye with the, builder regarding just how the ship is to be built, just where each incidental piece of equipment is to be installed. Likewise, personnel requirements regarding the assignment of the crew and officers are bound to create problems needing solution. There is plenty to do from the beginning, especially when you start with only two months to go; and then gradually, as the commissioning date nears, you find that those, were the easy days. Long hours become ordinary, late nights the rule rather than the exception.
A Watch Quarter and Station Bill has to be worked up. The men have to be given battle stations, cleaning stations, watch stations. The crew must be divided into three sections, approximately equally spaced as to ranks and abilities, and given such training ashore as is possible. Certain men had to be sent away to school to acquire basic knowledge about some of our new equipment. We all, at Tom's insistence, attended diving drill on the diving trainer at the submarine school-with the equipment set up to simulate fleet-boat conditions, and Jim arranged for special time in the Attack Teacher's crowded schedule so that our embryonic fire-control party would have a few opportunities to work together as a team before we went to sea.
It was late in March, during this preparatory phase prior to getting Walrus to sea, that Jim sought me out. Something was bothering him and he hemmed and hawed before beginning.
'Skipper,' he finally said, 'the others thought I should bring this to you right away It's bad news.'
'What?' I asked.
'It's about the Octopus. She's gone.'
I stood up, feeling a peculiar distress in the front of my head. 'Gone?' I repeated stupidly.
'Yes, sir, the announcement came in by dispatch about an hour ago. We just got it.'
'Let me see it.'
Jim silently handed me a pink sheet of tissue paper.
THE NAVY DEPARTMENT REGRETS TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE USS OCTOPUS IS OVERDUE FROM PATROL STATION AND PRESUMED LOST DUE TO ENEMY ACTION. X THE OCTOPUS ASSIGNED TO THE PACIFIC FLEET WAS FIRST COMMISSIONED AT NEW LONDON IN 1936. X HER COMMANDING OFFICER WAS COMMANDER GERALD M WATSON OF CHICAGO. X THERE ARE NO OTHER DETAILS AVAILABLE. X It had had to come, of course; losses in war had to be expected, but who could have foretold that when I departed to take command of S-16, then in the back channel at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, I was saying good-by to my ship- mates for the last time; that my orders to that 'old, broken- down tub' would spell the difference between life and death between me and my old friends. I read the dispatch over several times. When I looked up Jim was gone.
Getting Walrus ready now took on a new meaning. The war had come home in a particularly personal way. I fretted under the delays and redoubled our efforts at training and preparation. March drew to a close; April came and went and our commissioning date grew nearer. I was wrapped up all day long with Walrus, all night studying her plans and specifications and the way we had to fit ourselves into them.
The weeks passed on winged feet.
Jim still made his week-end pilgrimages to New Haven, and once in a while probably had Laura with him at the Club at the submarine base or elsewhere in New London.
With the ship under construction there were no watches to stand or to prevent his having every week end to himself if he could arrange his work and responsibilities accordingly.
Hugh Adams and Dave Freeman reported fresh out of the submarine school the first week in April. Adams was tall and gangling, nearly as tall as Jim, with an unruly thatch of red- dish hair and a heavy crop of freckles. He could have passed for a high-school senior anywhere. Freeman, a small, intense youth, contrasted violently with Adams in appearance and personality. It was bard to conceive of these two having been roommates and best friends in Quarters 'D' at the submarine school or even having anything at all in common. I felt immediately drawn to Hugh Adams. Freeman, with his reserved, less colorful personality, would take more developing, but seemed to have a certain seriousness of purpose about him.
The meticulously careful handling required for codes, ciphers, and classified documents would be his dish, I thought, as I made the assignments designating him Communications Officer. Adams could be understudy to Daddy Schultz as Assistant Engineer.
We got Walrus to sea for the first time the last week in April, or rather Electric Boat did. By the terms of their contract the boat company's trial crew had to take all newly constructed submarines out in the Sound for proof dives and operation of equipment before turning them over to the Navy.
It felt odd to be a guest in my own ship, and stranger yet to see a submarine being expertly operated by a bunch of Yard workmen clad in various assorted pieces of civilian work clothes.
The ship was mechanically complete, though hardly a thing of beauty. Yellow chromate paint was everywhere in- side. Her steel decks were covered with heavy cardboard rather than the prescribed linoleum. Discarded pieces of cable were lying about and large chunks of cork, rags, dirt of all kinds were in the corners and underfoot. She presented an unkempt appearance, but I had to admire the way the trial crew went about their business. There were only fifteen of them, just enough to operate the ship-no more.
Half our crew had to remain ashore to make room for official observers, and the resulting ship's company, if you could term it that for this first trip-was a strange one, with divergent interests all over the place. The Trial Captain, Captain Morgan, rode serenely above it all. He was at least sixty years old, had been with submarines, all his life, and his handling of Walrus was finesse itself. Disdaining the proffered assistance of two tugs standing by off the end of the pier, he backed her smartly out into the Thames River, turned her on her keel with one propeller going ahead, the other backing, and headed her swiftly downstream. The unused tugs followed to act as safety observers when we submerged.
Our first dive was in great contrast to the first dive of the Poles in S-16. Captain Morgan's objective was to test Walrus for the tightness of her welded seams. First came a thorough air pressure test; satisfied, he eased her down gently, testing her balance as he did so and letting water into her variable water tanks a little at a time until finally he had both sub- merged and obtained a perfect initial trim. 'None of these slide-rule calculations for me!' he told us. Then two more dives, a few rapid surface tests including hard-over rudder with the ship going full speed astern, and he was satisfied for the first day.
'We used to try a boat for a week before turning her over to the Navy,' he told me, 'but they are rolling so many off the lines these days, all exactly alike, that all we need to do now is test the hull for tightness and the systems to see if they work. You've got a good ship here, boy.'
I could not object to his calling me 'boy,' for he had retired from the Navy before I had even entered the First Grade. Most of his crew likewise were retired Navy personnel, nearly all Chief Petty Officers, each an expert in his- own line or trade.
Twice more the trial crew took Walrus out in the Sound, until the inspectors and supervisors were satisfied. A few more days of cleaning her up, laying the linoleum, scraping off excess paint, and then Captain Morgan delivered her to one of the piers at the submarine base, upriver. I read my orders to the assembled crew in the presence of a small group of visitors and we all stood rigidly at salute as the United States flag was hoisted on her stern. Walrus was ours, the newest unit of the fleet.
Our work had just started. Now it was drilling the crew aboard ship, over and over again going through the myriads of details necessary to the effective operation of a fleet-type submarine. We were assigned an area in Long Island Sound and every day, Sunday included, we took Walrus out and went through our paces. The only days we stayed in port were when we had to provision ship, take on fuel, or make some small repair.
At first there was simply the matter of being able to dive.
Time after time we went through the motions. Time after time we dived, got the boat trimmed to a hair of submerged balance, made a few simple submerged maneuvers, and surfaced again. Each of the three sections into
