CHAPTER ONE
FAREWELL TO THE _PLYMOUTH_
The launch purred smoothly across the calm waters of the harbor, makingfor the Navy Yard pier. Their feet braced against the slow roll of theboat, two young men stood looking at the huge gray ship they had justleft.
“I’m beginning to have my doubts,” Scoot Bailey said almost to himself.
“Same here,” the other replied. March Anson was shorter than hisfriend, but more solidly and compactly built. His gray-blue eyes weresteady and cool, matching the set of his jaw, but the crinkling linesat their corners showed that this apparently serious young man spent agood deal of time smiling or laughing.
“She was a swell ship,” Scoot said sadly.
“_Was!_” exclaimed March. “She still is! Just because Bailey and Ansonhave left her, don’t you think she can carry on any longer?” A slowsmile spread over his face as he turned to look at his friend. ButScoot was serious.
“Oh, sure, March,” he replied. “But she’s out of our lives now. She’spast tense for us. And—well, she’s been just about everything to us fora year now—home, mother, and sweetheart!”
“I know what you mean,” March said. “And it’s natural for us to wonderif we’ve done the right thing in being transferred. Right now we’relooking at what we’re leaving. In another ten minutes we’ll beconcentrating on what we’re going to!”
Scoot Bailey turned around and sat down.
“I’m going to start right now,” he grinned. “No use getting sentimentalabout the old _Plymouth_ at this point. I’m going to start thinkingabout the _Lexington_ or the _Shangri-La_ or whatever aircraft carrierI’ll be on in a few months.”
“Good idea,” March agreed, sitting beside the tall and gangling youngman who now stared ahead at the Navy Yard. “But that’s one troubleright now, Scoot. Neither one of us knows exactly where he’ll be. Ifyou knew exactly what ship you’d be attached to, you could make yourthoughts more specific. When you get there, you know you’ll love herjust as much as you’ve loved the _Plymouth_—more, in fact, becauseyou’ll be flying at last!”
“Yes, I know, but what about you?” Scoot asked. “I still can’t figureout why you want to be a pigboat man. And what can you dream about nowas you look into the future? The name of some fish, that’s all.”
“Sure, subs are named after fish,” March replied. “And they have someswell names, too—the _Barracuda_, the _Dolphin_, the _Spearfish_, the_Amberjack_!”
“Yes, they sound all right,” Scoot grinned. “But what if you’reassigned to the _Cod_ or the _Herring_ or the _Shad_? No, I can’tfigure out what you see in those stuffy, cramped, oversized bathtubs!”
This light-hearted argument had been going on ever since March Ansonand Scoot Bailey had been in the Navy together. Neither one minded thejibes of the other, but the dispute as to the respective merits of airand underwater craft never ended.
“Cozy and snug,” March said stoutly, “that’s what subs are! Not crampedand stuffy! Why—they’re all air-conditioned now!”
“Maybe so,” Scoot said, shaking his head, “but no air-conditioning canmatch the clear blue sky a couple of miles up there where I’ll beflying! Boy—what a chance! Just what I’ve always wanted!”
Their departure from the cruiser _Plymouth_ was forgotten now as theythought of their futures. Only one aspect of that future was rarelymentioned by either of them, and they tried not to think too much aboutit. In their new activities they would not be together—these two whohad been inseparable friends for so many long years.
They had met in the first year of high school, back in that small Ohiocity which now, during war, seemed so many miles and so many yearsaway. Scoot had lived in Hampton all his life, but March had just movedthere from the farm which his mother had sold when his father died. Awidow with a son only thirteen years old could not run a 160-acre farm,she had decided, not if her son was to get the education she haddetermined he would have.
So the farm had been sold, and Mrs. Anson and her young son had movedto the near-by city of Hampton. March started high school, and hismother went back to teaching, her profession before she married ClementAnson and settled down to farm life. The money from the farm sale wastucked away in the bank, to be forgotten until the time came for Marchto enter college.
March and Scoot had sat next to each other in the big assembly hall ofHampton High School on the first day. They had taken to each other atonce and from that time had been the closest of friends. Some peoplehad wondered at the deep friendship of these two who, in some ways,seemed so different. Scoot had always been a noisy and boisterous kid,eager for any activity that meant speed, excitement, and a little bitof danger. The more conservative parents shook their heads and calledhim a little “wild” although he never got into serious trouble.
March Anson, on the other hand, was quiet and serious. On the farm hehad worked hard and had learned the value of hard work. In school hestudied thoroughly and carefully. Even in sports he was serious,playing games as though he looked on them as work, not as pleasure.
But March and Scoot recognized in each other at once the hiddenqualities that lay beneath the surface indications of their character.Scoot saw that March really enjoyed life tremendously. He just didn’twhoop and shout about it. He felt a thrill of pleasure in a toughfootball game played hard. He loved the talk and chatter of a gang ofboys discussing the game afterward, even though he spent more timelistening than talking himself. He liked the school dances, even thoughhe was somewhat timid with girls and danced so quietly that he stoodout in contrast to the majority of wildly capering youngsters.
Scoot learned to appreciate the slow smile that spread over March’sface when he was enjoying himself. When something amusing happened, hecould look at March and see the twinkle in his eye that others seemedto miss.
In the same way, March saw that beneath Scoot’s noisy impulsivenessthere was a great deal of calm courage, a daring that had in it nothingof foolhardiness but—on the contrary—a good deal of confidence. Scoothad a serious side that none of his friends, until March came along,had penetrated. He never seemed to study much, but his grades werealways good. That was because Scoot never announced, “No, I can’t dothat—I have to go home and study now.” Scoot was ready to do anythingsuggested by anyone, but he still managed to get his studying done,after the play was over.
By the time they graduated from high school together, Scoot and Marchhad both changed a good deal, each one influenced by the other. At afirst glance they seemed just the same as always, but March was lessretiring, less timid, while Scoot did not always hide under his playfulspirit his more serious interests in life.
When they went off to the state university together, they wondered howlong it would last, for war was already in the air.
“It’s coming,” Scoot said, “just as sure as shootin’, war’s coming. AndI’m going to be in it just about five minutes after it starts.”
“They’ve been staving it off for a long time,” March said, “and maybethey can keep it up a few years longer. But I don’t think they can eversatisfy that Hitler guy. Giving in to a pig won’t work—he’ll just keepdemanding more and more! But maybe we’ll get our college educationbefore the guns start popping!”
But the guns had started firing in Europe before their second year.When the first peacetime selective service act was passed in the UnitedStates, Scoot was very excited at being below the twenty-year age, andwanted to enlist at once. But it was March who persuaded him against it.
“We can do more good going right on getting our education until theyneed us,” he insisted. “Then we’ll be that much better equipped to do agood job.”
His argument prevailed over Scoot then, but the war became theirfavorite topic of conversation from that time on. Many others in thecollege were not interested. They felt that the war was thousands ofmiles away, that two big oceans were enough insulation to keep it awayfrom America.
&nb
sp; But Scoot and March felt sure it was coming. They followed the war newscarefully, their hearts sinking as Hitler’s gangs overran one countryafter another in Europe. They spent their spare time reading books andarticles about the war, the new weapons and tactics that were beingused. It was then that Scoot knew that he wanted to be a flier, andthen that March first developed his interest in submarines.
“This is an air war!” Scoot insisted. “It’s going to be fought and wonin the air!”
“The whole thing?” March demanded. “I wouldn’t deny the importance ofplanes, but I’d never agree that they’ll do the whole job alone. Thecountry _without_ planes can’t win, I’ll say that much. But look atGermany’s U-boats! Look at the damage they’re doing! If England can’tget her supplies by sea—why, she’s sunk!”
The argument that never ended was begun right then. March and Scootread everything they could lay their hands on about submarines andairplanes. And when the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor, Scoot wanted to getin a plane and fly by instinct out over the Pacific, to give them ataste of their own medicine. He had just decided to enlist when theNavy’s program for college students was announced—the V-12 plan whichcarried students through an intensive training course which resulted incommissions as Ensigns.
For March there was no doubt about what course to follow. He signed upfor V-12 at once, already sure that he would be sailing in a submarinebefore the year was out.
Scoot could not make up his mind for a few days. When he had thought offlying, he had always thought of the Army Air Forces. But the Navy hadfliers, too. Eventually it was his burning hatred of the Japs thatdecided him.
“There’s a lot of water between us and them,” he said. “The Navy willhave the biggest job in knocking them over—and aircraft carriers willbe the answer! Navy it is for me, too!”
So March Anson and Scoot Bailey had joined the Navy. Gone were allthoughts of football, baseball, dances, and parties. And suddenly thereseemed to be little difference between the two. Both were now serious,hard-working, for in the Navy’s program there was room for little butserious, hard work. Together they crammed into their heads moremathematics than they had thought of studying in a whole collegecourse. Navigation, engineering, English, Navy custom and tradition—allwere crammed into them with an intensity of which they had neverthought themselves capable.
Both had put in early their requests for assignment to submarines andto air service. And, though they knew that the Navy tried to place menwhere they wanted to go, they realized that the Navy’s needs would comefirst rather than their wishes. So they were disappointed, though notsurprised, when both requests were turned down. The submarine school atNew London, even though greatly expanded, was full to overflowing. Andthe applicants for Naval Aviation exceeded by ten times the number thatcould be accepted.
New warships were coming off the ways in shipyards all over thecountry, and men were needed to man them. So, after some furtherspecialized training—Scoot in engineering and March in navigation—theyfound themselves assigned to the new cruiser _Plymouth_ which had beenrushed to completion four months ahead of schedule.
On their shakedown cruise they had been too interested in their newlife—the huge ship and the men they worked with—to feel disappointmentover missing out on their chosen fields. They knew they were already apart of the war, and the job they were doing was important. As Ensigns,they were two very junior officers on the ship almost as large as theirhome town, but they had their jobs, and they learned more about themand about all ships every day.
The Navy lost no time, after ship and crew were deemed fit and readyfor action, in getting them to the Pacific where the losses suffered atPearl Harbor had put the United States at a great, though temporary,disadvantage. By the time they had made the long trip down the easterncoast, through the Panama Canal, and across almost half the Pacific toPearl Harbor, Scoot and March felt like veterans. The Executive Officerof the _Plymouth_, Commander Seaton, had taken a liking to them becauseof their application to their jobs and their desire to learn all theycould. He saw to it that they got varied experiences, shifting todifferent jobs carried out by junior officers from time to time.
In company with a battleship, two light cruisers, and twelvedestroyers, they left Pearl Harbor as a task force heading for actionin the southwest Pacific. And action was not long in coming.
In the Coral Sea, the small task force ran into a Jap convoy, heavilyscreened by warships, trying to sneak an end run around the corner ofAustralia. Two U.S. aircraft carriers had gone out to break up theconvoy, but they were so outnumbered by the enemy that they were in abad way when the _Plymouth’s_ force arrived on the scene under fullsteam. The Japs were taken by surprise, lost their tight organization,and fled north, leaving behind three troopships and four destroyersheading for the bottom.
Scoot had been joyful at his first battle experience, but was angrythat he had not been on the guns.
“Just when the fighting starts I have to be down in the engine room,”he moaned. “Didn’t even _see_ anything, let alone take a shot at thosedirty Nips!”
“Well, I _saw_ plenty,” March replied, “but navigation officers don’tget a chance at much shooting, either!”
Scoot, by dint of much pleading and arguing, got Commander Seaton totransfer him to gunnery, but then eight weeks went by without a sightof a Jap. The first shots Scoot fired were into shore installations ofthe Japs at Munda airfield in the Solomons, after the Marines hadconsolidated their hold on Guadalcanal and had decided to move forwardto another island.
The big battle had come almost ten months after they had shipped aboardthe _Plymouth_, up in the Bismarck Sea northeast of New Guinea. Finallyfinding the sizable Jap force for which he had been looking, AdmiralCaldwell, in charge of the U.S. force, had steamed right into themiddle of the bevy of Jap ships and opened fire with everything he had.For seven hours, mostly at night, the battle had raged. Jap planes wereattacking overhead, at least until U.S. planes drove them off at dawn.The firing on all sides was so deafening that no one could hear evenScoot’s whoops of glee and happiness. When three of his gun crew wentdown under a hail of flying fragments from a shell that landed on the_Plymouth’s_ deck not fifty feet away, Scoot carried on with the fewthat were left, but the rate of fire was cut. So he rounded up a cookand a messboy and turned them into expert gunners in five minutes andknocked three Jap planes out of the sky with his improvised gun crew inten minutes.
Meanwhile, March had not been idle. The shell whose fragments had laidlow part of Scoot’s crew had landed squarely on one of the 12-inch gunturrets forward. March was the first man into the smoking and wreckedturret, pulling out the wounded and dead who were there. At any momentthe ammunition below might have exploded—for no one knew if the shellhad penetrated that far—but March had no thought of such a thing. Threeof the men he lugged from the turret were still alive, though closer todeath than March had ever seen anyone. Later, the medical officer toldMarch those three had lived only because they got medical attention sofast.
When it was all over, and half the Jap force lay at the bottom of thesea while the rest ran for cover, pursued by American planes, the menon the _Plymouth_ wearily surveyed the damage done to their ship. Itwas plenty, but a month in port would fix her up again. As they headedslowly for Pearl Harbor for repairs, Scoot and March got the bigsurprise of their lives. They had no thought of making heroes ofthemselves, and they never could figure out how, in the heat of battle,any officer could have seen just what they did.
Yet when the citations came along, Scoot and March both foundthemselves on the list commended for conspicuous gallantry in action.
“My golly, we didn’t do anything,” Scoot had objected, even though hewas beaming all over with pleasure. “Everybody else did the same kindof thing. All the crew were fighting just as hard as we were!”
“Yes, but they didn’t all keep their heads under fire and show thespontaneously clear thinking that you two did,” Commander Seaton saidto them in a friendl
y talk later. “That’s what counts—that’s what makesleaders of men. And the Navy needs leaders these days. By the way, theSkipper asked me if there was anything special we could do for youtwo—anything you wanted especially. I told him that you, Scoot, hadwanted to be a Navy flier and that March had wanted to be a submariner.If you still feel that way, the Skipper’ll recommend your transfer tothose branches.”
March and Scoot were dumbfounded! And it had not been an easy thing todecide, though a few months before they would not have hesitated for aninstant. Scoot still wanted to fly. March still wanted to go into thepigboats. But they had lived on the _Plymouth_, gone through battlewith her, and they didn’t like the idea of leaving her now.
It was March who made up his mind first. “I’m going to ask for thetransfer,” he said. “I hate to leave this ship and the men on it andthe action I know she’ll be seeing. After a battle or two you don’tfeel like going back to school again. You want to go on to morebattles. But I love the idea of submarines so much that I know I’d be abetter man in a pigboat than I can ever be on a surface ship. So I’lltake a few months out, learn what I have to learn, and come back tothis part of the world and really send some of those Jap ships to thebottom.”
“Guess you’re right,” Scoot agreed. “It won’t be long!”
So they had said farewell to the _Plymouth_ sadly as they stepped intothe launch taking them ashore. And they had stood looking at the greatgray ship as the little boat moved toward the Navy Yard pier.
But now their eyes were set forward. They had a long way to travel toget home, a lot of hard work and studying to do before they couldaccomplish what they wanted.
They stepped from the launch and stood on the pier. For a last momentthey looked out at the _Plymouth_ once more.
“So long, old gal,” Scoot said. “You’ll be getting your face liftedhere at Pearl Harbor and you’ll be back in the thick of it soon. MaybeI’ll see you out there—when I’m up in the blue sky flying my GrummanWildcat.”
“Yes, and some time when I’m submerged and hear the throb of acruiser’s engines,” March added, “I’ll stick up the periscope for apeek, wondering whether that ship is friend or foe. And it’ll turn outto be my old friend, my old sweetheart, the _Plymouth_.”
Together, the two young men turned and walked toward their new lives.
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