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Show 0 R E M TIMES Thursday, August 16, 2007 Submarine attack a near disaster for all sides involved Page 8 veterans n n r Ihen we were operating in the Formosa Straits, we sighted a Japanese convoy of seven ships. Our wolf pack commander, on our sister submarine the USS Kedfish, ordered our ship, the Shad, to make the first run on the convoy. Battle station was sounded, and each crew member reMrted to his assigned as-signed station. My station was in the conning tower, where several officers were setting up their firing data on the plot- iimnr' '-- LABOR DAY Fit, Aug. 31st & Sat, Sept 1st 10am Enjoy LIVE Music & V , .f". J i. 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These free reports are available for a limited time. Editor's note: This the fifth article in a series about Lynn Gray, of Alpine, who served in the Navy during World War II. This week Gray describes what it's like to be in a submarine attacked by the enemy. ting table. As this was proceeding, the torpedo room reported that the forward torpedoes were ready, and one of them made a hot run. This means that the motor of one of the torpedoes was running inside the torpedo tube before the outer door was opened. This resulted in the armed torpedo moving and hitting hit-ting the outer door, trying to force itself out the door. This was almost a disaster, but we continued our attack. Then there was a miscom-munication, miscom-munication, and the man in the torpedo room thought he had WEEKEND - 8pm Mon., Sept 3rd 10am-6pm Spectacular Savings! i ti' l 24-Hour Emergency Service Fair and Consistent Pricing with No Hidden Costs 001-377-6644 8B0-0SPARHY vr.nv.mtstcrsp3rkv.com 1UJ MtllSll lift III ri M mr a ' Mml -AWl Tk) Ccj t3 b UtrYo been told "fire one, fire two, fire three." He pushed the manual man-ual firing mechanism on each of the three torpedo tubes, and naturally all three torpedoes fired before they were ready. The captain came down immediately, im-mediately, surveyed the dire circumstances, and we made a crash dive. A Japanese destroyer, now 800 yards away, saw or heard the torpedoes and turned on us as fast as he could come. Our crash dive was barely in time to avoid a hard ram, which would probably have sunk the Shad. As the destroyer passed over us, it dropped several depth charges that almost shook our teeth out. This happened hap-pened at midnight, and we 785-6319 ABCO Class products University Mall 229-1465 (Near the Foodcourt) Save 50 or Just bring in your V"? f A E ft 1, Begin Vour)Hcaini;Care Career ihlLcssJhantaVear tf&ffiq&ifam.. rUTt IWVlu - mt were depth-charged periodically periodi-cally from then until eight the next night. We tried twice to come up and get away, but it was impossible to outrun the destroyer, de-stroyer, so we played cat and mouse. He would go a little distance dis-tance away, get a ping on our location, and return and drop depth charges on us. We surveyed the damages: our radar didn't work, there was cork off some of the bulkheads, bulk-heads, and light bulbs were broken. These we put in order, and then headed for a dry dock in Saipan. Our failed torpedo tor-pedo was still in the tube, but we were lucky to go through a depth charge attack without it setting off. We found out later that our sister ships had sunk all of the convoy while we were taking a beating. The Redf ish had reported that the Japanese destroyer and our Shad radar pips had run together, so we were reported as probably sunk from being rammed. in Windows For Every Need! American Fork 75S-5225 (Next to Smiths near Walmart) More on Ink! empty cartridges. custom stairway elevator 4 Stairway elevator features include: , Battery backup for use during a power failure Easy fold-up leaving the stairway clear for use by others Swivel seat for ease Call toll free 1 - 800 MC ...withitraining from AmeriTechiCoHegej ( ) .... . - t . i .... g;J While we were in Saipan, the Shad was "degaussed," to rid ourselves of magnetic fields caused by friction in the water. On February 24, 1945, as we were doing routine searching search-ing for the enemy, a Japanese plane found us on his radar and made a run on us. We made a crash dive to avoid being be-ing hit by the bombs. But the hatch wouldn't seat, and water started rushing in. P. J. Rice, a very strong crewman, went up the ladder and after two efforts ef-forts was able to turn the dogs back so the hatch would seat or none of us would have survived to tell about it. The conning tower took on several feet of water and would have taken more if someone hadn't opened the periscope drain. There was enough water in the pump room to short out all the motors mo-tors there. With the added water, the Shad went down at an angle of about 30 degrees, then leveled lev-eled off at 450 feet. But the Cannes Wellness Center (MlmA Improved S 1 Health & Vitality k Vxl through colon hydro-therapy 'V ' Z J TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT CALL: Vfr m ToLchtt 687-2141 with the ' , . Sprayed on - ? - ; Bed Liner km mmm mmJ mm allows FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT In the home and safely when getting in and - 735 - 0408 the ELEVATOR company. vl V i - t .t7JZ73''2 1 liter? : maximum depth of the Shad was 300 feet, so we were all expecting the sides of the submarine sub-marine to cave in at any moment. mo-ment. Serey, chief of the ship, said, "Well, it looks like this is it, fellas." I had a great feeling of peace come over me, filling my entire body, with a knowledge that all would be well. I remember saying to the other fellows that we couldn't have a finer burial than in an expensive casket like the Shad. For some reason, rea-son, they didn't appreciate my humor. Next Week: There are dangers other than the enemy in submarine warfare. Some veterans may wish, on their own, to tape or digital record their memories of military service. These will be transcribed and archived. For instructions on how to do this, e-mail Don Norton, at donnortonbyu.edu. 1 ' dSr- Prevents rust J.. I out of the chair ' I! ) mm AMER1TECH COLLEGE LIT |