Three War Captain: Naval Warfare On, Under and over the Sea

Copyright © 2014 by Capt. C. Kenneth Ruiz US Navy (Ret.).

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014913535

ISBN:      Hardcover        978-1-4990-5601-3

                Softcover          978-1-4990-5602-0

                eBook               978-1-4990-5599-3

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Rev. date: 07/30/2014

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 My Last War Patrol

Chapter 2 An Antique Submarine

Chapter 3 Flight Training

Chapter 4 The Bearcat

Chapter 5 The Banshee

Chapter 6 The Bugsmasher

Chapter 7 USS Corregidor

Chapter 8 Fighter Squadron 102

Chapter 9 Naval War College

Chapter 10 The Bureau of Aeronautics

Chapter 11 Attack Squadron 72

Chapter 12 Second Fleet Staff

Chapter 13 Constellation

Chapter 14 Paris

Chapter 15 Saved by the CIA

Chapter 16 National War College

Chapter 17 Bon Homme Richard

Chapter 18 Vietnam Second Tour

Chapter 19 Vietnam Perspective

Chapter 20 The Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff

Chapter 21 Retirement

Foreword

Three War Captain is a follow-on to Luck of the Draw, published in 2005, which covered my combat experience in WWII. Since I transferred from submarines to aviation at the end of that war, Three War Captain is mainly about my aviation service.

Life was tenuous during most of my time in the navy. It began with the Battle of Savo Island off Guadalcanal when over 50 percent of the officers in my ship Vincennes were killed in a thirty-minute minute battle. Prior to the battle, a classmate of mine from the Naval Academy and I cut cards to determine who would be assigned to the Vincennes captain’s bridge. Of course we did not know it at the time, but the loser, who drew the low card, would be killed within forty-eight hours.

After Vincennes sinking, I went directly into submarine duty. Most people are unaware that the submarine service had the highest rate of fatalities of any branch of the Armed Forces. About one in four men who served in submarines lost their lives in combat. This compares with one in thirty-four Marines being killed and fewer fatalities in other branches of the service. The 1.6 percent of naval personnel serving in submarines sank two-thirds of the enemy merchant ships totaling over five million tons. Submarines also sank one third of the Japanese navy’s ships.

Our basic submarine operations schedule was a two-month patrol off the coast of Japan or in other Japanese-controlled waters. While on patrol we would aggressively attack any worthwhile target we could find. We in turn were often attacked by the Japanese antisubmarine forces that were successful in sinking fifty-two of our submarines. Almost every torpedo we fired resulted in a counterattack, putting the submarine in danger of being sunk.

Service in Naval Aviation after WWII also carried many risks. On a six-month deployment, the squadrons where I served would typically lose two pilots. This gave pilots a peacetime life expectancy of well under ten years. On the straight-deck carriers, there were two kinds of pilots, those who had had barrier crashes and those that were going to have them.

In Vietnam my Bon Homme Richard air wing lost twenty-two aircraft in combat during a six-week period. This meant that about one-third of the air-wing pilots were shot down in less than two months. There was always the danger of being killed in an accident when flying from a carrier, but in Vietnam there was also the danger of being tortured, beaten, and starved if one survived the accident and was captured. In four of our twenty-two combat losses the pilots were killed or missing in the accident, nine pilots were recovered aboard, and nine were made POWs. Three of those who were POWs were killed in captivity. In one case a fighter pilot, Lt. (JG) Hall, was shot down and recovered. Three days later he was shot down again and became a POW.

Three War Captain starts with the remainder of my submarine duty in WWII when I served as executive officer and navigator of a training submarine. There were some interesting events aboard this antique training submarine that led to its being decommissioned and scrapped.

After this final submarine service, I completed flight training followed by assignments to several fighter squadrons. I served as executive officer of a jet fighter squadron during the Korean War. The squadron was deployed to Korea but arrived after the armistice was signed. The squadron made many training flights in Korea but saw no actual combat. My final tour flying off carriers was as commanding officer of Attack Squadron 72.

One of my most challenging assignments was that as prospective executive officer of USS Constellation. Organizing and training the crew is the responsibility of the executive officer. About five thousand men were ordered in to the ship, and my job was to develop billets, assign men to them, and make certain the men were properly trained to make this three-billion-dollar machine run. At the time Constellation was the largest moving mechanical object ever made by man. Converting her from a rusty hull in a dry dock to a big mean fighting machine was a most difficult and challenging job.

One of the two worst assignments of my career was the operations officer job in USS Corregidor. The other was as commanding officer of USS Diamond Head. The Corregidor assignment involved operating a tired old hull for long periods at sea and keeping her from falling apart. The worst part of that assignment was getting caught between two Atlantic hurricanes that combined into one over the ship. Diamond Head was another tired old ship that needed many things but had no funds to purchase them. In Diamond Head probably the most danger-fraught incident of my career was that of narrowly avoiding her capture during the Dominican Republic Revolution. A last-minute warning by the CIA was the only thing that saved the ship and her crew from this near disaster that would have had international repercussions.

A major portion of the book is devoted to my two Vietnam deployments as commanding officer of USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31). Chapter 17 includes my first deployment in Bonnie Dick. This period in 1967 was the most intense of the war for carriers operating against North Vietnam. Bonnie Dick conducted more Alfa (full carrier strikes) than any other carrier in the war. In that deployment her two fighter squadrons shot down more enemy fighters than all the other carriers in the war combined up to that date. During the deployment Bonnie Dick never lost an aircraft in air-to-air combat and after that deployment she was the Top Gun in the Navy for the next five years. Bonnie Dick was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and two Navy Unit Commendations during my time as her captain.

Chapter 19 includes my comments on the conduct of the war and some details of how we operated during my two deployments. The rules of engagement (ROEs) made it much more dangerous than necessary. It was difficult not to be more critical of the ROEs and the conduct of the war. I found it ever harder to send our pilots out on missions that I considered unworthy of the risks they were facing. Some readers may find this chapter controversial, but I am expressing my opinions after some of the toughest fighting of the war.

Chapter 1

My Last War Patrol

Several years ago in response to questions by my grandchildren, I began a chronicle of my naval career. What began as a simple recounting of events during my thirty-three years of naval service has as of this writing evolved into two books. The first, Luck of the Draw, was published by MBI publishing and covered the combat part of my WWII experiences. This included my time aboard the cruiser USS Vincennes and her sinking at the Battle of Savo Island on August 9, 1942, then more than two years of submarine war patrols.

The day of the Battle of Savo Island, August 9, 1942, I had the worst night of my ninety-two years on this earth. It was a black moonless night with occasional sprinkles of rain pelting the ocean and the survivors. I was forced to swim for about nine hours in blood-soaked shark-infested waters without a life jacket. The sea was filled with over a thousand men from the four sunk or sinking cruisers. Many of the men were dead or dying from their wounds and all were coated with the Navy Standard Fuel Oil (NSFO) floating on the water. Many were also sick from ingesting the foul-smelling fluid. I periodically found pieces of the sunken ships to cling to, and this saved my life.

I was finally rescued the following morning by the destroyer Mugford. The survivors of the Battle of Savo Island were eventually transported to Pearl Harbor where Admiral Nimitz, the Pacific Fleet commander, asked for volunteers for submarine duty from the officers surviving the battle. I was one of three volunteers and was transferred immediately to submarine duty. I skipped submarine school and started making war patrols in USS Pollack (SS-180), a pre-WWII submarine that had already completed three war patrols. Originally I was the most junior officer aboard, but toward the end of the war had worked my way up to being the third officer and was in training to be the executive officer.

At Pearl Harbor in June 1944 after Pollack’s tenth war patrol, we had a longer-than-usual in-port period to repair the damage and overhaul the tired old machinery. During this refit both Capt. Lewellen and Lt. Zullinger, the executive officer, were relieved by Capt. Steinmetz and Lt. Cdr. Wilcox. This left me as a lieutenant the longest serving officer in Pollack and very overexposed to combat after seven consecutive war patrols. I was more than due for rotation out of the war zone. Usually, an officer had the break of going to a new construction submarine after three or four patrols.

Fortunately, my eighth patrol (Pollack’s eleventh) was nowhere near as demanding as the previous seven. In mid-1944 with so many new fleet boats arriving from stateside shipyards, the commander of the submarine forces in the Pacific (ComSubPac) had less need for us in the front lines. Admiral Lockwood made the decision that the shallow diving prewar boats such as Pollack would no longer be sent to the hottest combat areas. Rather than going to the coast of Japan, we were sent to the Central Pacific where our operations primarily involved lifeguard duty for aircraft making attacks on the Japanese bases there. In fact, our previous patrol off Japan was almost the last time older boats were used in first line combat situations. Their shallow depth limitations and almost 50 percent less torpedo-firing capability placed them in much greater jeopardy than the new, modern, deep-diving, faster, and more capable submarines. Our primary job from now on would be to pick up downed Allied aviators. While not nearly as exciting as sinking merchant ships and dodging destroyers, it still had its moments.

Our first assignment was off Woleai Island on August 1, 1944, performing lifeguard duty for the bombing there. Next, we moved to Yap for an extended period where we were continually hampered by Japanese aircraft. We once had to dive seven times in one morning to avoid their attacks. After surfacing and diving this much, our high-pressure air tanks were so low in pressure that surfacing was very slow.

Another time, a US Navy aircraft (a PB4Y-2) turned in our direction and lost altitude after its bombing run. It appeared that the aircraft was going to ditch in our vicinity. Captain Steinmetz ordered all engines on the line, but as soon as the engines started, we were engulfed in a hail of machine-gun fire from the aircraft. Bullets were zinging all around the bridge, and with the air blue from profanity, we dived to avoid this very unfriendly friendly fire.

Outraged at the plane’s behavior, Steinmetz sent a blistering message to ComSubPac. We later learned that the PB4Y’s crew claimed they’d sighted an unidentified vessel, turned to investigate, and got shot at for their trouble. We never opened fire. They had mistaken the white smoke from our diesel engines starting as gunfire.

Toward the end of our patrol, we were released from lifeguard duty and allowed to resume hunting for targets. We searched diligently but made contact with the enemy only once. On the surface one night, I was officer of the deck with Giff Wilcox as my JOOD when we picked up a contact. I called the skipper, who immediately ordered battle stations. We tracked the contact, noting that it was both slow moving and erratic. I wanted to close to visual range and use the TBT for firing if the target warranted and was dumbfounded when the captain decided to fire at three thousand yards using only radar bearings for aim. We never saw what we were shooting at, and all torpedoes missed.

Later, on a black moonless night we conducted a battle surface engagement by slipping inside the mooring buoys at Fais Island and shelling a large phosphate factory. We opened fire on that plant with every gun aboard Pollack, which included 20-millimeters, our 3-inch deck gun, and our 50-caliber machine guns. I stood on the bridge with our tommy gun and blew through several clips. We were so close that I could hear my bullets striking the main factory building. It sounded like gravel was being thrown on its corrugated roof. This was the first time I had personally laid fire down on enemy territory; for me it was an excellent way to let off steam. We returned for a second strike on August 30, and I repeated my tommy gun performance. After this last patrol we were ordered to Brisbane, Australia, with a short fuel stop at Seeadler Harbor in the Admiralty Islands. We arrived at the submarine base on New Farm Wharf in Brisbane on September 12, 1944.

We soon found that rest and recreation in Australia was much better than that at Midway or Pearl Harbor. The officers were assigned a house that included a housekeeper. The captains and XOs were assigned even better quarters, and the crew was assigned a small hotel. The house assigned to us had been used by a number of other boats. There was a party every night, and about 5:00 PM when we returned from work, Australian girls would start calling the house and ask to attend that night’s party. The girls were surprisingly pleasant, forthright, and refreshing. With R and R like that, it occurred to me that it might be nice to make a few more war patrols.

One weekend I visited the Gold Coast, a popular beach resort area near Brisbane. While there I met a charming blond Australian girl about my age. She was on a short vacation from a station, or what we would call a sheep ranch. While she was feminine and petite, I was amazed to find her hands were more rough and callused from manual labor than any man’s hands I have ever seen. Most of the Australian men had gone to war, and the women took over the manual labor. This experience gave me even more respect for the Australians and their war effort.

At Brisbane I spent some time with Naval Academy classmate Paul Doan, who was stationed in the submarine Seawolf. She was a veteran boat having completed fourteen war patrols and fifty-six torpedo attacks. Seawolf departed on war patrol on September 21, 1944. On October 3 she was sunk by a United States submarine hunter killer group, and all hands aboard were lost. This tragedy was a stark reminder that conflict with our own forces was becoming a problem.

Toward the end of our stay in Australia, I received orders detaching me from Pollack and ordering me to the submarine base at New London for duty on a submarine in the Atlantic. I was more than relieved to be going home. Toward the end of our patrols with Captain Lewellen, it was becoming more and more difficult for me to fire the torpedoes on the surface. I was suffering from battle fatigue and the cumulated stress of eight war patrols following my surface combat in which my ship Vincennes was sunk. I had so much adrenaline in my system as we approached our targets that I had difficulty aiming the firing binoculars because my knees were shaking so badly. I finally learned to clutch the base of the target bearing transmitter (TBT) with my knees and braced myself against it for firing. While I never gave a hint to anyone aboard that this was happening, it was a sure sign to me that I needed a break from combat.

October 1944 was the last gasp of the Japanese naval forces, and our submarines paid dearly. Five US submarines were sunk that month. Ten months later, on August 14, 1945, the last two Japanese ships sunk during WWII were sent under by Captain Lewellen, our former Pollack skipper, in his new command Torsk. Both vessels were navy antisubmarine patrol ships trying to sink his submarine. Captain Lewellen seemed to attract enemy naval vessels like a magnet. This time he had aboard the new sound homing antiship weapon called Cutie and used it successfully in sinking both vessels attacking him.

The citation for Captain Lewellen’s Navy Cross for Pollack’s Ninth War patrol is shown below. On that war patrol I was awarded a Silver Star for my actions as Pollack’s diving officer and officer of the deck during her surface attacks.

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Commander Bafford Edward Lewellen (NSN: 0-70201), United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. POLLACK (SS-180), on the NINTH War Patrol of that submarine during the period 28 February 1944 to 11 April 1944, in enemy controlled waters in the Bonin Islands area. Despite strong enemy escorts, he skillfully penetrated these escort screens and through his daring and aggressive determination delivered smashing torpedo attacks against enemy ships. As a result of these well-planned and brilliantly executed attacks he successfully sank four enemy ships totaling over 21,400 tons, one of which was an enemy destroyer, and damaging two freighters totaling 11,000 tons. Although severely depth-charged, he skillfully avoided serious damage to bring his ship back to port. His conduct throughout was an inspiration to his officers and men, and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

General Orders: Commander in Chief Pacific: Serial 03196 (July 12, 1944)

Action Date: February 28–April 11, 1944

A summary of Pollack’s engagements during WWII is given in table 1. In my eight war patrols aboard, she sank eight ships and damaged seven more for a total of more than 50,000 tons of enemy shipping. I earned seven WWII battle stars for combat in Pollack. Her most important contributions to the war effort while I was aboard were twofold. First, the sinking of Bangkok Maru carrying 1,200 Japanese army troops and hundreds of tons of supplies destined to reinforce Tarawa Island. This attack was made off Jaluit Island only a short distance from Tarawa a few months before US forces made their assault on that island. During the battle the marine commander reported, The issue of victory was in doubt. If Bangkok Maru’s 1,200 reinforcements and tons of arms had made it to Tarawa, it would have greatly increased the Japanese defensive capability and augmented the combat troops there by more than one-third. This would have put the outcome even more in doubt and surely would have increased our marine casualties in the battle substantially. I tell my marine friends who fought at Tarawa that I probably saved their lives.

Pollack’s second important contribution to the war effort was the sinking of three ships in convoys loaded with men and supplies destined to reinforce Guam and Saipan before our invasion on July 15,1944. Pollack also sank more than her share of naval vessels while I was aboard. These included the ex-gunboat Terushima Maru and the ex-cruiser Bangkok Maru on her seventh patrol, Patrol Craft Number 54 on her ninth patrol, and the destroyer Asanagi on her tenth patrol. Four of the eight ships Pollack sunk while I was aboard were naval vessels. Pollack also made four other unsuccessful attacks on Japanese navy vessels. These included two down-the-throat attacks on destroyers attacking her. Both of these Japanese attacks missed, and Pollack suffered serious depth-charge damage from the enemy ships each time. I credit these failures to erratic torpedo performance.

I spent my twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third birthdays in almost continuous combat and had put my feet back in the continental US for only a period of a few days emergency leave toward the end of that time. In eight war patrols I served under three different Pollack captains and five different XOs. I participated in twenty enemy engagements, personally aiming and firing forty torpedoes in surface attacks during those actions. Since each torpedo fired puts the submarine in danger of being sunk, one can see the jeopardy we experienced.

On the morning of October 3, 1944, I climbed aboard a PBM Mariner flying boat to start the long trip back home. As we taxied into the Brisbane River for takeoff, I struggled with very mixed emotions. My days of submarine combat in the Pacific were temporarily over, but I was keenly aware of the many friends and classmates I had left there who would never return. I felt little excitement at going home, just relief that I would be away from this continuous combat for at least a few months.

When we took off, the PBM flew right over Pollack. As I looked down at that battered old boat, I felt a surge of pride. She had been my home for the most difficult years of my life. When I joined her, she was already war-weary and obsolescent. Yet, thanks to the hard work and devotion of her crew, we were able to strike at the enemy time after time. She had no business being in the war, but we held on and continued performing miracles with her tired old machinery, quirky torpedoes, and aging armament. Never again in my naval career would I serve with