Imperial Japanese Navy Submarine I-13
Third War Patrol, Position Unknown.
February, 1942
"Let's take a look see, shall we?" the Captain said eagerly to the
assembled officers and crew in the cramped Control Room of I-13. He checked
a few gauges on the ballast control panel and then turned to his Diving
Officer.
"Come to periscope depth," he ordered.
"Come to periscope depth, aye, Captain," the fat and bespectacled
Diving Officer, Genma Saotome, repeated. "Pump two-hundred," he directed
Petty Officer Kuonji, who manned the ballast control panel. Kuonji began
winging on valves to pump out the required mass of water from the tanks.
The Diving Officer checked the clinometer bubble over his head.
I-13 began to "get light," that is the submarine's buoyancy shifted from
neutral to slightly positive. The depth gauge needle moved slowly through
50 meters.
"Up five on stern planes," he directed the planesman, Daisuke.
"Maintain two degree up bubble."
Daisuke began turning the oversized wheel before him, intent on keeping
the air bubble in the clinometer at +2. The stern planes of I-13 responded
to his motion through hydraulics, which hissed ever so slightly as he turned
the wheel.
To his right, Hiroshi, the helmsman, adjusted the motion of his bow
planes to help maintain the proper ascent angle. The two sailors had been
together for some time, and they worked with an unconscious teamwork to
control I-13.
"Passing five-zero meters," Genma called out.
The submarine's hull creaked as the pressure decreased upon it. The
snapping and popping went unnoticed as their sonarman, Hikaru Gosunkugi,
listened intently through the directional hydrophone transducer. In the
dim lighting of the cubbyhole his equipment occupied, his face seemed even
more sallow and sunken than usual. He lifted his face to the control room
party, shaking his head slowly.
"No close contacts," he said quietly.
Genma's attention shifted from the depth gauge to the clinometer and
back.
"Passing three-zero meters," he announced.
"Rig for red," Soun Tendo, the Executive Officer, ordered. Ukyo flipped
a series of circuit breakers near her panel, and the dim normal lighting
shifted to four red incandescent bulbs, which bathed the cramped control
room in sanguine light.
As I-13 approached periscope depth, Genma ordered the planes to level,
allowing the submarine to drift up to fifteen meters depth under the keel.
"The ship is at periscope depth," Genma announced.
The Captain nodded approvingly. It was a text-book approach. He beamed
with pride at his fine crew.
"Up periscope!" he ordered.
Ukyo leaned over to throw a hydraulic actuator, which drove the
periscope up through the conning tower to break the surface of the water in
the predawn darkness.
"Someone give me a hand here," the Captain demanded.
Soun was quick to grab his commanding officer under the arms and lift
him up to the ocular of the periscope, while Genma produced a tall stool
for the Captain to stand on.
"Much better," Happosai purred. He peered through the ocular, his
withered face wrinkling further in concentration. As he made his slow
360 degree circuit, Soun would move the stool to keep it under him.
"Ah," he said. "We're right on position, wherever that is. Good work,
Navigator!"
From the Quartermaster Stand, Ryouga Hibiki blushed through a tangle
of mis-folded charts and nautical almanacs. The rest of the control room
silently chalked it up to blind luck.
"Just in time, too," Happosai mumbled to himself. "The sun is starting
to come up. Secure the rig for red, I just like to set the mood with it,
anyway."
Ukyo sighed and switched the control room back to normal lighting.
Happosai made a second circuit with the periscope before stopping
suddenly.
"Target sighted!" he cried happily. An electric thrill shot through
the crew. At last, first contact with the enemy!
At the Fire Control panel, the Weapons Officer, resplendent in his
dress blue uniform, rapped his diminutive fire control operator on the head
with a bokken.
"That hurt, master," the fire controlman cried softly.
"Pay attention, Philistine," Tatewaki Kuno ordered him. "At last the
might of the great I-13 shall be known, and the pale barbarians will
forever shudder in fear of us! See to it that your incompetence does not
cheat us of our destiny!"
Sasuke, used to such blathering, ignored Kuno, and waited for Happosai
to call out target information.
"Stand by for bearing mark," Happosai announced. Soun had a pencil and
pad waiting as the captain trained the scope on to the target. Above the
periscope was a circular gradient marked out in degrees. A pointer on the
scope would indicate on the gradient the relative bearing of the scope
facing.
"Mark," Happosai called out.
Soun noted the position indicator.
"Target bearing 0-7-1 degrees, relative," he added. Kuno scratched his
head and wrote this down at his station.
"Mark," Happosai called out again after a moment.
"Target bearing 0-7-2 degrees, relative."
"Mark ship's speed by log," Happosai ordered.
Genma checked a dial. "Ship's speed 3 knots."
Happosai nodded as he looked through the periscope. "Helm; All Stop."
"All Stop; Helm aye," Hiroshi cried. He twisted two knobs on the
bulkhead before him, moving a black pointer to the "ALL STOP" position on
the two dials. This was followed shortly with a chime and the movement of
corresponding red pointers to the "ALL STOP" position.
"Engine Room answers All Stop," Hiroshi reported.
"Very well, Helm," Happosai grunted. His attention was focused on the
occular of the periscope. "Mark," he called to Soun.
"Target bearing 0-7-5 degrees, relative."
Kuno traced another line on a piece of paper along that bearing track.
He was plotting their position, figured by their course and speed versus
elapsed time. Each bearing mark called out by Soun was traced from the
estimated position of the submarine at that time. With enough bearing marks
he could determine the target's course, bearing, speed, and range. The
fire-control panel would crunch the numbers, but it was slow. A man of
skill like Tatewaki Kuno was often faster than the machine, and usually as
accurate.
What he saw puzzled him. The target was very close, perhaps only three
hundred meters away, and not moving. A ship at anchor?
The tension within the control room was mounting as they waited for
the order to attack or flee. The minutes dragged on as Happosai occasionally
called out a bearing mark, which Kuno dutifully sketched on his targeting
plot. The target, whatever it was, was not moving, and neither was the
submarine. Why weren't they smiting it?
"Captain, sir," Kuno said in the dead silence of the control room.
"Should we not make the torpedoes ready?"
Happosai didn't seem to hear him. Soun could see a thin line of drool
dribbling down his lip as he jammed his face into the occular.
"Hotcha!" Happosai cried. "That's it, ladies! Take it all off! Sweet-o!"
The assembled control room party face-faulted.
The first to recover from his face-fault, Soun pulled the stool out
from under Happosai, causing him to crash on the deck. He then brought
the stool down on him with great force. Happosai groaned in pain, little
swirlies swam in his eyes.
"Really, sir!" he cried. "What kind of officer do you think you are!
There's a war going on!"
As he brushed his hands in satisfaction, he noted that Genma had left
his post and was now grinning lasciviously into the periscope ocular.
"Not you as well, Saotome!"
He pushed the Diving Officer aside. Peering through the occular, he
noted a bevy of high school aged girls running naked from their early
morning romp in the surf to the beach, presumably to get dressed and go
to class. He trained the scope about and saw the familiar peak of Mt. Fuji,
hazy but awesome, in the distance.
"We've been on patrol for a month and we haven't even left Japan!" he
cried angrily. The rest of the crew slapped their hands against their faces
while shaking their heads. Soun selected a channel on the squawk box, and
thumbed the 'call' switch.
"Yo, Torpedo Room here. What's up? We finally gonna shoot something?"
the Torpedoman of the Watch, Ranma Saotome, replied over the intercom.
Genma winced at his son's lack of military formality.
Soun looked to the dazed form of his Captain.
"Have the breech door for Torpedo Tube One open when I get there," he
ordered solemnly as he reached for Happosai...
Coming Whenever I Get Around To Writing More Of It,
From Fission Park Press:
-A *DBF* Production-
ARU FUNE
(The Boat)
Featuring:
The Officers and Crew of the I-13, Third War Patrol, 1942
---------------------------------------------------------
Commanding Officer: Happosai
Executive Officer: Soun Tendo
Ship's Surgeon and Acting Engineering Officer: Tofu Ono
Navigator: Ryouga Hibiki
Weapons Officer: Tatewaki Kuno
Diving Officer: Genma Saotome
Chief of the Boat: Principal Kuno
Sonarman: Hikaru Gosunkugi
Fire Control: Sasuke
Auxiliaryman Forward/Ballast Control Panel: Ukyo Kuonji
Helmsman and Planesman: Hiroshi & Daisuke
Mess Steward: Kenzan Konatsu
Laundry Queen: Tsubasa Kurenai
Torpedoman Third Class: Ranma Saotome
...and special guest star Pantyhose Tarou as The Bilge Monster
DBF!
