The story of the Battle of Midway is well known. Less well known is the part the Trigger played in the battle, far from distinguished, except in a negative sense. It was the night of 3 June 1942. We were patrolling our sector on the surface some 20 miles east of Midway, when, at about 0330, according to Lieutenant (junior grade) Steve Mann, whom I came to relieve at the prescribed time (0345) as officer of the deck (OOD), the stars began to move strangely above him, the heavens changed in ways they never had before, everything became disoriented. Shouting down the hatch, he discovered that the captain had come into the conning tower and, without notifying anyone, had ordered the helm put over and the course changed. Then he went below again, without any further word. Steve was incensed and upset; but since it was the captain who had taken this liberty, there was nothing he could do except pass on to me what he did know, and promise to tell me what was going on as soon as he found out. . . .
Shortly after I had pronounced the formal words, “I relieve you sir!”—even though Steve had not been able to tell me what direction I, as his relief, was supposed to “drive”—Steve sent word from the wardroom that we had received orders to close Midway to a distance of two miles in anticipation of a Japanese landing effort at dawn.
The Trigger bored on toward Midway at full speed. Having no knowledge of the navigational situation, or what the captain’s intentions were, I was much concerned and kept a vigilant watch, particularly ahead, where I presumed Midway must be. At no time during this period did our skipper come on the bridge, nor into the conning tower immediately below. I thought he must be doing some important work over charts in the wardroom, and when I sent down word that I was beginning to see things in the distance ahead I was startled to discover no one knew where he was. My staring eyes, fully accommodated to the darkness (I discovered later that I had been blessed with excellent night vision), had begun to make out some sort of low-lying disturbance on the horizon. I called this down to the captain, thinking he must be in the control room. Learning he had possibly gone forward to his stateroom, I asked for the navigator to be called. Penrod Schneider, executive officer and navigator, came on the bridge, admitted he did not know what was going on, had not been briefed and was not night-adapted. Recognizing my concern, he went below to check the charts, promising to give me more information as soon as he could.
We drove on relentlessly at 18 knots, and I became aware of something glittering on the horizon. Perhaps it was my imagination; perhaps it was ships—if so, no doubt Japanese; but my strongest impression was as though lights were reflecting from the windows of small buildings upon a distant shoreline. I reported this to Schneider in the conning tower.
Shortly thereafter, the captain came on the bridge and, after a long look through his binoculars, went below, once again without saying a word. I made several reports that I could see land and distant buildings several miles ahead. Finally, from the conning tower I was told to desist, that there should be no land in sight, that I must be “seeing things.” It was understandable that we should all be pretty tense, with a Japanese landing attempt expected within hours. Finally, however, with the sight of tumultuous white water just ahead I shouted down to the conning tower that, if it was not land, I was looking at the wakes of several big ships that had just crossed our bow. Our rudimentary radar gave no indication of anything, but at this moment our quartermaster of the watch, an experienced sailor who had heard everything and was diligently searching ahead, as on the bridge we all were, shouted out in a voice full of fright, “Breakers! Breakers ahead!”
And suddenly it was all very obvious. There were great black rocks dead ahead, waves splashing violently upon them! The captain and navigator dashed up on the bridge beside me. “All back full!” roared the captain. I heard the click of the engine-order telegraphs and could sense the propellers stopping and taking a bite in reverse direction.
“Sound the collision alarm!” our captain shouted; I heard all the ship’s alarms sound, without pause, one after the other. The effect was as if they had all sounded at once: collision alarm, general alarm, and a single blast on the diving alarm. (We discovered later that the chief of the watch in the control room, startled, had rung all the alarms in sight.)
Disaster was on us. The rocks were huge, and so were the waves splashing over them. No one thought to order the rudder hard over, which might have helped the situation. Maybe I might have done it, but by giving direct orders the skipper had again taken over the conn. Nothing was done with the rudder. More important, however, when the diving alarm sounded, the electricians took the main engines off the line, shifted to battery propulsion and, following the boat’s standard orders for diving, reversed the direction of the propellers a second time, putting them to “ahead full.” As the result, never even slowing our headlong pace, in accordance with dive procedures we continued to drive ahead full speed on the batteries. . . .
Helpless, having totally lost control, we on the bridge saw our boat drive full speed onto the rocks. We struck with a horrendous clang. I was looking dead ahead right over the bow, and saw it rise irresistibly out of the water, reaching heavenward in a desperate, agonized leap. I actually thought that, somewhere behind me, we must have broken in half. I saw our bow slammed sideways to starboard, and then several more diminishing bumps as we slid forward. Finally, and very quickly, all forward motion stopped. The ship lay half out of the water at an improbable angle. That we were seriously damaged we had no doubt. Our stern was partially submerged, our bow jutted out over grey sand and big coral rocks. We had driven our ship aground at full power, and she was stuck fair.
We had been informed the Japs were due to try to land on Midway that very morning. There was nothing we could do to help ourselves, let alone fight them. If their aircraft, or their battleships in for shore bombardment, which operation orders had mentioned as a possibility, were to see us helpless on the reef, that would be the end of us.
However, the Trigger had not broken in half, as I had first thought. Internally there was indescribable confusion, but our super-strong submarine hull had received no damage that we could detect. Our engines were not injured, all systems functioned normally. Our stern was still in deep water; we restarted the engines and backed with full power, but finally gave up. There was no budging from our impaled position on the rocks.
A signal searchlight was brought up, and in the growing dawn we could see, now clearly outlined in the morning twilight on the far side of the Midway lagoon, exactly the buildings and shoreline I had been describing before we struck. Whatever it was that had glittered faintly now glittered strongly; and finally the insistent blinking of our signal light evoked a response. To our message that we were aground came the answer, “Are you inside the reef?” This hadn’t even occurred to us, but a later look at the chart showed it was not a foolish question. . . .
“Outside the reef!” we said. “Send tug!” We hoped for a regular Navy tug, a big seagoing ship with powerful engines. Instead, a tiny tug appeared, so small it resembled a toy. In the meantime, mindful of the Japanese attack expected at dawn, we had manned our antiaircraft battery: two .30-caliber machine guns on the bridge, and our three- inch antiaircraft-type gun on the main deck. If Japanese planes appeared, we would at least shoot back, although, looking at our tiny armament, it was evident these guns were only symbolic.
The tug tossed us a heaving line, put a hawser on our stern, and began to pull. The water boiled up behind her in a very respectable effort for so small a vessel. We backed emergency at the same time with all the power our engines could give us. Nothing happened, and then the hawser broke. At this point, I felt sure our brand-new Trigger was doomed to spend the rest of her days on the reef; but maybe the tug had done some good, maybe a small tide had raised the water level a little, perhaps we had indeed increased our draft forward just before striking. Before the tug came we had blown our ballast tanks absolutely dry, pumped overboard much of our fuel, and all our extra water. We were preparing to jettison torpedoes through our bow tubes when someone noticed our ship had unaccountably come alive. There was definite motion as she lay among the rocks. “She’s moving!” he shouted.
All hands not otherwise engaged were ordered on deck to sally ship, cause her to roll by running from one side to the other. I stood on the after part of the bridge and tried to coordinate the crew’s movements with hand motions. They ran back and forth across with a will, but there seemed to be no corresponding movement of the ship, and just as I was giving up that effort as a bad job, again I heard the cry, “She’s moving!” and to our delight, with her engines under maximum load, clouds of black smoke pouring out of her four main engine exhaust ports and her two auxiliaries too, our good ship slid backward off the rocks and into deep water!
It was a time for cheering, despite apprehensive glances at the sky where Japanese aircraft still might suddenly appear. Having gotten rid of everything disposable with the exception of torpedoes, we were far out of diving trim. There was no way our boat could submerge until we reballasted (got water back into our trimming tanks to equal the weight we had pumped or blown out), and this was not a rapid process. We therefore cruised about aimlessly on the surface, our pitiful antiaircraft battery manned and ready, the ship so high out of the water that her forward torpedo tubes were exposed. Below decks everyone was frantically checking everything we could think of checking in case of some unnoticed damage—who knew what air or hydraulic line might have ruptured under the sudden stress of colliding with Midway’s coral sea wall—when suddenly two other U.S. submarines surfaced nearby.
We had all been ordered to close Midway to a distance of two miles, each submarine in its own pie-shaped sector. The boats to either side of us, we later discovered, seeing us on the surface thought we might know something they didn’t know, or were more daring than they, so they surfaced also. The three submarines maneuvered about aimlessly in their sectors, warily watching for the enemy— none came—listened intently for news or instructions on our radios—nothing here either—and somewhere during this period the Trigger finally got enough water in her tanks to compensate for what we had discharged in lightening her. Without any fanfare, we submerged. Once at periscope depth, we raised the periscope to check on our friends, but they were nowhere to be seen. They had concluded that indeed we knew something they didn’t, and when we dived they did, too.
We remained on patrol a few days, stopped briefly at Midway, where those of us able to get ashore had a quick look at some of the damage wrought by the Japanese attackers, and then we went on our way back to Pearl Harbor for drydocking and repairs.
Looking over the damage on the island, consisting of a couple of hangars destroyed and some burned-out aircraft, I could hardly visualize that this represented most of the visible cost of a great victory at sea. It was dramatic, but the damage encompassed only a small area, and was not at all impressive in terms of what had been at stake. The battle had taken place hundreds of miles away; and none of the warships that fought and destroyed each other, except for a few submarines, ever saw even one of the other side. It was to this that we undoubtedly owed our lives, for had any Japanese aircraft appeared in force over Midway while we were on the reef, or afterward before we were able to dive, we would have been a most inviting target, and they could not have resisted an all-out attack. . . .
Repairs to the Trigger’s bottom took about a week. I was amazed at the speed and flair with which the welders and shipfitters in the drydock waved an enormous piece of curved steel plate, suspended on wire cables from a huge crane, down to the drydock floor near her bow, deposited it gently, and then maneuvered it with other simple but heavy tools into exactly the place they wanted it. Within a week we were back at the submarine base, preparing this time for the training we should have had before being sent to Midway.
