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plates in the motor room, in the battery we >
an‘
mostly in the forward battery compartmen , the radio shack. jjttle
The chief radioman always brought back a ^ private stock. On two occasions when the ‘ searched by prohibition agents, his liquor waS^ found. This was not due to lack of diligence part of the agents, but because of the way “Pop” Roberts disguised his contraband.
. he legend of the thousand dollar shot was making the rounds and passing for gospel in the Pig Boat Navy during the early 1930s. That’s when I first heard it. At that time, I was a radioman on board the/?-13, based at New London, Connecticut.
Submarines of that day, even the larger fleet boats on the West Coast, were justly called “pig boats.” The smell below decks was a composite aroma of fuel oil, sweat, paint, sulfuric acid, and whatever was being, or had been, prepared by the cook.
Every year, all of the boats, except those in the Navy Yard, would go south for maneuvers with the rest of the East Coast fleet. After maneuvers, the pig boats would move to dockside at the Submarine Base in Coco Solo, Canal Zone. They would spend a week or two at Coco Solo before returning to New London.
In the States, prohibition was the law of the land. In Panama, liquor was in plentiful supply. No duty was collected on imports in Panama; therefore, the price of spirits was low. Many of the submariners would bring back a bottle or two, sometimes more. Occasionally a sailor would be tempted into selling the liquor he had brought back, because the price he could get for a bonded bottle of either scotch or bourbon averaged around $20.
Some say it was the crew of the S-13 that tried to bring back a torpedo tube filled with liquor. Others maintain it was the/?-48, an experimental boat, that made the attempt. One or two other subs have been mentioned also, but whatever the confusion as to the boat that made the try, all other details of this manic caper agree.
That the attempt to smuggle a torpedo tube full of booze into New London took place I don’t doubt at all. I favor the 8-/3 version because I can’t recall the
Sbo*
R-48 ever making more than 200 miles at sea ^ out a breakdown which necessitated her return^ port. Anyway, regardless of the transporting s here are the elements of what happened. tjiat
The S-13, along with most of the other had been on maneuvers that spring, was nes alongside the dock at the Coco Solo Sub Base was due to return to the States in a week. Jj3t0 cooked up the scheme to bring back a lot o ^ sell is not known. None of the officers was inv and neither the chief of the boat nor the radioman was in on the scheme. It is also pr . j that several others in the ship’s company re aloof, but the majority of the 13 s crew rnef'ands °n pooled whatever money they could lay their ^ jt to buy as much booze as they could get, smugg^ through the gate of the Coco Solo Sub Base, brought it on board without being seen by c officers. Q{
The torpedo tubes on the S-13 > on all t>oat* time for that matter, were about 12 feet l°n8^ 24-inch diameters. In six days, the smuggle^ had filled number one torpedo tube with detT1 j of rum and quarts and pints of gin, bourbon is cactie scotch, with a scattering of Irish whiskey- ^ was in addition to the odd bottles stashed un ^
d*11
By Hy Young
Th
*ctionradio transmitter of the 5-73 used a two- fipp|e ^^’OOO-TOlt filter capacitor to remove any been Saj'ts continuous wave transmissions. It has t*lat the night before the 13 -boat entered Base »^ITleS ^‘ver en route to the New London Sub %
Hen
thi
- in return‘ng from Panama, Pop would re- t^hich S caPac'tor and replace it with a dummy >tlg lea^as COmplete with a name plate and connect- L s- The dummy housed two quarts of bonded P°p would store the unit he removed with
l»)i
IUV
■ ttan.
docl^ Srn'tter spare parts until after the boat %rSean<^ all danger of detection had passed. Of tiurnrr,’ 1 6 messages sent by the S-13 the day the ^aVjly Was 'n the circuit were characterized by a
federa] rn°duiated ripple, actually in violation of 1 ijj^^^munications regulations.
My
Used the
Pop’s method better than my own. I sim-
ine case of a heavy duty six-volt battery, ^ctej 6 W’tb top and binding posts, which I con- C’rcuit '^Paraiiel with the battery on the receiver 'ft thjs , n y one quart of bourbon could be brought
loolcecj VVa^’ but the prohibition agent who once The 3t Take battery missed the deception, bad uncagents were really on the ball that day. They 1>0tOrVere<T all the engineers’ booze under the our of r<1'0,Tl deck plates, had even fished two quarts Hr batte
ery vents, but missed a case of scotch
fitfL °f the forward battery compartment. The
"cc,
;°fthi ess i
s compartment had to be taken up to gain
Sin ^ ° C^e battery well. The agents found a pint of t cook had hidden in a pan of pork chops ^^ann*ng t0 cook for evening chow.
Base Q^n He 13-boat tied up to pier four at the Sub ^asea He afternoon of her return from Panama, the ^eri ^^ander, the commander of SubDiv 21, a (ion °r So wives and girl friends, and six prohibi- VfntS met her. ComSubDiv 21 told the 13 ’s ha] r Here would be no liberty until after the fed- 0 bad gone over the boat, hfs. -|,^earch yielded a scant half-dozen illicit bot- ^ty ls t'rr>e the agents had looked into both bat- shack p S w'Hout finding anything. In the radio alth0 ’ °P filler passed inspection without trouble, ffont of a° aSent did open the access door on the 5 bttle )tbe transrnitter- P°P had ingeniously blown ln , Ust onto the top of the dummy capacitor. dfttcj e torpedo room, the floor plates had been lhe foWlth°ut result. One skinny agent squeezed to (He tof-ard part of the compartment to look under Vsrpued? tuhes into the bilges. Nothing. The
^Pedo ............................................................... e. ....
c°nfereudd!ed under the torpedo room hatch in a
Ce- Evidently, they had some advance in
formation on what the 5-73 was carrying. Finally, they started up the ladder leading to the topside deck, but one of them, the skinny one who had crawled under the tubes to look into the bilge, turned and went forward to the torpedo tubes.
“Open these doors,” he ordered, pointing to the doors of the torpedo tubes.
“We can’t do that sir,” one of the torpedomen told him. “If we did that, we’d flood this compartment.”
The agent seemed to accept the explanation. He moved back to the hatch leading to the deck above. With one foot on the first rung of the ladder he paused, looked at the torpedoman who had spoken before, and asked, “How do you load torpedoes into those tubes without flooding this compartment?”
“Oh, we open the outer doors then fire a water slug with high pressure air. After that we close the outer doors and open the inner doors and shove the torpedoes into the tubes."
“All right,” the agent ordered. “Do it. I want to look inside those torpedo tubes.”
“Sir, we can’t do it. It takes 2,500 pounds of air pressure, and we’ve only got 500 pounds on the line.”
"Then get 2,500 pounds of air pressure on the line and blow those tubes. We’re going to look inside those tubes.”
Two of the agents who had previously gone topside returned. One of them left and returned with the skipper of the 5-73- After a heated argument, the agents won out. The skipper turned to the torpedoman in charge and ordered, “Go cut in the high pressure air and fire water slugs, then open the tube doors.”
The tubes were fired in reverse order. When four, three, and two fired their water slugs, the usual soft jarring accompanied each firing. When number one was fired, the crash of glass against metal, the rumble made by its contents exiting from the tube left no doubt that the tube had been full of liquor.
Topside, the agents and sailors from other boats were trying to retrieve some of the bottles which had not broken, and several demijohns of rum encased in wicker jackets.
Details of the aftermath are hazy. There were no courts-martial. Certainly, the skipper of the 73-boat caught hell from ComSubDiv 21, but apparently the prohibition people didn’t do much more than file a report that somehow was misplaced.
The value of the booze in number one torpedo tube was said to be $1,000. Whether this was the wholesale or retail value, I’m not sure.