Evening star., 1952-11-22
Archerfish MortoIIy Wounds Greet Enemy Carrier
After Spine -Tine|ing Come Of Cot-ond-Mouse

to. the word they have all studi-
ously avoided pronouncing until
now. "Fire!"
Six TorpedOes Fired.
At eight-second intervals, six
torpedoes race toward their huge
target. Mesmerized. the skipper
of Archerflsh stands at his peri
scope watching for the success or
failure of his approach. Forty
seven endless seconds after firing,
the elimination of Archerfish's S
efforts is achieved.
"Whang!" then eight seconds
later. "Whang!" Two hits right
before his eyes! But there isn't
time to play the spectator. That
destroyer who just passed over
head will be coming back, and the
trailing escort will surely join the
party in short order.
A quick look astern of the car
rier.. Sure enough. here he comes
and less than 500 yards away
Take her down."
Over the rush of water into ano
air out of negative tank. four more
solid, beautiful hits are heard.
The next thing on the docket
after a torpedo attack is usually
a depth charge attack. and this
case proves no exception. But
after their glorious experience, il
will take a lot of depth charges
to dampen the spirits of these
submariners. The patrol report
actually indicates surprise that
the depth charging was not more
severe.
And what of Shinano all this
time? Archerf1sh made but one
mistake in her report. Her tar
get did not sink Immediately, as
she believed, and, as a matter of
strict truth. it would not have
sunk at all had it's crew possessed
even a fraction of the training
and indoctrination of its adver-
sary.
After all, Shinano was theoret-
ically designed to survive 20 or
more torpedoes. If she had been
properly handled by her crew, and
if she had been properly built. she
could have made port in spite of
Archerfish's six torpedoes.
But water poured from damaged
compartments into undamaged
ones via watertight doors which
had no gaskets; through cable and
pipe conduits not properly sealed
off and stufflng tubes not packed.
List to Starboard.
Four hours after she had re-
ceived her mortal wound, Shinano
had lost all power, and was moth
ing but a beaten, hopeless. disor-
ganized hulk, listing to starboard
more heavily every moment, a
plaything of the wind and the sea.
There was only one thing left to
do.
The picture of the Emperor, in
his gilded frame, was removed
from the bridge and. after being
thoroughly wrapped, transferred
by line to a destroyer alongside.
Then the wouk of abandoning ship
began.
Shortly before HOO on the
of November 20, Shinano
capsized to starboard, rolling her
broad flight deck under and ex-
posing her enormous glistening fat
belly, with it's four bronze propel-
lers at the stern. For several
minutes she hung there, lurching
in the moderately rough
sea.
Swiftly then she slid under,
stern first, and the last thing seen
was the broad dubious bow, like
the forehead of some huge pre-
historic Moby Dick. accompanied
by the blowing. bubbling. and
of air escaping under
water.
For several minutes there was
considerable turbulence and bub-
bling to mark her grave, but Shi-
nano was gone from the ken of
men.
She had known the open sea for
less than 20 hours.
ICopyright, 1852. by Edward l.. Beach.
Published by Henry Holt g. Co., Inc. Dis
tributed by the Register g. Tribune
Syndicate
CTo be continued Monday.)