Operation white out, p.20
Operation White Out, page 20
“Okay, guys, commence lifting the port dive plane,” Ham said to his three divers.
They took up the slack on the come-along and then applied increasing tension.
“Stop!” Bill ordered from the Dive Console.
Everything stopped in place.
“Gil, keep away from the underside of the plane. All of you keep out of the sweep radius of both chains. Okay now. Commence again, slowly.”
I suspect each person near a monitor anywhere on Teuthis held his breath as the dive plane slowly rotated upward. I certainly was.
Suddenly, with a crack that Sonar reported sounded like a rifle shot, the welded eyebolt on the rudder top gave way, slicing through the water like a whip in a wild animal show. Nobody was hurt, but disappointment swept through the entire ship.
“Ski and Jer, back in the water with your gear. Check out the old bolt. Try to determine what happened.”
Fifteen minutes later, Ski and Jer were in the water examining the dive plane bolt carefully. “This guy’s in good shape,” Ski said, his voice distorted by helium and pressure.
They swam to the rudder top. Ski examined it closely and then indicated that Jer look as well. Ski swam to the bottom and found the eyebolt. He brought it back to the rudder top.
“The weld didn’t break,” Ski said. “The metal of the rudder top ripped out. We gotta do this differently.” He pulled a steel ruler from his leg pocket and took several measurements. Then he descended to the eyebolt on the dive plane and took more measurements. “I’ll come back to the DDC and sketch what we need,” he said.
We ended up taking an entirely different approach. The engineers made two thick U-shaped steel pieces, one for the rudder and one for the dive plane. They had eyebolts securely bolted to the bottoms, and holes drilled through both ends to accommodate a heavy bolt.
Ham put Ski and Jer back in the water. This time, Jer slipped the upper piece over the rudder top, and Ski marked the bolt hole positions. Jer drilled through the rudder, and they attached the piece with a heavy bolt and nut. Although the dive plane eyebolt had held, they performed the same operation several inches away from the welded bolt.
Harry, Jimmy, and Gil hooked up the come-along and chains, and this time things went as planned. Ham stopped them when the bend in the shaft was horizontal.
“Tie off the come-along and return to the DDC,” Ham told the three-diver crew.
The Dive Control phone rang, and I answered. Waverly was still on watch. “Hi Bào just informed me they have the jack base ready. I’m initiating DSRV ops to get it.”
Moments later, the 1MC announced, “Commence DSRV ops! Commence DSRV ops!”
I headed up the ladder to Control. The skipper beckoned me. “Go with Mystic,” he said. “Invite their XO and Engineer to accompany you back.” As an afterthought, he added, “Be sure to clear it with Tiong-hāu Zhang Min first.”
While I went over to get the jack base and bring the Hi Bào XO and Engineer back with me, the divers were consuming hot soup and relaxing on the bunks in the DDC. It had been a long day, and it would be even longer before it ended.
When we returned, I accompanied their XO and Engineer to the Wardroom and then stopped off at Sickbay to see Sergyi. I brought him up to date on our operation.
“I should be there help out,” he said.
“Soon enough, my friend, soon enough. I’ll try to drop by later for a chess game.”
He gave me a thumbs-up as I left.
I joined the skipper and the Hi Bào XO in the Wardroom. Doug had already left with their Engineer and the jack base for Dive Control.
“What is the surviving ChiCom crew likely to do?” the skipper asked Li Wei as I stepped through the door.
“That depends on several factors,” the Taiwanese officer replied. “How many are alive? Can they float the sub? Do they still have propulsion? Is there radiation? How is their life-support?” He shook his head, face displaying deep concern. “I know they fired at us, but that was a command decision. A crew follows orders, often completely ignorant of the overall situation. If any crew survived, we need to conduct a rescue—by we, I mean Teuthis and Hi Bào.” The Taiwanese officer paused, his face expressing grave earnestness. “Do you agree?”
“In principle,” the skipper responded, “I do agree, but I am not prepared to abandon my mission to rescue people who purposefully sabotaged it.”
“But they didn’t, really,” Li Wei said. “They targeted Hi Bào. I doubt they were or are aware of your presence.”
The skipper nodded. I sat listening…and thinking. He had not mentioned the shooting down of the chopper. Obviously, he was unprepared to tell the Taiwanese about the nature of our mission.
“Perhaps,” I said, “we can rescue any survivors while protecting the invisibility of Teuthis and protecting your own clandestine operation.”
The skipper lifted a hand, indicating I should hold my thought. “We have been so wrapped up in getting Hi Bào underway again that we have not discussed your reason for being down here, apparently surreptitiously.” He smiled. “Let’s do that.”
“With respect, Captain, I cannot do that. Only Tiong-hāu Zhang Min has the authority to reveal this matter. If you will transport me back to Hi Bào, I will speak with him. Perhaps he will be willing to come here and brief you.”
The skipper looked at me. “See to it, Mac, and accompany him.”
The divers were back in the water with the shaped metal jack base. The space between the stern plane and the hull was too narrow to fit a jack. The divers ended up using two jacks pushing against the base plate and another steel piece they placed against the inner end of the dive plane. With the hydraulic jacks completely collapsed, they barely fit between the two plates. I picked all this up as Li Wei and I detoured through Dive Control on our way back to Mystic.
“I am so very impressed with your ship’s features and the capabilities of your crew, especially the divers,” Li Wei told me as we continued aft. “We are a small nation under much duress. I suspect Teuthis cost more than our entire submarine fleet.”
I didn’t disagree, but decided not to respond. My personal feelings had always been with the Taiwanese, but as a representative of the US Government, I needed to withhold my thoughts since we did not officially recognize the Taiwanese as representing Mainland China.
We returned to Hi Bào, leaving their Engineer, Chen Kai, with Doug. Li Wei and I went to the Wardroom, where I remained while he briefed his boss. A few minutes later, they both squeezed into the relatively small space.
“I will be delighted to accompany you back to Teuthis,” the captain said in his flawless English.
We climbed into Mystic for the short trip back to Teuthis. The captain was obviously fascinated by the workings of the DSRV, but he refrained from asking any questions. His attitude toward me was polite, but formal. Twenty minutes later, Cmdr. Franken-Ester, Tiong-hāu Zhang Min, and I sat in the skipper’s cabin, he at his desk with reversed chair, I on the burgundy Naugahyde couch, and Tiong-hāu Zhang Min in the easy chair.
“My Executive Officer tells me that you inquired about my purpose here.” The skipper nodded. “What I am about to tell you has the highest classification. I cannot emphasize too strongly that it must be kept on a need-to-know basis. You will know whom to trust in your chain of command. I implore you to use your best discretion when passing this information beyond this vessel.”
The skipper’s phone rang. “Captain,” he said and then listened. “Thank you.” He turned to Tiong-hāu Zhang Min. “My divers have completed straightening your dive plane shaft. They request that your people reestablish the hydraulics and test the planes.”
“That is good news. May I communicate with Hi Bào?”
“Take the captain to Control and set it up,” the skipper told me.
The Taiwanese captain and I left for Control. I picked up the Gertrude mike. “Hi Bào, this is Teuthis.”
“Hi Bào, Roger.”
I handed the mike to Tiong-hāu Zhang Min. Speaking English, he transmitted, “This is Tiong-hāu Zhang Min. Please give me the engineering CPO.” Two minutes later, the senior enlisted engineer identified himself, sounding a bit winded. Tiong-hāu Zhang Min continued, “The Teuthis divers have completed straightening the dive plane shaft. Please return the hydraulics to their normal configuration and test the stern planes.” Tiong-hāu Zhang Min handed the mike to me. I stowed it, and we returned to the skipper’s cabin.
As we seated ourselves, the skipper said, “As you were saying…”
“Uh…yes, our reason for being here.” He sat quietly, perhaps composing what he would say. “Taiwan is a small island with very limited resources. The Chinese Communists have made it most difficult for us to purchase military equipment and especially crude oil.
“When we purchased the two submarines in the Hai Lung Class from the Netherlands, we had contracted for two more, but Mainland China muscled itself into the deal and frightened the Dutch off. Reverse engineering their design, we built a third submarine in this class, but instead of diesels, we installed an AIP Stirling engine system.
“Our geologists had determined that there was an easily accessible oil field off the north side of Thurston Island. Using the Hi Bào and two tethered operating vehicles, we were able to drill into this oil source in the near-shore waters of Wagoner Inlet. We established a wellhead, a pump station, and a bladder storage facility.
“We built another special-purpose AIP submarine—a drone that carries a bladder containing a million barrels of crude. Hi Bào runs a circuit between Taiwan and Wagoner Inlet. We accompany an empty ROCS Qiántng Yóuchuán Yī (Submarine Tanker I) down, attach the bladder to the wellhead, attach the full bladder to Qiántng Yóuchuán Yī (ROCS Submarine Tanker I), and accompany her back to Taiwan. Thirty-five days down, three days on site, and thirty-five days back, so every seventy-five days or so, Taiwan has another million barrels of crude.
“We’re building another sub like Hi Bào and already have a second tanker, ROCS Qiántng Yóuchuán Èr (ROCS Submarine Tanker II). They will supply Taiwan two million barrels of crude approximately every month. The Chinese mainland suspects and is trying to stop us.” Tiong-hāu Zhang Min sat back in the easy chair and tapped his fingers together in his lap.
“I am at a loss for words,” the skipper told him as his phone rang. “Captain…” He looked at Tiong-hāu Zhang Min as he hung up the phone. “Your dive planes are functional.”
_____________
21 See the First Mac McDowell Mission, Operation Ivy Bells.
PART THREE
Escort Duty
Location of Taiwanese oil operations in Wagoner Inlet on Thurston Island with locations of Teuthis, Hi Bào, Qiántng Yóuchuán Èr, and disabled Chángzhēng 35.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ROCS Hi Bào
ROCS HI BÀO—WAGONER INLET
I accompanied Tiong-hāu Zhang Min back to Hi Bào. I found that I liked him, and I was certain he liked me, too. He invited me to his cabin and had his XO join us.
“Here is the situation as I see it,” Zhang Min said in his perfect English. “The Han Class sub you have designated Chángzhēng 3A is almost certainly on the bottom a few miles north. We must determine if there are any survivors. If there are, I formally request that you assist us in rescuing as many as possible. I do not wish to involve Teuthis in any way that will reveal your presence to the ChiComs, but without Mystic, there can be no rescue.” He nodded to his XO, Siáu-hāu Li Wei.
“We think the best way to handle any rescue is for your pilot and co-pilot to lock themselves into the Control Sphere while I and one of my technicians man the Mid and Rescue Spheres. I am assuming that your technicians can adequately train mine to effect a linking and delinking of Mystic. He and I would carry sidearms. I would obtain the parole of the captain or living senior officer for the crew’s behavior but obviously would exercise judgment as the situation develops. Before entering Mystic, each crew member would need to strip and be sprayed down if water pressure is available to minimize alpha contamination.”
I interrupted. “You can drop a radiation probe to detect any possible contamination, but I still think stripping is wise to prevent any weapons being transferred.” I grinned. “There could be a fair number of survivors.”
“We Chinese understand crowding,” Li Wei said. “I think that would trump suffocating on the ocean bottom.”
“There is one more issue,” the captain said. “Normally, we load out with LOX22 stored in HP23 tanks at about fifteen thousand psi.24 We burn diesel fuel with LOX to drive our closed-cycle Stirling until we have a load of crude. Then we replace diesel with crude. Once our LOX is exhausted, we compress air at snorkel depth. Our pumps are good for four thousand psi, so a full charge will last several days submerged. Our under-ice activities have taken us dangerously low on LOX. We can make it to the brash beyond the solid ice cover, but not much farther.” He leaned forward earnestly. “Can you do anything to help us extend our under-ice time? We still need to transfer bladders on the drone, the Qiántng Yóuchuán Èr.”
“We generate HP oxygen at four thousand psi,” I said. “We should be able to find a way to transfer to you what you need.”
“Our LOX flasks will fit through Mystic’s hatch,” Li Wei said. “We carry ten flasks. If you could charge four, that would serve us well. We should be able to transfer two at a time with Mystic.”
“I suspect your fittings differ from ours,” I said. “You will need to supply a skilled machinist to work with ours to kludge a fitting.”
“Kludge?” Li Wei wanted to know.
“Manufacture a makeshift fitting that will connect our generating system with your flasks,” I answered.
Transferring Hi Bào’s LOX flasks turned out to be relatively easy. Their flasks were designed to be offloaded for charging. Our engineers placed a hoist inside Mystic that made an easy task of bringing the heavy flasks out of Hi Bào into Mystic and then down into Teuthis.
One of their engineers worked with Chief Machinist Robert Daley to manufacture a fitting that married our HP oxygen fittings to their LOX flasks.
We charged both the initial flasks directly from our HP oxygen bank and returned them to Hi Bào. This way, Hi Bào would be able to operate with plenty of margin while she undertook the rescue of Chángzhēng 3A’s potential survivors.
With reserve air for her Stirling, Hi Bào lifted off the bottom and moved quietly toward our best estimate of Chángzhēng 3A’s location. Tiong-hāu Zhang Min invited me along. Since the skipper had no objections, I accepted.
We got underway, and Li Wei took me back to the Engine Room. The space was nearly silent. All I heard was a very faint fifty Hertz hum from the generator and a lower frequency hum from the motor driving the shaft. They were virtually undetectable. I glanced down at the motor mountings.
“They’re fully sound mounted,” Li Wei said, “and so is the deck.” He smiled and pointed to the compact Stirling. “You would need sound detection equipment to hear the Stirling.”
As we returned to Control, the captain picked up his Gertrude mike. Speaking Chinese, he transmitted on high power, “Distressed Chángzhēng Class submarine, this is ROC Submarine Hi Bào, over. Distressed Chángzhēng Class submarine, this is ROC Submarine Hi Bào, over.”
I had not heard Chinese spoken over a Gertrude before. The echoing return through the transducer sounded strange to my ears.
“Distressed Chángzhēng Class submarine, this is ROC Submarine Hi Bào, over. Distressed Chángzhēng Class submarine, this is ROC Submarine Hi Bào, over.”
“ROC Submarine Hi Bào, this is Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy Submarine Chángzhēng three-five, over.” The message was in Chinese. Li Wei translated for me.
“Chángzhēng three-five, what is your status?”
“This is Chángzhēng three-five. We are on the bottom at two-one-five meters. Our Engine Room is breached. Reactor is disabled with no radiation leakage—we believe. We are running on batteries, presently at thirty percent. Air running low; oxygen at eighteen percent, carbon dioxide rising. We have thirty-five survivors, including the captain and three officers.”
“In the People’s Liberation Army Navy,” Li Wei said, “some comrades are more equal than others.” He gave me a crooked smile.
MYSTIC—WAGONER INLET
After returning to Teuthis’ location, I got on the Gertrude at the lowest power to confer with the skipper. There was virtually zero chance of anyone overhearing our conversation unless they were within our little conclave on the bottom under the ice in Wagoner Inlet.
“The Chángzhēng three-five (that’s their name—Long March three-five) has thirty-five survivors, including their captain and three other officers. Their Engine Room is flooded; reactor is shut down; they believe they have no radiation; oxygen at eighteen percent, CO-two rising. Bottom line, Skipper, if we don’t pull them out, they’ll die an unpleasant death.”
“I don’t want them on Teuthis or even to know about us,” the skipper said.
“We can probably take five of Hi Bào’s enlisted people,” I said. “Hi Bào will have to squeeze in the thirty-five. Tight quarters, but as their XO Li Wei says, Chinese people are used to tight quarters.”
“I want you to accompany Mystic one hundred percent of the time,” The skipper said. “Ride the Control Sphere. I’ll keep Jim Deckhart here.”
I turned to Li Wei. “Can you send five of your junior people who speak English to Teuthis for the duration?”
“I can do that. I’ll send experienced dive plane operators. By the way, all Taiwanese speak English.”
Li Wei made a general announcement and then took me to the general mess. Within a few minutes, five young sailors showed up, very excited young sailors, each carrying a duffle bag.
Li Wei addressed them in English. “You will accompany Commander McDowell to the American submarine, USS Teuthis. There, you will be given berths where you can stow your clothing. You may have to rotate your bunks, since Teuthis has no spare bunks. You will be assigned to watch sections where you will perform as dive plane and rudder operators—something you are skilled at on Hi Bào. You will remain on Teuthis until further notice.” He smiled at the five. “Try to make friends and become part of the crew.”
