THE LAUNCHING OF THE USS ATULE (SS-403) ON MARCH 6, 1944
By JOHN R. BAKER
CHAPTER THREE: THE BUILDING OF “MY BOAT”
Now it was time to move on and put my schooling to use. I had been trained to be a Naval radioman and also submarine soundman at the schools I had attended in both Madison, Wisconsin, and New London, Connecticut. On arriving at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I discovered that more school was in the offing before we would actually get to go aboard Atule (now nicknamed O’Toole) as a crew. Here I got introduced to my shipmates. Most of us were just out of high school, but of course the real backbone of this new “band of brothers” was the experienced cadre of men who had already been to sea and who had been on war patrols. For instance, Jeff Freeman, our most skilled radio man, had served in “S” boats. He had actually been forced to lay on the bottom during a depth charge attack when they all thought they were done for. (After a long time the Japanese left and Jeff’s boat was able to rise and escape.) All of us worked hard to meld, both the young swabbies and the old salts, into being shipmates.
The town of Portsmouth itself is an old New England coastal town, rich in American history. For instance, Naval hero John Paul Jones is buried there. The town had played an important part as a base during the Revolutionary War. Also, many whaling ships over the years had called Portsmouth their home port. Being stationed at this historic place was certainly a good experience for me. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is an old, old installation and has a long and distinguished history of building submarines.
It was exciting to be there and watch 7/8 inch thick sheets of special high-test steel being rolled into cylinders to form the pressure hull and then being carefully joined end to end by very skilled welders to form a long “cigar.” The first construction work on Atule had been laying of the keel back in December 1943, and she was launched (not finished) only 3-1/2 months later.
Our boat was launched on March 6, 1944, and was now tied to the “fitting out” pier where all final touches were being applied by the Navy yard workers. Our crew lived in barracks on land but we worked aboard a large Navy barge positioned alongside our boat. Here we concentrated on our specialties. The radiomen had a secure area where we accumulated equipment, publications, spares, etc. — all the things we would work with when at last we went aboard Atule prior to going to sea. It was now summertime, and after chow on many evenings I wandered down to the water just to check progress on “my boat.” This particular evening the workmen were applying a soap suds solution around all hatches and openings to check that things were water-tight when pressure was pumped into the boat. A senior yard workman was standing nearby on the dock, and naive young lad that I was I asked him: “Do you think this is going to be a good boat?” His reply: “Son, I’ve built submarines at this yard for many years, and in my opinion, this is going to be the best boat we’ve ever put out.” Now, I wasn’t so dumb that I didn’t know he was just being nice to an apprehensive young sailor, but know what? I have never forgotten that sensitive man who said just the appropriate thing at an appropriate time. Best of all, he was right! Portsmouth boats were the best.
Usually there were three subs being constructed about the same time, so all of these crews attended classes together at the Navy yard. We went to school with the crews of the Seafox SS-402 and as I recall the Spikefish SS-404. As a matter of interest, we later heard that the Seafox, while at rest camp at Guam between patrols, lost five members from her crew when they got bored while “resting” and went Japanese hunting after they heard that the enemy was rumored to still have troops loose on the island. Those of the crew who participated armed themselves with small arms from the boat and went looking. They were ambushed and killed. I can assure you, our training did not include scouring the boondocks for the enemy. Another not-so-smart event occurred while we were still living in the barracks at the Navy yard. Both French and Italian submarines were in Portsmouth for repairs. The two crews were given liberty at the same time! The honchos discovered what a mistake that was. Nobody was killed, but there were a lot of bruises. Somebody forgot that Frenchmen and Italians didn’t like one another. Oh well, it tended to relieve any boredom we might have.
Photo Credits:
Launching of the Atule — photo provided by A. Dewayne Catron (Atule 1963)
Submarine being repaired — photo by Jason Merserve, Network World, Inc., Southborough, MA
AN UNIDENTIFIED SUBMARINE BEING REPAIRED AT THE PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD IN NEW HAMPSHIRE ON JULY 21, 2007
MY STORY: MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE US NAVY 