Left island of Guam the 28th day of April bound for the by-passed island bastion of Truk in the Carolines. The word has been put out that this is to be a very short patrol - some 19 or 20 days. It is to be in the nature of lifeguard duty, i.e. hovering around on the surface while the "fly fly" boys bomb shore installations and any shipping they may find in the lagoon. In the event a plane is knocked down, we are to scurry over to it and affect rescue of pilot and crew. Toward this aim a rescue team has been selected to swim to aid helpless flyers, who no doubt will be heavily encumbered by clothing. Wagner and Stanford and I have volunteered for this work. Three others have been placed on the team.

Twelve B-24's, two B-29's have been sighted through periscope heading in to island. We are only five or six miles off beach as we surface. Ack ack is visible from the bridge and so also are bomb bursts.

Saw no planes so we did not surface until 6:30 p.m.. We moved in close to reef-bound lagoon. It was believed that the narrow breaks in reef had been mined at outbreak of war. These openings to lagoon are not used as navigable channels. Surface craft could not elude gaze of Jap lookouts if they tried to come through. A sub quite conceivably could get in, though your life would not be worth a plugged nickel once the Japs were aware of your presence.

To disprove theory of mined entrances, we took pictures of F.M. screen. These showed reefs dark and openings as light. Nothing in between. The three or four main navigable channels are of course mined. These we did not play with.

Bombers came and began blasting again. Light sporadic ack ack fire met them and occasionally a beam or two from searchlights clutching at a plane can be seen. We have moved in to three or four miles off shore and are hoping that whatever shipping there is in harbor will come tearing out so we can pick it off.

We would get credit for a successful run, making us the only boat with ten in a row, If we rescue a plane crew, we'll get credits also. We are hoping for one or the other.

I forgot to say earlier that we have riding with us, a Leftenant-Commander Lankin, Royal Navy who hails from Oxfordshire, England, He is laison-officer between the British fleet now operating in the Pacific and ComSubPac. His purpose for being aboard: to become familiar with the way we operate our communications system and any other pertinent information he feels will help in his work. He is himself a British sub skipper, (V.C.). He thinks we are a pretty fair crew. Was heard to say to our Captain in the control room, "By Jove, it is a wonderful Navy. By Jove, it IS that!"

Plenty of excitement!!! We dove at dawn, surfaced at 1130. Raid was supposed to commence at that time. From noon until 1615 no planes were seen.

At 1500 I went up on bridge for one hour as sun lookout. Equipped with Polaroid sun glasses we search area of sky surrounding sun. This area is much too bright to gaze into, with naked eye or even binoculars.

I wasn't relieved until 1615. I had been below again perhaps 20 minutes watching a movie In crew's mess, when from the bridge a voice was heard to say, "Jap plane." Another voice yelled, "Clear the bridge," and a third, "Left full rudder." The diving alarm sounded and a bomb, close at hand, went off. The explosion rocked the boat, knocked cork off the overhead, and jarred electric light bulbs from their sockets, knocked open locker doors, etc.

On the dive we, of course, intended to go down to 180' and stay there. The first hitch in our plans occurred when the bow planes refused to rig out. The explosion blew a fuse in the circuit. In the meantime the man on the stern planes, who is new, thought we had an alarming down angle, so he put rise on the stern planes. This could very well have been fatal, as it served to promptly bring us up to a mere 30' depth. Had the Jap been on the ball, he would have swung over and let go his second bomb as we wallowed helplessly in view. That he had a second bomb was well known, as at least three men on the bridge had seen the belly of the plane which was 400 to 500' directly over the "T." These same three men had seen the bomb after It had been released, while plummeting down at us. They noted another under the wing. We can't figure out why the Japs did not strafe the men on the bridge as he swept over us. Luckily, he chose not to.

Negligence or "doping off" on the part of the lookouts is the sole explanation for the fact that the plane got in on us undetected. The roar of his engines actually gave him away. Ears are less protection than eyes out here. The attacking plane was a twin engine job (Betty) not unlike our own B-26. When we had been down about an hour, the Captain decided to come up to 65' for a look. At that depth, using the scope, he saw the same plane with its big brother, a four engine job. We then went down to 150' and stayed until dark.

Our scares for the day were not through by any means, as we found out a few hours after surfacing. SJ radar picked up a target - range 1,000 yards. The target is very small, which leads us to believe it is a periscope, as it disappears every now and then. We went to flank speed and got away from there - but quick! No doubt though, that quaint character in the enemy sub will be seen or heard from again, as we are to be here for 12 days or so.

Wag and 1st Lieutenant Brooks are to be the rescuers in the water. Stanford, Wicker and I, rescuers on deck. In the event more than two "fly fly's" are on hand at one time, Wicker and I are to accept the next assignments. Of course unless an airman is wounded or weighted down with clothes, we are to try to affect a rescue, without, entering the water. Heaving lines and small lifebuoy are for this purpose.

The following incidents did actually happen in this chronological order. We patrolled submerged for the next three days, as no raids on Truk were scheduled. We surfaced at dark, put in a battery charge, jammed air, and then dove at dawn.

Surfaced at 1300 for lifeguard duty. About a dozen B-24's swooped over the islands dropped their eggs, gave us the OK (no one in trouble,) and headed back to Guam. We remained on the surface until "Joltin' Joe" was sighted, then dove.

I found out that my informant had the wrong dope as to type of plane that bombed us the other day. It was not a Betty as I was led to believe, but a single engine, single float plane. A Zero with a pontoon. The same plane forced us down today.

Surfaced at 1100 today when we sighted bombers (B-24's) making another attack. No casualties; all planes got away. We saw "Joltin' Joe" just as last bomber went out of sight. He is getting clever. Is linking our presence with plane raids. He probably took off the minute Truk radioed "Raid, Raid," and began looking for us as he neared the island. Obviously, he isn't based on Truk, or he could get here while the raid Is going on.

The story ran through the boat, that the skipper wants to get rid of this bothersome plane. We damn near died when told how he proposed to do it. He believes the plane comes in to a certain reef-sheltered lagoon at night for parking space. His plan is to sneak up to just outside the reef, look around to get the lay of the land, and if the plane is in there, we'll battle surface on it with the five inch deck gun using fragmentation (anti-personnel) shells with special fuses. These shells are designed to go off when shell passes near target spraying air with shrapnel. One near-miss then would give the Nippers so many holes to patch, it would take a month to make it airborne again.

Well, we went in there tonight. No plane! It was a good idea and we'd probably have been the first sub to knock out a Jap plane had it worked.

We surfaced at 1700 and raid commenced. It lasted for an hour or so, and at one time, a plane called us to say that one plane was in trouble, stand by for further word. They (bridge) called the rescue team to control room where we donned "Mae Wests" and broke out the heavies. Plane later called and said, "All OK," so I guess the wounded fly fly thought he could make it to Guam!

Today we leave station! We are to tie up at Guam for refit. We have just one more job to do which is to come off tonight.

We will shell the island of Ulul (Lulu in reverse,) which is north of here, south of Guam. The rock has a Jap garrison, number unknown, about 12 buildings, fairly well grouped, including a radio shack radar station. Also there is a water tower.

At 8:30 p.m. under cover of an inky blackness we moved in. At 8,000 yards the gun crews went topside. Being topside so far out gave us a fine. chance to become dark adapted before we began firing. At 4,000 yard range everything was in readiness. If they had lookouts they must have seen us, silhouetted against the sky. We drew no fire. When at. 2,2OO yards we made a 180 degree turn to draw their fire, but continued the turn 180 degrees more when none was forthcoming. At 1300 yards we turned to port, trained to starboard beam and commenced firing. I pulled the first round from the ready locker and passed It to Wicker, who is 1st loader, and he slammed it into the breech. Brooom! Believe me, a 5" .25 really has a kick to it! We were laying to, dead in the water, but that didn't make our job much easier for our targets were very indistinct. It is believed we knocked out the water tower and radio shack, but other than that, damage is unknown. We could hear the shells whistle through the coconut trees, slicing off the tops, making a peculiar rustling noise. Saw several lights at different times, but not for long. It was simple to follow the trajectory of each shell because as they left the muzzle and winged toward the beach, they were blobs of fire. The shells we used were supposed to contain flashless powders but several were defective and when these were fired and the resultant blast blew our eyelids apart, the brilliant flash blinded all of us at the gun for a minute or so. Wicker and I handled a total of 2,376 pounds each in about 20 minutes. Quite a workout! We were pretty tired when it was all over. The 40 mm, 20 mm, and 2-50 cal. opened fire when we were through, and raked the beach for another 15 minutes.

When we had secured, and had a chance to compare notes, we all discovered little holes in our clothes and burns, particularly on necks and forearms, where paper wad had blown back from muzzle and fell amongst gun crew. My beard had caught fire In the midst of everything, but a slap put it out and I didn't have time to think of it again until we secured.

We are heading for the barn now! We are happy. This raid served to break the monotony of what had proved to be a hum-drum patrol. I think that was the Skipper's intention. No one of us was hurt, though we all complain of burning eyes attributed to the acrid powder smoke which blew back in our faces.

We contacted our escort to Guam, the DD DOWNS, and exchanged recognition signals. They are leading the way, we follow about 3,000 yards behind. We are flying the American flag and mounted our signal light (blinker) again. We know we are in friendly waters when this happens. We won't dive unless some stupid fly fly gets a hair across his fanny.

It seems strange and hard to believe that only last night we were in close proximity to Japs and soon we'll be in port. We used to require 15 days in coming off station to Pearl Harbor, 15 days each way, 30 days on station made for a 60 day run. This Patrol will be 18 days when we tie up. This was just a filler I think until the powers that be decided which mine field they want charted next.

Tied up alongside the tender PROTEUS. The sub CREVALLE is in so I'll see dinkum cobber Rohraback. The BOWFIN is in also, and Joe Knox of Litchfield, who a chief Mo MM on her came aboard when we tied up. We filled in the lapse of time from when we last met over 17 months ago in Fremantle, W.A. Left for Camp Dealey at 1100. Only have a five day rest due to short run.