EIGHT SHIPS SUNK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1943, Page 4

EIGHT SHIPS SUNK

EPIC VISIT TO JAPAN U.S.A. SUBMARINE. COMMANDER’S GRAPHIC STORY. The naw champion submarine skipper 1 of the Pacific, Commander Klakring, a mild man, so polite that he even called the newspaper men “Sirs,” related at Pearl Harbour an amazing story of eight Japanese ships sent to the bottom and four others at least badly damaged, all within sight of big Japanese ports. Ships definitely sunk totalled about 70,000 tons, which is the Pacific record to date. Four of his ships were bagged in one running battle all within an hour after Commander Klakring had stalked his prey for a full day. This time he came upon six enemy cargo vessels, which he believes were heavily loaded with iron ore for the furnaces. The convoy was accompanied by three or four small naval vessels, so he was acually. tackling an enemy force of nine or ten armed ships. JUST AFTER DAWN. “We were running on the surface in the morning,” he said, “when we saw the masts of a couple of ships just appearing over the horizon. It was just after dawn, so we submerged, got between them and the shore and ahead.” This manoeuvring, brief in the telling, took almost until dusk. Finally, Commander Klakring had his submarine in the middle of the convoy and began to let go his torpedoes with quiet joy. He was at a range of 500 to 1000 yards. Two ships sank almost simultaneously, and the remaining four cargo vessels steamed on panic-stricken in four different directions. “I thought I might fend off a couple of them by surfacing, so I did,” Commander Klakring said. That cool decision was the right one, for two of the ships headed into a large harbour with Commander Klakring quietly behind them. DEPTH CHARGES ALL ROUND. “What port?” “Well,” Klakring laughed, “you can say that it was a large port where there were steel mills.” The two Japanese vessels raced into a cove tucked into the shoreline, the others steamed around to the far side of the island. Meanwhile depth charges were falling all around the American submarine, creating a lot of noise but doing no damage. One ship in the cove thought she was safe there and dropped her anchor. As soon as she stopped Commander Klakring put a torpedo into her hull. This was at extreme range, and the submarine was “only partly” submerged. “I only fired once,” he said. “We hit her under the stack and the ship broke squarely in half. She sank in about three-quarters of a minute. Iron ore is awfully heavy. But a little piece of the ship still stuck out of the water. It was very shallow there. LARGE POWER PLANT. “I really didn’t care whether I hit this ship or not,” he added, “because if I had missed him I would have hit.a large power plant on the water’s edge, where there was also a tremendous tank of illuminating gas. I didn’t have time to stay and shoot at this,.although it would have made a gaudy fire; besides, I had another target.” The ships that went to the other side of the island were beyond Commander Klakring’s reach, so he set out after the other one close at hand. He submerged and gave her two torpedoes. “She sort of fell apart,” he recalled. “The Japanese ships don’t just sink, they fall in pieces.” Safely out of this, Commander Klakring’s men still had no time for celebrations. TROOP TRANSPORT. ‘►‘Well, now, the next four ships”— Commander Klakring continued. “We put away a nice big transport of 8000 tons. It was a simple thing and I can’t make a story out of it. She was in a harbour entrance and we hit her with two torpedoes. That was enough. She made a quick dive by the bow. It . would be nice to say that she was load- ' ed with troops, but I really don’t know. “Next,” he said, “we got in a tussle with seven ships, a convoy of armed ' merchantmen and naval auxiliaries, all ' firing at us. The battle, which took j place a little off-shore again, lasted an ( hour and a -half; us in the middle of j them all the time. 3 “We sank a tanker and an armed , freighter about 10 minutes apart.” . Ship number eight was a big cargo J vessel, fully loaded, which we caught . all alone, once more in sight of shore, j The torpedo broke her in half, her bow ( turning aft. <