Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

There was, fortunately, a way to reach the outer skin of the ship itself, through the forward trim tank. Located in the space between the pressure hull and the outer hull, the tank had been built to withstand full test pressure and to meet the highest specifications of shock resistance. It also was accessible through a manhole cover at the bottom of the torpedo storeroom.

Tom Thamm adjusted the trim of the ship so that all water normally carried in the forward trim tank could be pumped out of it and into the midships auxiliary tanks. (Balance fore and aft was maintained by pumping an equal weight of water to auxiliaries from the after trim tank.) Then the tank was opened and tested for gas. After it had been pronounced clear, Lieutenant “Whitey” Rubb and Machinist Phil Kinnie descended into the heretofore sealed space, carrying our jury-rigged transducer with them.

Placing the new mechanism carefully against the skin of the ship, alongside the internal keel, they quickly made a connection to a cable from the fathometer transmitter nearby. After all was in readiness, we began the first test.

For a moment, we were greatly encouraged. We actually heard a sharp click, as the outgoing signal sped through our handmade transducer. But there was no returning echo. Various combinations were tried, including partially reflooding the forward trim tank so as to submerge the transducer and thus increase its ability to transmit through the bottom of the trim tank and to the water outside. But in the end, we were completely disappointed. The effort was unsuccessful.

“Whitey” was dejected. “I’m satisfied this isn’t going to work, Captain,” he said. “But I’d like to keep trying.”

The only bright spot of the day was receipt of our fifth babygram. A boy, Donald, Jr., for Engineman First Class Donald R. Quick.

From the Log:

Sunday, 27 March 1960 1349 We will soon be passing through our nearest point of approach to the presumed location at which the first Triton (SS-201) was lost in action during World War II. As a matter of interest, this took place almost exactly seventeen years ago, and by a strange coincidence the first Triton departed on her last patrol from Brisbane, Australia, on the same day (16 February) as we, her namesake, departed from New London on this voyage. Triton I is presumed to have been lost as a result of depth charge attack by three Japanese destroyers on 15 March 1943, in a position almost exactly 800 miles due south of where we are now.

At that time I was engineer officer of Trigger, also lost in action later in the war, and LCDR R. S. Benson, USN, was skipper. On 15 March 1943, as it happened, we were on patrol in the same general vicinity as Triton I. Correlation between the known facts of Triton’s loss and Trigger’s report of the events of that date indicates that the two ships may have attacked the same convoy. Trigger believed she had sunk one ship and damaged a second, and Triton’s results were unknown. We were depth charged, though not severely. But afterwards we heard distant depth charges for approximately an hour. Japanese records indicate that the depth charging heard by Trigger most probably accounted for the loss of the old Triton. Their report of the action contains the notation that a large amount of oil came to the surface in the center of which floating objects were found bearing the label “Made in USA.”

It was Triton’s sixth patrol, but the first for her new commander, LCDR George K. McKenzie, Jr. Besides her skipper, she had on board an unusual array of talent in LCDR John Eichmann, Executive Officer, and LCDR Jack R. Crutchfield, who was, I believe, Engineer. Eichmann had been with the Triton since she was commissioned in 1940. His name is engraved upon Triton’s old commissioning plaque, presented to us last November 10 by Mrs. Lent, widow of the late Rear Admiral W. A. Lent, Triton I’s first skipper. The plaque is now mounted in the passageway outside our wardroom.

Without too much fact on which to base my supposition, I have always assumed that John Eichmann had been slated for transfer to his own command, possibly to be brought back to the States for a new construction submarine as was the custom for people who had spent a long time in the war zone [and later happened, in time, to me], and that he had either been pursuaded to remain for one additional patrol, or very likely had volunteered to do so in order to provide some kind of continuity for the new skipper.