Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

We therefore reverse course to the north to let him go first, exercising extreme caution with our periscope and swinging wide. Commander Joe Roberts and photographer Ray Meadows are in the conning tower ready to take pictures should any opportunities develop. The merchantman, a Victory freighter of World War II with black hull, white superstructure and a black-and-red shape on his funnel, goes by at range 3300 yards. We are able to take a few pictures as he passes.

1311 Changed course to 180° true to follow behind the freighter. This makes it easy.

1417 Sighted Pearl Bank Light bearing 234° true and obtained the first really good fix of the day.

1436 Commenced transit of Pearl Bank Passage.

1450 We are inside Pearl Bank Passage, taking occasional checks on our position by bearings of the lighthouse on the right and a point of land on the left. We are well behind the freighter and can use our periscope with relative freedom.

The first indication of trouble came when Chief Quartermaster Marshall suggests the situation may be propitious for obtaining a sun azimuth. Will has been doing this every day he can. It is good business to check the accuracy of our gyros and determine their errors as often as possible. The error can vary and there goes your dead-reckoning capability.

A low whistle from Marshall. “This can’t be right,” he comments. “This shows the azimuth is 6° off.” Calling to the navigator in the forward end of the conning tower. “Mr. Adams, are you sure you read the bearing right on the bearing repeater?”

“I think I did,” calls back Adams. “Maybe it is not following freely. Helmsman, mark your head!”

The helmsman, one of our new men, answers immediately, “Mark! One nine one, sir.” With the periscope aimed dead ahead, the bearing repeater should read exactly the same—and it does. Suddenly the pieces fall into place. I shoot a quick look at the rudder angle indicator alongside the helmsman. He has 20° right rudder on, but the ship’s course has not changed!

“Our gyro has gone out,” I call out.

Lt. George Sawyer happens to be officer of the deck. He has reached the same conclusion. “Up periscope!” he shouts.

The handles at the base of the steel tube come up; he grasps them; shouts “Lighthouse—bearing, mark! Left full rudder!”

There is no need for me to look through the periscope to know what George is seeing. When he called “Mark!” he was looking dead ahead. We are at least 90° off our course already, in a narrow channel. George is understandably startled by seeing the lighthouse in front when it should have been on the beam. The urgency in his voice tightens us all up in the conning tower.

With the ship once more on approximately the right heading, we shift steering control to the control room where the helmsman can use the master repeater, the only remote gyro indication we can trust right now.

It is a good lesson to all hands, one which I take pains to expand on in night orders later that same day. It is our normal practice to check our gyro repeaters against the master and auxiliary compasses every 30 minutes. Yet the rapidity with which the situation developed shows us how much trouble we could have gotten into even with this procedure. We were fortunate that we caught the difficulty so quickly, but it was strictly accidental that Marshall thought of taking a sun azimuth at the time he did. Apparently he caught the incipient error when we had only gone six degrees off our course.

The real error was on the part of the helmsman, who should have realized that the ship cannot help turning if 20° rudder is put on. If you have 20° rudder on and you are not changing course, either your rudder or your gyro compass is not working, or something else very unusual is happening. The helmsman must become accustomed to seeing the ship respond ever so slightly to a tiny amount of rudder one way or the other; and if she does not, he should immediately initiate a check to see if anything is wrong.

In this instance the ship was never in danger, since we discovered the difficulty so quickly, and because our sonar equipment has been indicating the shoal water on both sides of Pearl Bank Passage, as it did in Hilutangan Channel; thus we would have known that we were approaching shoal water long before we got in trouble. Even so, the episode has a sobering effect.

1517 Cleared Pearl Bank Passage heading for Sibutu Passage and entry into Celebes Sea.

1856 Entered Sibutu Passage.

2036 Passed Sibutu Island abeam to starboard at about 7 miles.

2200 Passed into Celebes Sea; departed from waters of the Republic of the Philippines.

Sunday, 3 April 1960 1147 Entered Makassar Strait. Departed Celebes Sea.