COD's Dutch sub rescue in WWII History magazine this month!

[Paul Farace]

It should be on the shelf at your local booksellers! Enjoy...

[JTheotonio]

  I just caught the third cousin - twice removed disclaimer! 

[Paul Farace]

the third cousin thingy... is a reference a friend made to my silly snapshot pic...

But I did get to look inside his personal travel bus at the Rock Hall last year!
 

[JTheotonio]

Our oldest drives those buses http://allaccesscoach.com/  check the drivers till you see Ben Rice - with cowboy hat.  I keep begging to be his navigator.  He's out with George Thorogood starting 6/1 - his coach is called Jade - they have a section with pictures.

[Paul Farace]

Cool   I am going there now!

[JTheotonio]

  I got the WWII magazine - WELL DONE Paul.  That is a nice article.  Who had the pictures?  Amazing what they did and I know there were a lot of smiling faces after that rescue.  I certainly hope you have that article posted somewhere on the Cod so visitors can see it. 

  And I didn't know you knew 4k words. LOL 

Just kidding - I love history like that - especially Submarine related history.

Darrin - Paul's making us TM's look bad - he's now a "published author!"

[Paul Farace]

Thanks for the very kind review...

Coming from experts like yourselves, it really means something!   

But before anyone loses any hair over the issue, I lost my "published" cherry long ago...

Too long ago infact. I have gone long enough without a byline that it's news again (sad, and bad on me!     )

I think I wrote an article about the development of a new naval weapon by a strange little Irish school teacher (OK, not that long ago)...

[Darrin]

Great job Paul, I am still in awe of the COD since my trip in Nov of last year   but I am not leaving the Torsk to come up and over there and polish brass when I can still work on a boat that still needs some lovin to bring her back to life once more.

And yes John I know that our ahem "friend" Paul is a welll published author and we have yet to even be considered for anything remotely close to being published in anything other then some rag that is worth less then the TP that it was written on

One day my friend we will have our book that tells the stories of those of us in the Room's and it of course has to start out with a NTINS.... There I was No Sh!t standing watch in the Room when all hell broke loose, the old man was screamin on the 1MC  "snap shot tube #1"  and knowing that it was a life or death situation the TMOW forced the tube open with shear brute force and launched a weapon that not only saved the crew but changed the course of history.

And for Paul, I do hold you in high regards as a shipmate and as a friend and I am only busting your chops because I may or may not be jealous of the work that you have done to COD and seeing how I am a Cold War TM I can neither confirm or deny ANY story that you may or may not have heard from other submariners that have had the gift of the gab....  I maybe headed back your way this summer to pick my son up and I would love to see the COD once more and HOPEFULLY this time I will have enough time to coordinate a starting of your beloved GM engine so I can come back to Newport News smelling of diesel and a HUGE smile on my face.

[JTheotonio]

Ahem! Well TINS - I was on the 1MC that very day and Tom "Tubes" McSneely was the guy that fired the shot heard around the fleet.  Ya C we was in our 14th week on patrol and was getting mighty low on just about everything.  We was using coffee grinds that was already 3 weeks old.  Skipper was determined to get into a real Navy fight before we had to come home.  I already had a beard about a foot long.  Gilly was getting low and I was having to watch it so as on one got into it with my knowing.  We had been down now for 8 hours and air was already fowl.  Tubes' smokes were all gone and he was getting pretty nasty. It was just after we relieved watch that the Skipper went to GQ.  Cookie struck the fires so no hot meal for anyone - not that Cookie had much left to cook.  Even Fat Eddie our cook striker was down some 50 pounds.  Like you said Darrin just like that Skipper is yelling and all hell is breaking, orders flying from the Conn.  Up we go to periscope depth and the seas were a bit rough.  We hear Open outer door on #1, but aint nothing moving.  Skipper yells so loud I didn't need the 1MC get that GD door open.  Tubes flies into action and muscles the door open and out flies the fish - skipped does a snap shot.  No one knows what he's shooting at but we hear the explosion in less than 25 seconds, then we have a 15 degree down bubble and all ahead flank.  Screws come right over us then stop.  We hear more explosions as we are passing 300 feet.  Lurching over to port I know we into a turn.  Then quiet - all quiet.  We're just drifting all quiet.  Skipper orders "Rig for Silent Running."

To be continued...

[Darrin]

Welllll seein how my breatheren Torpedoman is gonna tell a NTINS, here's one of mine and while mine aren't as dramatic as his because our beloved 688 class torpedo room uses electo-hydraulics to open the doors and do just about everything for us it is no where near as labor intensive as our previous class boats...

To set this up I have to tell you that we hadn't had our hull or screw cleaned in a year or so and we were NOISY as hell on a flank bell and while it worked against us it also helped us in a sick and twisted kind of way.

While trackin a carrier battle group as part of the fire control party the old man starts his briefing that we are an enemy submarine and our challange from Squadron 7 is to sink the carrier and as many of her escorts as possible and being a "seasoned" TM3 I started snickering because I had heard this before and the old man heard me and looked at me and point blank told me that we would put the carrier on the bottom and survive to tell the story later..  so after a couple of hours tracking the battle group he secures the fire control tracking party and I had enough time to grab a quick bite before releaving the TMOW and get into the dull routine of being on watch in a cold dark room (we had crew members sleeping in there at the time)  and yes being a little drowsy at the time I was surprised as hell when the 27MC came alive... SNAP SHOT tubes #1&3....  as the old man is yellin that over the 27 MC as the boat goes to all ahead flank cavitate and is pickin up speed quick, knowin that there isn't enough water in the WRT to get both tubes flooded and the doors open (because they were empty) I did the only thing that I could do and that was to hit flood on both tubes and hit open on the outer doors while manually overriding the equalizing valve to bring water into the tubes as fast as possible before the speed of the boat was too fast to open the outer doors. Passing 20 knots the outer doors started to open (BARELY) and with a HUGE smile on my face I got to fire both tubes one right after the other and like John said I had no clue as to what we were firing on but dammnit we were firing at something and it was gonna go boom.

and like John said to be continued

[JTheotonio]

Continued from below......

Still not knowing what's going on, I sees that "Gunner" Saunderson, TM3 (SS)  is climbing out of the bilges.  I guess he figures we wont be firing 5 and 6 for a bit.  Tubes gives in way so as not to make a sound.  Tubes and Gunner had been on board since commissioning so they was friends.  Salvidor Ortez, steward's mate sticks his head through the water tight door and says that "Capt-e-tan sinks beeg cruszer. He's bein' quiet so Dee-stro-yo not finds us."

Tubes is all smiles and is looking over the battle flag we have painted on the detonator locker.  Yep, he sakes his head with approval, we got run for her boys!

"Close all water-tight doors, rig ship for collision," comes the order over the 1MC.  "And do it silently men we are sitting in the middle of a task force." 

I quietly close our water-tight door.  The whole gang is grinn' from ear to ear.  We got most of our fish still so we just might get few more before this day is over.

No word comes down to reload 1 and 2.  I'm guessin' they think we'd make too much noise.  It's OK we can load a tube faster than just about anyone in this here Navy.  And that ai'nt bragging, old Chief Thompson said so and he's got hash marks down to his knees.

Still drifting silently, we go through noon without any chow.  Everyone on the boat is at their duty stations. We can hear active pinging a ways off.  It appears that our enemy lost track of us when the Captain dove deep and made a sharp course change.  I can hear screws, fast, like everywhere. Ships are searching for us but so far we seems to be clear.

Two more hours go by, so far nothing.  The air is getting fowl, and the boat is gettin' pretty hot.  Since we had already been submerged about 6 hours before our attack on that cruiser you can imagine what it's now like in this sewer pipe.  A couple of the guys are napping, trying to stay quiet and get some rest. 

The water-tight door opens and Salvidor sticks his head in again.  He hands me a try of sandwiches, piled high.  I guess "Grease Pot," ship's cook has been making chow for everyone and somehow relaying his goodies throughout the boat. Grease is by far one of the best cooks on boats.  And these sandwiches looked so good.  Tubes comes over and grabs the tray while I grab a sandwich.  Salvidor slides back to Forward Battery closing the hatch as he leaves. 

"Standby to answer bells, maintain quiet in all compartments, prepare to come to periscope depth, Forward Torpedo Room make ready tubes 3, 4, 5, and 6, Fire Control make ready for a Set Up.  Set Torpedo depth to 10' and speed high.  All hands Rig ship for depth charge attack. Helm set to come to new heading 095."

Orders were flying from the Conn.  We were going to get into one hell of a fight.  This one just may be our last.

"Make answer Bells for 1/3 ahead, Diving Officer make our depth 65 feet, Helm come to 095," said the Captain. 

Here we go!  To be continued...

[JTheotonio]

  I know you are all waiting for the end of my TINS, but I had to just tell you this bit of information.

See we're back in Guam and the whole crew is tuckered out like they just been through Hell and Back.  We we had.  So that ground was looking mighty good to all of us.  Luck of the draw I got first liberty and I have to give myself a quick rub-a-dub-dub so I don't look and smell too bad.  Captain wanted to ease us into being back in port so he says first day we split half an half for 12-hours.  Man I got 12-hours to get myself some fun.

I grab a pint of Gilly in my flat flask so I can get out the gate.  I'm heading for the Acey-Ducey Club one of the local submariner's bar.  Sleazy joint with some rough looking women.  Thing is after half pint of Gilly and some local beer - hell even Darrin would start to look good.

I can't say if this is true or not - seeing how's I'm not seeing too well after about 8-hours of drinking.  But later that week Jack "Scrotum" Doyle, MM3 (SS) hands me this picture and says that's my new girlfriend.  The one I was with that first night.  Right then and there I says "Get me back to sea!."

[Paul Farace]

Gurning aside, she is pretty good looking (hair on her arms tells me she is probably Italian too! )   Ciao Bella!!!!   

Oh oh, gotta run, my wife is coming...


 

[Darrin]

WTF, that WAS my girlfriend in Guam.......   how in the hell did you get a pic of her? and I am NOT going to tell you why she made that face for the camera