A lookout on duty at the fantail, which extended over the huge twin screws driving us, had spotted two torpedo wakes, heading toward our ship. One wake passed on the left, the port side, and the other on the starboard side. He frantically reported his sightings to the bridge with the headset he wore on watch. We were under attack.

The captain immediately ordered emergency flank speed, and began taking evasive course action. We were at cruising speed, between 15 and 17 knots, or about 20mph, and this put us in serious jeopardy, as the sub could be running at the same or greater speed, and might be able to set us up for another shot. It takes about five minutes to reach anywhere near our maximum speed of 33 knots, or 38 mph, but the initial surge was quicker. We hit 20 knots, then crept up as the wind and waves rocked our twisting, turning ship.

Frantically we pulled ourselves from our stacked canvas and aluminum bunks, and struggled to slip on our bell bottom jeans, and black ship shoes. No time for socks or white hats. We ran madly in the darkened ship corridors, lit only with feeble red emergency lights, each of us heading for our own duty stations. Mine was in the after engineroom, by the number two electrical control panel. Access to the space was from one of two ladders, leading down from a raised hatchway, both open to the deck. I stepped on the ladder, went down a few steps and slid the rest of the way, sliding my hands down the ladder sides and clamping my shoes on the sides to help slow my descent to the deck grating below. I quickly moved aside to make room for the rest of the incoming crew. The normal duty crew was staring wide eyed and slack jawed at one another, waiting for some word of the specific threat to our ship. My friend, Jack Hale, a machinist mate, was looking at me in a state of shock. He had just returned to his bunk, after finishing the usual 4 hour "watch" duty. We all stood 4 on and 8 off watches, that only the young can tolerate for very long. Jack was an overly tall, bone thin teenager from Shaw Mississippi. He had two amusing tattoos of ducks on top of his feet that were captioned "hey you" and "who me?". Some parlor in San Diego, our home port, had done him this service. Jack was newly married to a local girl, and had promply put her in the family way.

I was long out of electrician's mate school, after graduating from the naval recruit class 299, July last, in San Diego, and had spent scant time aboard ship, learning the ropes of naval life. This was my first extended cruise, a full weeks run to Hawaii, with a short shore leave, then a long cruise for a stop at Wake Island. It happened that there was a film crew at work there, making Mr. Roberts, and our crew got to meet several stars, among them Ward Bond, who greeted us with "hello boys". I really felt like a boy in his presence. Next day we weighed anchor and made our first port in Japan, where shore leave was anxiously awaited. At the time, our money was exchanged for the Yen at 365 for a dollar. We were paid in port but not with US currency, we were only given "scrip", printed on plum colored paper, which we could use to buy Yen, as this kept the actual dollars out of the hands of the locals. This favorable exchange allowed us to make some great buys. I recall one enterprising salesman of Noritake China who carefully placed a thin coffee cup on the ground, top down, then looked us in the eye and jumped on top of it. To my astonishment, it did not shatter. I bought a full service for 12 set in his store, which I have to this day. On one of my forays to "shore", I found myself in Nagasaki, and ventured out to the middle of a large empty concrete area, where there was a meter high concrete marker. The marker stated "1,000 feet above this site, on August 17, 1945. the second atomic bomb was exploded, killing over 30,000 people". Nothing was visible on any side except burned and blistered concrete and twisted steel rods. I couldn't leave fast enough. Strange new people, with unusual dress and customs, and both their food and music was alien to us. We prepared to ship out, took on fuel, gathered our new supplies, fresh food and gear, and after visiting several repair ships, tied up nearby, for our spare replacements, we set off for cold Korean waters.

We had made several "shakedown" cruises, off the California coast, checking out our main drive steam turbnie engines, and we tested a strange looking fat torpedo, said to be a ship seeker. The green painted torpedo was simply rolled over the side, where it promptly vanished from sight forever. Not every new weapon under development worked. We had tested our main guns, and actually managed to hit a towed target, although we came close to hitting the towing vessel as well, earning us a reputation we tried to live down. Our main battery of 6 five inch guns, set in dual mounts, made an astonishingly loud Boom, and the huge volumes of dust and gunsmoke that resulted obscured sight until the wind blew them away. Earplugs were in big demand. They could be had only at the ship's store, a tiny cubicle where comfort food, toothpaste and other necessities were available for sale. I recall that cigarettes were in demand and sold at 8 cents a pack. Treats like candy, known for some obscure reason as "geedunk", or "pogey bait", canned meats and the ever popular beanie weenies were there for those who just couldn't get used to navy "chow". Beans and cornbread for breakfast, and SOS for dinner was standard fare. The SOS was chipped beef floating in a thick white sauce, ladled over toast. The initials stood for excrement on a burned toast "shingle", and it was never referred to it in any other way, even by the cooks. You had to be really hungry to eat it.

Eating at sea was a learned skill, as an unexpected hump and roll could dump your mess tray into your lap. The steel mess trays were compartmented to help keep the contents controlled. Destroyers were notoriously bad sailing ships. They had two motions while underway: heave and roll. Heaving was rising into a wave, then falling to plunge into the next one. Rolling was swaying from side to side, more severely in heavy weather. It was really fun when you got both heaving and rolling motions simultaneously. This generally happened right after beng fed something especially greasy, like wavy navy gravy, with floating "mystery meat". We all learned early on to get ourselves quick to the rail, hang on to the chains, lean over and call out for "Ralph". And feed the fish our dinners. The best survival places on board was low and amidships, which tended to minimize the effects of both motions. Eventually we all became immune to the effects of the "rock and roll", and got our "sea legs". There is an inclinometer in the engineroom, that measures the degrees of roll. The critical angle of incline is 37 1/2 degrees. Any additional roll over that maximum could result in the ship 'turning turtle" and rolling completely over. Machinist petty officer Conerly explained that charming detail to us on watch. We all watched the inclinometer intently in severe weather, and during tornadoes at sea, called waterspouts. During severe rolls, one could literally "walk on the walls", or bulkheads.

The Hanson was a 300 foot long , 40 foot wide destroyer with radar. A greyhound with teeth. She was a Gearing class 2250 ton ship, armed with 6 five inch guns, and multiple 40 and 20 millimeter antiaircraft batteries placed amidships and by the forward waist. Our normal operating group was a four ship squadron, which generally consisted of the Laws, Taussig, and the recently assigned Kidd. The ships communicated by our radio action names of Foxtrot, George, Pirate and we were Jellyjar. The USS Kidd was distinguished as the only commissioned US naval ship of war to fly, unofficially and unauthorized, the black Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flag while on war patrol. That flag was aloft, flapping valiantly that day. The Kidd is now on permanent public display, tied up alongside a WW2 vintage submarine, on the Mississippi river, in Baton Rouge, La. That day we were all on duty escorting a British aircarft carrier, the HMS Arc Royal, off the frozen western coast of what would be North Korea.

Destroyers were named for distinguished military heroes. The Hanson was named for a famed WW2 marine fighter pilot Robert Hanson, who was a highly decorated ace in the Pacific theatre. The Hanson was commissioned late in WW2, and was outfitted with the latest equipment available for both antiaircraft and antisubmarine warfare. Those hard assets, and the courage, skill and training of the crew would be sorely tested in the next 24 hours. This would be a day to remember.

There was a watery moon out, casting a wan light over the Yellow Sea, restless with wavelets. Our speed kept building, until our skipper eased off and elected to maintain a more fuel efficient 20 knots. Running at flank speed, over 33 knots, fairly sucked up fuel, burning it at nearly 4 times the rate of the designed cruising speed of 17 knots. No captain worth his salt wasted precious fuel when the inevitable refuelling at sea, in hostile waters, was such a chancy thing. Refuelling at night was even more dangerous, especially in a rough sea. Weather reports for this area were scarce, and were not to be relied upon. Refuelling at sea and at night would likely cost lives. A heavy hose had to be swung out from the larger ship, where three or four burly sailors manhandled it to a connecting point to the fuel oil bunker, amidships. Two ships moving close together in high seas will cause huge swells to develop between them, which can result in some oil tender crewman being swept over the side, and lost. Refuelling in a rough sea, and especially at night, was to be feared.

The skipper called his senior officers to the CIC, combat information center, two decks above the main deck, where his sea maps revealed our station, and the likely location of the sub. The torpedo tracks had been entered into the official ship's log, as to time and angle of separation from our initial course. Their origin could be determined, to some general degree, and a rough location of the sub at the firing time was plotted by reverse engineering. The decision was made to try and track the sub, and sink it, if possible, or drive it away from the carrier, which was leaving the area, heading south, with the remainder of our protective destroyer screen. We were alone on the sea, with the submarine somewhere below.

Twenty one hundred, and the ship's course was laid to cut off possible attack positions by the sub, directed toward the fast vanishing carrier and escorts. Destroyers are made to interdict trouble, sink or disable it if possible, or in the fnal defensive act, intercept the torpedo and save the big ships by sacrificing our own. Putting ourselves in harms way was our duty. A lone destroyer pitted against a determined submarine was at a distinct disadvantage. There was no help to keep the sub deep down, and a cunning commander could find ways of getting the upper hand. A single torpedo strike had been known to sink a destroyer in minutes. In the cold water at this latitude, sailors would likely last less than five minutes. There was a thick strand of ice covering all outboard railngs. All two hundred fifty of us on board the Hanson knew our chances were not good. We had been selected to interdict the enemy, whatever it took. Lookouts on the bridge were straining their eyes for the sight of a periscope. Sonarmen were staring at their screens intently, adjusting their gear to enhance their signals, while their officers leaned over their shoulders. Pinging pinging pinging for the first return echo signal of the invisible sub. The steady pinging could be clearly heard in the after engine room, where I stood an uneasy watch with all my shipmates..

Don Sheppard, a "striking" machinists mate, was busy making drinking water out of sea water with a steam evaporator and condenser, across from my duty station. A striker was someone who is in training for a particular rating. He was a near wizard at getting the most pure water out of the system with the least steam used. Petty Officer Duane Miller, pronounced D Wayne, was checking our steam connections. Our ship generated "superheated" steam, at over 600 degrees, which our turbines required. Steam leaks could cause deadly injuries, and all hands were constantly looking for vapor sightings. Water was our most precious commodity, the boilers demanded it, and we needed it. We had no real volume of tank capacity for storage, as space and weight considerations made it impractical. We had to make drinking and bathing water on the fly. A navy bath at sea consists of a "wet down, soap down, rinse off" ritual that left little time for actually getting clean, but used the minimum of fresh water. When fresh water was in short supply, sea water was substituted, which left you feeling crusty, and you would discover salt coatings accumulating on your body hairs, which never failed to produce irritation and often a maddening rash. Water making went on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Toilet facilities onboard destroyers were really crude. Crewmembers sat on two slats suspended over a stainless steel trough with sea water running under their backsides. Privacy was unknown. Life was not especially pleasant on a destroyer, but our entertainment officers regularly swapped our movie reels beteen ships in our area, and there was always mail call to look forward to. On watch duty down by the switchboard it was especially boring, and my shipmates and I had access to only two books, The Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. I read the dictionary from cover to cover, especially the 21 pages of interesting information at the front, dealing with the derivations of words and phrases, tracking them from their beginnings, in many languages. Daily life was boring, but at least we didn't have to change into the "uniform of the day", undress blues, after 6pm, as larger ships required. Our normal underway shipboard wear was blue cambray shirts, worn with blue bell bottom jeans. Another advantage of destroyer life was no saluting, unless directly addressed by an officer. Our full dress (worn with ribbons and medals) and undress uniforms were modeled after the european naval styles of two hundred years ago. Bonaparte's naval crews wore similar attire. Our "bell bottom trousers" however, were not for strutting, but actually served a lifesaving purpose. In event of falling into the water, one could pull the pants off, over shoes, and tie shoestrings around the hems, and make a float by popping them over their head, filling them with air.

Several of us sailors had been assigned aboard the Hanson soon after completing boot camp, and finishing various training schools in San Diego. One such memorable shipmate was Bobby John Crawford, a big guy from Bainbridge, Georgia. He had an older brother already on board, who was an electronics technician, working in CIC, Combat Information Center, up near the bridge. ETs were held in strict reverence in those days, and the work they did on our radar and sonar equipment was magical and mysterious indeed. Bobby John acquired a taste for Mexican food while we were in San Diego. I managed to corrupt him totally with our many visits to Manuels Mexican Restaurant downtown. He discovered refried beans, unheard of in Georgia, and would order side orders, then double side orders until finally our usual redheaded waitress decided to test his capacity. She brought him a full pot of refried beans to the table. Bobby John, never a slouch at the table, almost died getting them down. This led to serious gas passing problems for Bobby. Some commedians aboard ship had discovered an amusing thing about naturally emitted methane gas. It is extremely combustable. Cigarette lighters strategically placed when the gas was flowing caused brilliant blue flames, sometimes whooshing a foot long. Bobby set a new record for flame length. It didn't take much to amuse us 18 year olds.

Three thirty am, and our friends were thirty miles away, and going. The carrier was supporting fighters, and no aircraft were available that might be of help to us. We longed for a beloved "gooney bird", a sea landing plane that had the capacity to circle for hours, dropping sound detection devices that float on the sea, for our use in triangulating the sub's position. We had never operated alone. Destroyers are essentially pack oriented ships, and work most effectively as a team. The captain addressed us on the loudspeaker: "men we cannot let this sub get in range of the carrier. Our duty requires each of us to give his best. Good luck and God be with us". We now knew the full impact of our position. It was all or nothing, with no chance for help if we got in trouble. Men looked in the eyes of their shipmates and swallowed hard. The alternative was too grim to consider. A single destroyer, with no air support, had never pursued and sunk a submarine before, that we were aware of. Our problem was locating it before it located us. Daylight would put us at even more of a disadvantage, as we could be easily seen, the only object on the sea for miles, where the sub was invisible.

We were circling in a search pattern favoring the track of the vanished carrier and escorts, when the first ping... pong... rang out in the ears of the sonarmen. A rattling attenuated pong, to be sure, but a pong. The return signal was indicating that there was an underwater obstruction to the outgoing sonar signal wave, which bounced the outgoing signal back to us, to form a greenish blip on the black sonar screen. We had found the sub.

It was the mongoose and the cobra. We were fast and agile, where the sub was quick, and death with a single strike. Our antisubmarine weapons included rocket propelled explosive devices resembling modern day RPGs, Rocket Propelled Grenades, only ours weighed about 40 pounds each. They were called hedge hogs, and we could fire them either singly, or in groups, from their cluster mountings in front of the bridge. We had over 150 of these devices stored onboard, and their duty crew had "mustered" at their GQ stations, ready for firing and reloading, as needed. They were fired from stubby posts, in short smoking arcs, and fell into the sea, to drop straight down. If there was a body under the water where they fell, the hedge hog would explode on contact, with a shaped charge blasting directly down. We also had depth charge "ash cans", double deep twin racks of heavy grey cannisters, resembling trash cans, but filled with TNT. These devices were set to explode at various depths by the crews serving them. The two parallel racks were tilted slightly toward the stern, angled outward, where the ash cans could be rolled down the rails, and over the end of the ship, to fall beyond the screws. An exploding depth charge is something to behold. First a shocking concussion that blasts the ships hull, and makes all things jump, then a huge blossoming column of water is jetted high into the air, with a noise like hell unleashed. One can only imagine the effect on a submarine. All of our available depth charges were loaded on the double rails. They had been placed there by cranes at the naval munitions armory, near San Diego.

The water depth at this point, about 30 miles off the western coast of Northern Korea , in the Yellow Sea, was over 600 feet, which far exceeded the capabilities of the sub, whose maximum compression was somewhere around 300 feet. We had no clue as to the nationality of the submarine. It could be North Korean, provided by China or the Soviet Union, or it may belong to either of those communist nations. We did not think the North Korean navy had anything larger than the assaualt craft they used to capture the US spy ship early in the war. Whoever commanded the sub was frustrated by our tenacious searching and pinging, and then actually locating them. The slim chance of finding a single sub in miles of ocean water was remote, yet we had done it. Now we had to press our advantage, if we could. Our luck held. Our sonar fixes became more steady, and stronger as the early morning hours ran on. Dawn was about to break, and we had been on GQ for more than 12 hours.

The ships cooks were preparing coffee with biscuit and egg biscuit sandwiches for the crew, to eat while standing duty. Many of us young guys, and few of us were over our teens or early 20s, became lifetime coffee addicts. We needed help keeping alert and ready to move fast. Coffee gave us that critical edge. The officers had their own "mess hall" and their own serving crew. They paid for their uniforms and chow, which was in no way superior to ours, I don't believe. They too were fed at their stations, the same rations as us "swabbies". One of our favorite officers was a "mustang", he being promoted from the ranks. He was given special respect, as we all believed he more than earned his commission. We had no sooner choked down our breakfast than word came from the bridge: "prepare for action". This meant grab a hand hold, as something serious was about to happen.

BAM BAM BAM, the deck jumped and dust filled the air everywhere, as depth charges went off, seemingly right under us. I remember the soles of my feet aching from the concussion, as the deck steel slammed into me. All of us became suddenly quite religious. We had a nondenomenational religious officer, who presided over sunday services in the mess hall. I am sure his personal devotion was just as suddenly amplified. We would have soiled our underwear, if we wore any. None of us did, as the navy issues only "skivvies", not underwear. Naval parlance rules on navy ships. We have no floors, only decks, we have no walls, only bulkheads, and we have no ceilings, only overheads, and we have no rooms, only compartments. Quarters are tight, and the passageways and all stairs, "ladders", are narrow. Standard movement about the ship was defined as down and aft on the left, or port side, and up and forward on the starboard. This kept everyone out of the others way, for the most part, and allowed for easier movement about the ship. Each of us had dual capabilities, our regular job, as described by our named ratings, and our action assignment. A ships cook could be an AA gunner, loader or ammunition handler on the big guns. No crew member was idle during GQ. My job at the switchboard was to be ready to switch power from the aft generator to the forward, in event of damage in action, and to effect emergency electrical connection repairs, to keep our guns and other equipment functioning.

We didn't know if the ash cans had done any damage to the sub, but they sure scared hell out of us. Each of us was thinking of our loved ones, and wondering if we would make it home. We all had government life insurance, which we didn't want our families to collect. On our way over the Pacific, a day out of Honolulu, we lost a mess attendant at sea. It was believed he went to the stern of the ship to dump some garbage, lost his footing on the wet deck, and fell over the chain, down where the screws were churning. He was not missed until the morning roll call. We did not turn back to look for him. His family got his insurance. We didn't want our families to collect on ours.

The submarine was taking evasive action, with twisting turns, and depth changes. All morning we played cat and mouse. Sometimes we were the cat, sometimes the mouse. Lunch was served in a similar fashion as breakfast. Something that could be hand held and eaten in place. As a native Southerner, I never had lunch, only dinner and supper. The navy never served supper. I remembered my mother telling me "be home for suppertime". I sure missed supper. Each of us spelled others who needed toilet time, or drinks from the "scuttlebutt" water fountains. Scuttlebutt had a dual meaning, the other was "rumor". This, no doubt, was the result of idle talk around the drinking fountains. Hatches had to be unbattened to allow movement about the ship, but were quickly "dogged down" after the crewman passed through. Raised steel doors provided protection from rushing water, and presented a serious tripping hazard to the unwary. Waterproof doors and hatches must be "dogged" or latched solidly at sea, to keep the ship from taking on water from any quarter. Our ship had a central passageway running most of the length of the ship, from the back of the forward double gun mounts to the aft mount, with covered access hatches to all engineand boilerroom spaces along the way. Access to the upper decks was by exposed forward ladders. The midship upper deck was reserved for firefighting and defensive gear, weapons deployment, life preservers, and strangely enough, storage of the ship's supply of potatoes and onions in open air lockers. Our enginerrom crew was quite expert at diverting some of these supplies, acquiring canned milk or cream, and making wonderful potato and onion soup in a "steam locker", usually on a late shift, to avoid attracting traffic. When the ship took on supplies, all hands were used to pass them to their storage point, or the refrigeration room. It was like magic, seeing some items vanish down the hatches on the way. Fresh milk and fresh eggs were the most in demand. We lived on powdered milk, which never approached anything drinkable,and was used mainly to make icecream.

I vividly recall a near Korean shore approach we made earlier in the tour, to "draw fire" from enemy artillery, so that our big friends, the battleships standing farther offshore, could find targets of opportunity worthy of their 16 inch shells. Only battleships could sport these 3000 pound monster rounds. They could shoot 30 miles, with devastating results. Our little 5 inch guns could only shoot about 10 miles, but they could seriously damage a ship, and were used to mop up. Loudspeakers warned us to keep off the starboard deck, as we were within rifle range of the shore. All of us paid strict attention.

The day was wearing on. Sonar pinged and pinged endlessly, while our radar watched for approaching planes. We got word that our squadron had reached other friendly naval forces, and were released to give us assistance. They were many hours away, and had to refuel from the carrier before heading back to our position. We couldn't count on them for help. Now we were the subs prime target, and we knew we couldn't let it go, only to have them pursue us again. Our captain made a fateful decision. Attack.

We had a fair fix on their location, and they were slower under water than we were above them. We closed over where we believed them to be, and dropped patterns of depth charges around them. The sea writhed and spat water columns 40 feet into the air. We used all 150 depth charges in our racks. We were using listening devices as well as sonar to try and learn if we had done them any damage. They seemed to be dead in the water. We swept over their assumed position and sent patterns of hedge hogs into the sea where we thought they may be hiding. We spent all of our munitions in this final effort to end the fight. There was nothing left in our arsenal. We were done. If the sub survived this attack, we had nothing left to fight with. Our last series of hedge hogs rewarded us with three BANG BANG BANGs. They had hit something. Sonar had a firm fix, and noted that the sub was apparently sinking to the bottom. Sound detected imploding noises, as chambers were heard collapsing from waterpresssure. We had won. We would live. The Kidd was the first of our comrads in sight, their beloved black "bones" flag snapping bravely. We were some glad to see them. Alone no more. We had been at GQ over 17 hours straight.

No official notice of any kind was ever made of this action. Apparently we had sunk some nation's submarine, which is an act of war, therefore it could not have happened. But it did happen. I was there with 250 of my shipmates who know it happened. And the navy knows it happened, only it couldn't have, as that might be an embarrassment to some nation, even today, 52 years later.

The official line, issued by DESRON 7, our destroyer reconnisance HQ, was that we had pursued and killed a whale. Yeah, right.

Robert DeSadier

Electricians Mate 3

Crewmember USS Hanson DDR 832