From the book "Heroes Beneath the Waves

USS GUAVINA SS-362

This is a chapter from the book Pacific Patrol, self-published in 1993 by Marion Shinn. He tells his experiences in his own words on the last half of the fifth war patrol of the submarine D.S.S. Guavina (SS362) in February 1945 (reprinted with permission).

It was Valentine's Day, 1944, when our boat arrived at Cam Ranh Bay, off the coast of what was then French Indochina; but love and red hearts were far from our minds. The weather was still bad, but the waves were not as vicious as we had experienced here the previous December. The electronic surveillance from the beach still caused interference on our radar screens, but it was not persistent. The captain felt reasonably safe patrolling close to the beach. There was no little patrol boats, only low- flying float planes continuing to search. They kept us submerged most of the time.

Our assigned patrol station was familiar. It was from Cam Ranh, past Phan Rang, to Padaran Cape, a forty- or fifty-mile coastline. For several consecutive days, we raced to battle stations at 0730 hours. This was breakfast time, and we left our plates of food on the tables. The captain made no attacks. The possible targets were either the tiny boats from the local ports or big ones that were too far away.

On 20th February at 0730, the mess cook had breakfast ready, and we had just started eating. The battle stations bell rang, "Bong, bong, bong" throughout the boat just as it had for three or four days. Many of us went half-hardheartedly to our battle stations. I thought a cold breakfast wasn't the way to start the day.

I proceeded at a reasonable rate to my battle station in the forward torpedo room. Put on my headset to the JP sound gear. As I rotated the sensitive listening head, I could clearly hear the sound of the screws from a passing ship. The sound became closer and closer until it appeared to be directly overhead. I thought it was odd there was no comment or action from the conning tower.

I relaxed for a moment thinking maybe the ship had left the area. Suddenly, I sat upright as orders came from the conning tower, "Stand by forward." I rapidly spun the sound head around straining to hear the activity above the sea. Suddenly, the captain shouted, "Fire 1, Fire 2, Fire 3, Fire 4!"