War Patrol Report (Page 14)

CONFIDENTIAL  
Subject: U.S.S. BERGALL -- Report of FIRST War Patrol
---------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   (b)   Short time before daylight.
   (c)   We were not very sure of our position and very likely to run afoul of the Big Bonanza Shoal.
0430 (H) Sent contact report while heading west.
0542 (H) Sighted fleet type destroyer (SHIP CONTACT #18) through high periscope bearing 208°T., distance to be 8 to 10 miles, angle on the bow 90° Starboard.   He was about in the spot from which we had transmitted our contact report.   Doubted very much that we could have reached him at all because of his large angle on the bow.   If we went after him capital ships might be missed transitting Balabao.  Decided also that he was pretty well alerted and that we would have a difficult job to reach him submerged; so at -
0544 (H) Submerged and headed for Balabao.
0946 (H) Heard three depth charges.   Guess he pulled the usual Jap trick of dropping a few for good measure just before giving up the chase.
1430 (H) Sighted "Dave" type seaplane (PLANE CONTACT #12) coming up from scene of our attack.
1536 (H) Surfaced.
Oct. 28, 1943 Patrolling on surface off Balabao Strait.
0635 (H) Submerged.
0835 (H) Sighted smoke bearing 097°T.   Heard screws a long way off and faint pinging but could see nothing with twelve feet of periscope out.   Believe the pinging was from same patrol boat we saw two days ago.   True bearing of screws indicated that ships might be going northward along the east side of Balabao Island and then out through North Balabao Strait.   There was nothing positive enough about this theory to warrant a contact report.
- 14 -

Back to Page 13
On to Page 15

Back to the SS 320 home page