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Man's Magazine (Jan. 1962) account of War Patrol #2

Before "Soldier of Fortune" was "Man's Magazine".   Men, across the country, would pick this up to relive the amazing accounts of our soldiers and sailors.   Although there may be errors in names or events, it's a vivid tale of her exploits and includes some amazing details that will have to be discussed by the men that were THERE!

Here is their account of the Bergall's 2nd Patrol.

HELL PATROL OF THE USS BERGALL

by Stan Smith

Behind them floated the smoking ruins of two Jap ships Bergall had blasted with torpedoes... 

Ahead of them lay 2,200 miles of open sea, heavily patrolled by the enemy, and sure death for a sub that couldn't submerge!

"CAPTAIN to the bridge!"

The command crackled twice over the sub's intercom.   Instantly, a spate of pounding footsteps echoed up through the control room.   Lt. Jim Nickerson draped tensely around the handles of the USS Bergall's high periscope, was squinting at distant, fading masts.   It was dusk, 1800, December 13, 1944

The submarine - on station in the South China Sea and making preparations for a mine plant - was nine days out of Fremantle, Australia, on her second patrol.   CRM John Mackay, the radarman, homed in for range, speed, and course of the enemy contact.

Tall, taut-muscled Commander John M. Hyde swung up the control room ladder.   Lt. Nickerson relinquished the periscope to the skipper.

"Masts, Captain. Hell of a way off.," he said as Hyde took his first look.   The masts evoked a tight grin.

"Nice work, Jim.  Radar - what've you got?"

"Couple of blurs, Captain," Mackay reported as he fiddled with the focus dial.   A second later his voice rose sharply.   "Correction, sir - two targets definitely!"

The exec, Lt. Robert Ison, climbed into the tower and took the periscope.   Behind him came Lt. Cmdr. Ben Jarvis, riding the Seventh Fleet boat as a guest observer.   The six-four, 230 pound former Annapolis linesman tapped Ison impatiently.

"Man, don't hog it!"

"Range: 35,000.   Speed: 14 knots.   Course: 055 True.   Captain?" Mackay snapped.

"General Quarters.   Night torpedo attack," the CO ordered.   To Lt. Nickerson he said, "Take over again, Jim.   Sing out if anything happens -"

Ordering up flank speed on four mains as the alarm went grating through the sub, Commander Hyde climbed up to the bridge.   Ensign Edward Welch was searching along the line of bearing, but neither Welch nor the five sailors clinging to the shears saw the targets.   The submarine lunged through the calm sea at 20 knots, cutting a creamy-white bow wave and tossing back a fine chill spray.

"Any idea what they are, Captain?" Ensign Welch inquired.

"Nope.   Could be tankers, Mister," the captain said impassively.   "Could be just about anything at this range."

Ensign Welch said admiringly, "That Nickerson's got some pair of eyes!"

"So's the high scope.   Gives us 50 feet elevation over the surface, Mister."

Ison and Jarvis joined them.   A surge of excitement coursed all compartments, for the sighting of contacts actually changed their mission from the dull and prosaic business of planting mines to the contact and destruction of major Japanese shipping.

At flank speed, the exec computed, it would be another couple hours before Bergall would identify targets.   The use of the high periscope was risky: it exposed the sub to detection but, paradoxically, increased it's chances of spotting and identifying the contacts before the radar beam, at 50 feet above the surface, or normal surface lookout, had a proportionately greater range to sweep.

It was almost dark now.   Hyde, Ison and Jarvis went below to the plotting boards, and after a few minutes, Hyde snapped on the intercom.

"This is the captain.   We have targets 20 miles distant and are making an end-around for night torpedo attack.   That is all."

On disseminating information to a sub crew, there were two schools of thought: Never say anything because it put the men on a fine edge (anyway, targets had a way of vaporizing at times); and tell the crew everything - it invests them with the proper esprit.   John Hyde believed in the latter.   He had eight previous patrols to his record, and the best ones were invariably those which shared the excitement of the chase.

at 1900 Mackay reported again: "Targets steady Captain.   They look like a couple moving islands - "

The report was delivered to Hyde in the wardroom.   There was time for coffee and a smoke.   Hyde, Ison and Jarvis were huddled over the charts of Royalist Bank.

"Eleven to 14 fathoms, Captain," Ison said softly, tapping the point of expected attack.   "We either get both ships or we'll end up slugging it out on top."

"Maybe it's not so bad as we think," Hyde shrugged.   "Maybe they're only tankers."

"You're whistling in a graveyard."   Jarvis glanced over his pipe.   "Them pips keep getting bigger all the time."

"Calculated risk," the CO said with finality.   He drained his cup, took a refill and slipped into his parka.   "If we can't submerge, Ben, this sub's got a damn good gun crew."

"I hope so, "big Jarvis grimaced.    "The footnotes claim there's rocks like cathedrals 40 feet under."

"Captain!   This is maneuvering room... We're going to have to cut back to standard speed.   Too much vibration!"

Hyde snapped back the intercom talkback: "Go ahead.   Let me know our maximum speed."

"Walk.   Don't run to nearest enemy targets," Ison winced.   "Well, anything's preferred to mine laying."

The wardroom parlay broke up on a cheerless note as CMoMM Richard Bryan stuck his head in the door.

"Captain, we're making 18 knots.   That's absolute maximum unless you want to shake a strut loose."

"In emergency, Bryan," Hyde pressed, "couldn't we squeeze out a few extra turns?"

"Don't bet on it, sir."   The motor mac mopped his face.   "We're just liable to end up sitting ducks."

Hyde nodded glumly.   The three officers adjourned to the control room.   The maneuvering board had two targets now bearing 102 True at 26,000 yards.   Aside from the loss of speed, Bergall was functioning smoothly.   Hyde climbed into the conning tower at 1920 hours.

"Big fat bastards," the radarman grunted.   "When do you think we'll spot 'em, Captain?"

"Half hour or so.   Keep your eyes on that scope, Mackay, and keep those bearings coming."

The night was clear and the sea calm.   No stars.   Only Venus lighted the South China Sea to the horizon.   Nine men, including the lookouts, filled the confined bridge.   All talk was muffled, sporadic, tense in an understated way.   The decision to make like a PT was John Hyde's and the knowledge that he could hit and run but couldn't dive in the rock-strewn water drove a queasiness to the pit of his flat stomach.

Hyde was 34, a lean, gray-eyed six-footer.   SS-320, the Bergall, was his world - the same world that spawned the likes of such heroic sub skippers as Howard Gilmore, Sam Dealy and John Cromwell.  It was a world in which a man and his boat were one and the same.   Through the identity of his submarine, so did he have an identity.

Below, in the cubicle of a Captain's cabin was a framed picture of his wife and infant son.   Hyde thought across 6,000 miles of Pacific until the vibrations of his other wife claimed his undivided attention.   Forcing Bergall into an action whereby she couldn't dive, couldn't run full gait, seemed an act of disloyalty in a way.   Grimly Hyde turned to the giant beside him.

"See anything, Ben?"

"Yeah.   Too much light," Jarvis said acridly, nodding at Venus.   "Maybe the Nips got good lookouts tonight, too -"

The skipper brought up his glasses and scanned the dark horizon, knowing the enemy targets were still beyond range.   The strain told on all of them now.   He stared up at the five lookouts hanging in the shears, night glasses plastered to their intense faces.

"Captain, gun crews standing by."

Bob Ison was standing on the conning tower ladder, only the top half of him on the bridge.   Hyde acknowledged, "What's the range to targets, Bob?"

"Twenty thousand yards, Captain."

"How does it look on the board?"

"Hot.   They're good size blips, John," the exec smiled broadly.   "You know something?   Today's the thirteenth."

"I thought of it," Hyde grinned, foolishly.

So did the rest of the Bergall's crew.   The number had a pleasant connotation aboard the sub.   On the thirteenth of May her keel was laid; 13 months later to the day Hyde assumed command; the boat arrived at Pearl Harbor for assignment on August 13.   On October 13, a 4,500-ton tanker and her two escorts stood out from Camranh Bay across Bergall's track.   Three torpedoes put her down; only 10 depth charges were dropped.

Bergall's first patrol was climaxed with the killing of a 17,000-ton tanker and a smaller fleet oiler.   From start to finish the attack lasted 13 minutes.

The range to targets closed steadily.   At 1920 Ben Jarvis leaned on the gunshield and kept his glasses fixed at 105 True.   Range was down to 19,500 yards.   He jabbed the commanding officer.

"See 'em, Captain?   Two points on the starboard Bow!"

It was only a fraction of a second later that the lookouts in the shears made the same sighting.   The targets were tiny blotches on a stark horizon, but getting larger and not zigging suddenly.   Quickly, Hyde dropped his glasses and lowered himself through the conning tower into the control room.   The tracking party took over, Ison working on the bearing for TDC.

The sub was lunging ahead for an end-around, trying to keep ahead but unobserved by the enemy ships.

A few minutes later:   "Range: 12,000 yards, Captain."

"Battle Stations."

The gonging was superfluous.   Most of Bergall's crew were already stationed.   Hyde secured the gun crew and clambered up the conning tower ladder to topside.   He stood beside Ben Jarvis, who had incredible night vision.

"Looks like a heavy cruiser and an escort," Jarvis said slowly.   "Escort is barely visible ahead of her."

"Ask radar where the escort is," Hyde grunted at the bridge radioman.   Over the intercom, the answer was shot back: "2,000 yards ahead starboard beam of the target."

"That puts us on his port beam," Hyde commented.

"Target is zigzagging.   Target is increasing speed, sir!" the bridge radioman repeated radar's information.   "Course: Zero three five, Sir."

"Very well."

Inexorably, the tension mounted.   Throughout the sub, men whispered that they were taking on a heavy cruiser and probably a light.   Lt. Ison went topside, and in his efforts to identify the target, stayed long enough to see the turrets plainly.   The primary target was reassessed as a Tone or Atago class light cruiser.   Both vessels were overlapping from the angle of chase.   The time was 2030: range 6,000 yards.   Radar suddenly reported interference.

"Make ready all tubes.   Stand by to fire."

Hyde was on the TBT binoculars.   The submarine was moving up fast on both targets.   A steady succession of radar bearings surged up the bridge.   Torpedoes were set for 14 feet; a full nest of six was ready.   Outer doors were opened.   The Bergall bore in, firing range predicted for 3,000 yards.   John Hyde's hard stomach danced a tango as he worried about the fish soon to be underway in a glassy sea.

"Captain!   They're signaling with blinker lights!"

"Give me a range - quick!"

"Range three seven double oh," radar came back.

"Range three six double oh, Captain."

Only the voice of the talker cut the stifling silence on Bergall's bridge.   Hyde felt cold sweat spanking through his shirt.

"Stand by forward!"

"Final setup!"

"Bearing - Mark!"

"Set"  From the TDC man.

Bergall had swung a full 90 degrees and was boring in, range 3,500 yards.   The targets filled Hyde's glasses - damned big and damned plainly silhouetted.

"Fire ONE!   Fire TWO!   Fire THREE!   Fire FOUR!   Fire FIVE!   Fire SIX!"

A spread of accurately spaced tinfish leaped out in a widening fan at the targets.   Both vessels were now signaling frantically as Hyde ordered left full rudder, all ahead full!   Bergall got out of her track.   Nobody spoke.   Ison had the stopwatch.   Jarvis jabbed Hyde as the full outline of the "escort" suddenly became recognizable as another cruiser!

Time ticked off inexorably... ten seconds... 20... 30... 40...

"Ought to be hitting now, Ca-"

Two explosions shot flames 800 feet in the air, enveloping the target simultaneously.   The concussive roar belched a hot blast of fiery fragments across the sea and changed night to brightest day.   Between the monumental flames the men on the submarine's bridge saw what was left of a heavy cruiser (Myoko) as she tore apart, disgorging men and steel into an indifferent sea.   Shock after shock rattled the submarine, smothering sounds of jubilation under the incalculable thunder of exploding magazines.   The bridge radioman yelled "Three blips, Captain!   Radar's got three Japs sitting out there now!"

Hyde blinked at the holocaust, then wheeled around and dropped into the conning tower.   Over the bedlam Mackay was saying:

"We busted'er in half, Captain."

"Good but not good enough."

When he got to the bridge the two fires were distinct.   The shattered bridge structure loomed up like a sick whale; the stern section was down angled and pathetic; waving figures were leaping into spreading oil fires.   The second cruiser came abeam of the forward section, then stopped dead.   No attempt to punish by gunfire followed the fleeing raider.   Hyde was intrigued.

The logical time for a submarine in shoal waters to run like hell was now, but Hyde decided to run in the opposite direction.   The tantalizing spectacle of an intact Japanese cruiser framed in the garish flames evoked inevitable orders:

"Forward room.   Make ready a reload!"

Ison nudged the CO, "He's got a pickle (torpedo) in him sure as God made little apples, Skipper!   He was 2,000 yards on the far side but on the straight and narrow of our fish.   We hit him an over-lapping shot -"

At 2100 hours, range was 9,300 yards.   Speed was reduced to allow for the reload.   Slowly, malevolently, Bergall came about an her heading for the second ship.   The escape clause was gone, irretrievably dismissed.   The raison d'etre of a submarine was the destruction of enemy shipping, not running in manner that left doubts in the minds of her men.

The bridge radioman chirped: "Forward room reports all tubes ready, sir."

"Stand by.   Bearing - mark!" He looked up from the TBT.   "We'll fire a spread of six at two five double oh!"

"My God, Captain!" Jarvis exploded.   "They're shooting at us!"

Twin flashes appeared forward of the escort.

"Salvo of two, Captain!" a lookout yelled.

Hyde jumped away from the TBT.

"Left full rudder - all ahead flank!"

The submarine heeled like a frightened colt as the first shells screamed a pair of fireballs straight at her.   The first shell exploded in her wake, close aboard the stern, the second flashing over the bridge.   Geysers of water drenched the quivering deck as Hyde bellowed for full right rudder.   The second salvo was closer, and although the range was great - 9,000 yards - Bergall was in the bag of the Japanese gunners.

Forward, a flash of light fused with the whimper of rending steel.   A sheet of flame mushroomed up from the torpedo loading hatch.   Direct hit!   Bergall shuddered but her speed held constant.   Hyde felt sick to his stomach.

"Come about!   Full ahead!" the CO snarled.   "Damage control to the forward room -"

The third salvo screamed in, punching up twin mountains of China Sea through which the sub gratefully raced.   A cascade of water deluged her decks, smothering the flames.   Hyde's voice was suddenly calm.   The third salvo ended it.

"Secure outer doors.   Secure from torpedo attack.   Lt. Nickerson, get your gun crews topside on the double."

Time: 2106.   An open intercom from the forward torpedo room telegraphed the awesome sound of the coughing, cursing men and the sputtering of an electrical fire.   Then the voice of Warrant Electrician Smith, of the damage control party, grated through the miasma.

"We got it, Captain!   Fire in the forward room!"

Hyde started down the hole.   "Jarvis - take over.   Put distance between us and those bastards!"

He ran through the submarine, pushing his way through the millrace of dazed, bloody sailors emerging from the stricken compartment.   Inside, port side, a half-dozen desperate sailors were attempting to smother a fire behind the sound gear; smaller fires directly under the hatch and along the overhead were being attacked by mattresses.   Hyde grabbed Lt, Harold Drew, DCO.   Smitty was unshackling the sound gear and needed a hand.

"We can handle it, Captain." 

"Okay. Get as much gear out of this compartment.   I'm going to seal it off."

 Smitty yelled, "All the mattresses you can bring forward, Captain - fast!"

Like ugl snakes, running electrical fires were sparking out along the whole length of the forward room.   Damage control took over and Hyde went through the wardroom.   His orders to the chief of the boat were clipped, concise, specific: 

"Get on the ball.   Masks.   Mattresses.   Send Doc forward."

Chief Torpedoman Cost emerged from the smoke-filled compartment and caught up to the CO.   His report was thorough, accurate: "Projectile entered after port side of the room, Captain.   Pressure hull got it aft of frame 35.   The hatch is finished and so's the high salvage connection.   Starboard riser got it at the number one main ballast tank."

"In other words?"

"We damn well better not dive, sir."

"Okay."

Hyde started into the radio shack.   The pharmacist's mate emerged from the galley and caught him.

"Shock and burns.   That's all, Captain."

"Okay.   Do your job, Doc."

Cost swiveled around.

"That shell hole, Captain.   It was an eight-incher."

Hyde scribbled a message and found the communicator standing at his elbow.   "Code it and get it off fast."

The message was the action report to ComSuba Seventh Fleet and gaunt, game John Hyde felt miserable as he spelled it out.   He went forward again.   The forward room bulkhead flapper was off now, but Vodopich, Bryant, Ott and Wilson were on top of the worst of it.   The smoke-smudged features of a young Harold Wilson broke into a valiant grin as the CO re-entered the compartment.

"Captain, we still kicked the living hell out of 'em tonight..."

Commander Hyde went topside and stood beside the forlorn giant, Ben Jarvis.

The message was sent on a course that would indicate to the Japs that Bergall was heading toward Brunei Bay.   For what it was worth, it appeared to be a worthy ruse.   Jarvis thought so.   On the horizon now was only one fire and smoke, a gray curtain blanketing the area.

Ahead lay 2,200 miles of open sea for a submarine no longer able to submerge.

Ahead lay mined, heavily patrolled Karimata Strait, across the length of Java Sea to Lombok Strait.   All it took was the sighting by one Japanese plane and the silver-winged squadrons could bomb her at their leisure.   The unbearable conglomeration of thoughts pinpointed almost certain destruction of Bergall, yet at the same time it heightened gray-eyed John Hyde's resolves to bring her in safely.   The night was still clear, still perfect for a Jap squadron to come roaring over for vengeance.

All guns fore and aft were manned.

All hands were acutely aware of their desperate, almost helpless plight.   Few slept.   Gunners took rotation at the coffee urn, condemning the Japs with faint bravado.   Coffee was sent to the bridge in buckets, but neither Jarvis nor Hyde needed a stimulus.   No radar interrupted the prayers with sudden contacts, but a constant succession of damage control reports shuttled up to the bridge.   Hyde secured GQ, yet all guns were manned.

The score was a heavy cruiser halved and unquestionably sunk, and probably a seriously wounded light cruiser.   It was consolation as morning welled up out of the sea - bright, too clear and hellishly calm.   At 0600, over Jarvis's objections, Hyde ordered his junior officer below to sleep.

"Don't argue.   I need you to spell me, Ben.   Ison's got all he can handle with damage control," Hyde growled into his coffee.   "Shove off before I bawl in this brew."

"Stop blaming yourself."

"I'm not.   This is my boat.   I just feel miserable."

"Okay.   Sing out.   I'll be flaked out in the control room."

Hyde started to say get in a bunk, but Jarvis smiled at him and dropped through the hole (conning tower).   He found a place and curled up like a bear that resents hibernation.

On deck, in all compartments, the coming of day was a time to make peace with one's God and one's shipmate.   The Filipino mess attendant shambled back from officer country to the radio shack.   He calmly put 200 crisp $2 bills on the desk.

"Here, Joe.   Remember that big game in Pearl?   Well, the deck was fishy."

In the control room the man on the 600-pound manifold unburdened himself as an electrician passed him.

"You lost a train ticket last year.   We were both chasing the same dame.   I knew you were busted but I swiped the ticket anyway.   Go ahead and clip me."

"Some other time.   I gotta tell Smitty what happened to his car the night some sonuvabitch swiped it..."

Time dragged: 1155.   Nothing on the intercom.   It was inconceivable to think the Japs had suddenly stopped flying their milk runs from Soerabaja to Balipapan.   And yet... why not?   Radarman Mackay fought to discipline his mind as his eyes were disciplined.   He watched with somber intensity the sweeping arm sweeping over a black screen.   Nobody smoked in the tower, but it was different this morning.   Anything was okay with the old man now.   He had a bottle of 12-year-old cognac in his locker and the idea of wallowing in liquor brought the taste a-nagging.   He pulled a cigarette but it hung slack in his open jaws.   The yellow blip came onto the screen!
"Aircraft!   Bearing: one zero six degrees!   Distance: 12 miles!"

Simultaneously, topside, the JOD (junior officer of the deck) yelled: "THERE!   Enemy aircraft, Captain ... There!"

"Hold your fire!   Hold your fire!" Hyde boomed.

The submarine roared to life, determined to sell that life dearly.   Guns were trained on target, following it.   All stations were manned and ready in 30 seconds.   The plane was a float-type snooper.   Standard observation bomber.   It was large to begin with and got increasingly larger as 84 sailors said their prayers.   Commander Hyde gripped the spray shield beside Ben Jarvis.   The plane - a Mavis - swung down the starboard beam, not circling, not dipping toward the water.

For a full minute nobody spoke.   The radar opened out the range.   Finally Jarvis grinned weakly.   On deck, sailors blinked at one another in utter disbelief.

"She sight us, John?"

"If she did, then why didn't she drop one?"

"Maybe she's riding light."

"Then you can expect Zeroes.  She'll hang off there and yell for help."

"Maybe God," Jarvis licked his lips, "made the bastard's blind."

There was no other explanation, unless prayers by the bucketful were suddenly acknowledged.   The devout and the irreligious were one, for the Mavis didn't return.   GQ secured.   The regular deck gun watch took over.   Commander Hyde sank to his deck and dropped his cap over his eyes as a sunshield.   It covered a multitude of silent tears.

Eight hours later, Commander John Hyde dispatched his first amplifying report to Commander Seventh Fleet.   Hell broke loose in Perth as Hyde anticipated it might.   Until then, all that was known at submarine headquarters was that Bergall had battled a couple Jap giants off Royalist Bank and busted one good.

Reaction was swift from Admiral Ralph W. Christie: Bergall was ordered to head north, in the opposite direction, to North Natuna; there, three subs would make a rendezvous with Bergall and Hyde was ordered to scuttle her in deep water.

Hyde read the message several times in the shack.   The responsibility was solely his for the ship, for the crew.   A storm the likes of which could mean his naval career might descend from disregarding Admiral Christie's orders.   But it was the chance he had to take.

"No reply, Sparks."

"Nothing?" The CRM looked up quizzically.

"That's right.   Nothing."

The thing was on his conscience, strictly his.   Jarvis, none of his regular officers, fought him.   Throughout the boat, men spoke in fierce defense of a captain who could defy Admiral Christie.   It was a long night.   Radio messages to subs in the vicinity of Northern Natuna sputtered out from CTF 71.   After midnight of the 15th, the gaunt, gray-eyed submariner allowed himself the luxury of slumping over his coffee cup in the wardroom.   No contacts.   Weather mugging up.   It wasn't much to pin a miracle on.

The next morning at 1100, periscope lookout picked up an American sub traveling at high speed surfaced.   She was USS Angler under Cmdr. Howard Bissel, speeding to make the Natuna rendezvous.   Recognition was swift, the boats closed and Bissel bellowed through a megaphone: "Man, the whole fleet's looking for you - turn around.   You've got orders to scuttle!"

"How was the passage through Lombok?"

"Planes.   Lousy with planes.   Why?"

"That's where we're headed, Howie."

Hyde could see the exchange of looks on Angler's bridge.   He said, "I hate to foul up your patrol, but I'm asking you to take part of my crew aboard.   I'm taking this boat all the way to the barn."

The incredulous Bissel stared at the battered sub for a long moment, but he didn't argue the point.

"How many men do you want to put aboard?"

"Fifty-four.   Fifty-five."

"You'll never make it."

Hyde shrugged.   "There's deep water near the barn.   If I've got to scuttle, I'd just as soon do it closer to home."

The captain of the Angler nodded mutely and with compassionate affection.   He sheared away from the battered Bergall and found deep water.   Rendezvous time was 1930 that night.

"This is the captain speaking," Hyde opened the hardest speech he ever made.   "Fifty-four men and one officer will be transferred to Angler tonight.   I'm sorry to have to separate a wonderful crew, but the risk is too great... odds overwhelmingly against survival of this submarine.   If your name is called, go and don't argue.   There's no appealing this order... God bless you.   May we meet again..."

The arguments about who stays, who goes continued up to the time of the rendezvous.   Angler surfaced on schedule and hove to alongside.   The transfer was swift, painful, but completed without interruption.

Then eight officers and 20 enlisted men began the hardest part of the voyage.   Hyde said little, slept less.   He took the deck of his heroic submarine as she entered the mined, heavily-patrolled passage of Lombok.   He refused to relinquish the deck until the submarine had passed safely into the Indian Ocean.  Then, for the first time in five night, Hyde allowed Jarvis to help him down from the bridge and put him in his bunk for a night's sleep.

Southwest gales shrouded the incredible passage on the last day.   Hyde, smelling land, sent a message to CTF 71, advising Admiral Christie that Bergall was south of the barrier.   That afternoon Hyde sailed her down to Exmouth Gulf where welders patched on temporary plates over the pressure hull.   Repairs effected in a few hours, Bergall stood out for Fremantle and one of the most fantastic welcomes ever given a returning submarine.

The voyage ended at 0900 December 23 when Admiral Christi came aboard and unorthodoxly hugged the unshaven gray-eyed submariner till it hurt.   When Angler brought the rest of the crew in, there wasn't a dry eye in the house or a sober soul in the Navy Yard.

Post-war records, based on unverified sinkings do not allow for halving an enemy cruise.   Bergall sank only the stern half of Myoko.   The bow survived, in itself a miracle.   The Japanese towed it to a Naval shipyard, and there it rusted until the Japanese surrender.

Commander John Hyde was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism under fire.   The vessel that he was ordered to scuttle received an extensive refit and was back on the firing line two months later for the completion of a distinguished service career in the submarine fleet.   At present with ComSubRonFour, Captain Hyde is overseas, a senior officer and still a submariner.

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