Stories about and by Submariners: 

Saving of USS Crevalle

(Edited from U.S. SUBMARINE OPERATIONS, WW-II, U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE)

"If I omit my practicing for one day, I know the difference. If I miss it for two days, the critics know it. And if for three days, the audience knows it." This declaration by Paderewski, world-famed concert pianist, will have meaning for submariners who know the value of split second and the virtue of reflex action - the appropriate reflex action.

Concerning reflex and the automatic ability to do the right thing at the drastic moment, a perfect demonstration was given aboard the USS CREVALLE in September 1944. The performer was an enlisted man, Robert L. Yeager, Motor Machinist's Mate I. Here is the story.

On the morning of September 11, CREVALLE (LCDR F.D. Walker, Jr.) was moving north of the Postiljon Islands to enter Makassar Strait. At 0611 she made a routine trim dive, and at 0624 she surfaced. Fifteen seconds later, the ship took a sharp down angle and resubmerged with upper and lower conning tower hatches open.

Officer of the Deck, Lt H.J. Blind and W.L. Fritchen, GM2, were swept from the bridge as CREVALLE went down. The submarine had been making standard speed, and as she went under she continued to make this speed, which drove her down in a precipitous nose-dive. The sea roared into the conning tower, flooding the control room and pump room. The diluvial torrent was deafening and drowned out shouted orders and yells of alarm.

Apparently Lt Blind managed to unlatch the opened hatch cover as CREVALLE burrowed under, for the upper hatch seated at 150 feet. This stopped the inrushing deluge. But the flooded submarine was heading for the bottom when MotorMac Yeager who was in the crew's space sprang to the telephone.

Unable to get in contact with any officer, Yeager took matters into his own hands. Ascertaining that standard speed was still rung up, he ordered, "all back full!" This checked CREVALLE's downward plunge and removed the appauling angle on the boat. In thinking at top speed and acting even faster to give that one command, Yeager undoubtedly saved the submarine.

CREVALLE had reached 190 feet before she started back up. With maximum down-angle, water in the control room was above the forward battery door and the pump room was completely flooded. In the conning tower, the water was arm-pit deep. Had CREVALLE continued her nose-dive, she might never have regained depth contol.

Two minutes after she plunged under, CREVALLE broached on the surface, backing full. Machine guns were manned immediately, and search was begun for Fritchen and Blind. Fritchen was soon recovered. Although Blind's head was glimpsed, he disappeared a moment later and was never sighted again.

CREVALLE was in a bad way. Everything in the conning tower, the control room and the pump room was grounded out, including the radio transmitters. Fortunately nothing was sighted and the submariners were able to make temporary repairs on the surface. That night the water-logged submarine was headed for Darwin.

Inquiry was unable to determine the cause of CREVALLE's accidental submergence. Evidently, after making her trim dive, she surfaced with the vents open, and after the escape of the inital blow of air, she settled. The in-plunging flood prevented those in the conning tower from pulling the hatch lanyard - presumably it was only after Lt Blind unlatched the hatch from topside that the deluge finally closed it.

More than one submarine surfaced with open vents, and it became customary for the diving officer to report, "Ready for surfacing, Vents shut!" - the second announcement inserted as a reminder. It also became the custom to surface with the lower conning tower hatch shut to minimize possible flooding.

Motor Machinist's Mate Yeager was awarded a citation and congratulated for the "initiative" and "presence of mind" with which he manned the phone and gave the appropriate order. An officer noted, "His experience as battle-station stern planesman since commissioning had probably qualified him better than any man aboard to make such a decision."

Actually, Yeager had little time to do any deliberate "deciding" in those flying seconds of uproar and emergency between the moment CREVALLE plunged and the moment he reached the phone. He was there in a flash, hand on button. In another flash, he gave the order. These were motor responses, and the right ones. Hand and mind in the groove after months of training, days of practice and routine excercises, hours of drill, drill, drill. The motor machinist's mate was a trained technician who saw the thing to do and did it instantaneously.