I Am A Submariner
Copyright 2011 Joe C. Combs 2nd
Smashwords Edition copyright Joe C Combs 2nd 2011
Front Cover copyright Joe C Combs 2nd 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4660-9645-5
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I Am A Submariner
Friday December 5, 1980 I arrived at submarine school in Groton, Connecticut. An eighteen year old Floridian I chose to go to boot camp in Orlando, Florida. On graduation, we were handed our orders and driven to the Orlando airport in a gray, navy, bus. That night, my Eastern Airlines flight landed at JFK in New York. I had never seen the Statue of Liberty, visited New York City, or flown in a commercial jet. I changed concourses and caught a commuter flight to Groton. I saw the whole city laid out before me from the small windows of a twin-engine turbo-prop. New fallen snow blanketed the city like a fresh coating of whitewash. The lights wore hallows with slivers of ice in the air around them like whiskers reflecting the light. When I breathed in the air, it felt crisp and clean. That night New York City was a wonder to behold. I have been to New York City many times since, but I have never forgotten the beauty of New York that night.
I arrived in Groton on the last flight that night and waited for a gray, navy, van from the base to deliver me to the base. I set out early Saturday morning to explore the base, what I saw left me both awed and humbled. Every street, every building named for a world war two submariner or submarine, men and boats whose stories I had been reading for over eight years. I knew I could never live up to these men, I hoped I would never let them down. Men like Howard Gilmore injured on the bridge of his submarine, while under enemy fire, ordered his men to submerge the ship. He sacrificed his own life to save his ship and crew. I was walking the same streets and looking at the same buildings that were here forty years before. There were some newer buildings, but most of the base looked as it did during the war.
This was the weekend that John Lennon was murdered in New York City, but I was in my own world. Sunday was the thirty-ninth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and I was walking in the shadows of the men who held the line against the Japanese while the Pacific fleet sat on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attack left us with three aircraft carriers and some outdated submarines. We could not afford to lose those carriers, they threw every submarine we had in the Pacific at the Japanese. Some of those submarines should not have been at sea in peacetime, but they all went to war. The United States submarine force sank more Japanese ships than any other branch of the United States military. They paid a heavy price for their success, losing a higher percentage of men that any branch of the military. Only the German U-boats lost a higher percentage of men. These men created the traditions and Esprit de Corps of the United States submarine force. I remember one quote framed on my sonar classroom wall, “He who shoots first, writes a patrol report.” It wasn’t enough to be good; you had to be quick too.
For the next year, each school and classroom I went through was adorned with photographs of these men and their boats. In submarine school, I had the honor of painting a mural on our classroom wall for our graduating class. I chose to represent the history of the submarine force, a history of tradition and honor these men established. When I wake in the morning, I can go to work and build another 500 cars or I can quit, call into work and say, “I’m not building cars anymore.” I can make that choice because of these men and their boats, boats like the Wahoo, Tang, George Washington and Scorpion. However, the men of the USS Thresher gave me more than my freedom; they gave me my life, my daughter, and the chance to grow old.
When people find out I am a submariner the most common response I hear is “Oh, I could never do that.” Which is the same thing I say to my brother, he’s army. You see, you get used to the cramped living conditions. The crew, they become a family, particularly on the good boats. On an aircraft carrier, you know the captain; his photograph is on the quarterdeck where you board the ship. On a submarine, you know the captain; the two of you turn sideways so you can pass in the passageway. On an aircraft carrier, you are one of a crew of 5,000. On a submarine the captain asks how your brother is doing after his motorcycle accident, congratulates you on your son learning how to walk, and says he hopes you son is better at staying out of trouble than you are. The army, well the army walks almost everywhere, and they live, eat, and sleep in the dirt. They are constantly shot at and when they are hit, they lie in the dirt and bleed their life into that dirt. Submarines spend most of their time in water deeper than the boat’s crush depth. No dirt, no blood, and if something goes wrong your ship implodes; it’s quick, no pain.
That is what we tell ourselves, but sometimes those submarines sink in shallow waters. I remember the Kursk. The Kursk is one of those submarines that are always at the back of my mind. A submariner’s nightmare is to be in a submarine, on the bottom, and waiting to suffocate. I remember people around the world waited expectantly; praying and hoping those men would be saved. I remember the anger of the Russian people and the families of the lost when they were not.
They were angry the Russian government waited so long to accept help from other nations. The Russian government surprised me too, not because they waited so long to accept help, because they did accept help from foreign countries. Help, from foreign countries that have the potential to be their enemies in a future war. England, United States, France, China; not one nation that designs and builds its own submarines would allow navies of any nation onboard their submarines, the results could be disastrous. Only after there were no other possibilities of rescue would even the most trusted ally be asked to help. The information about that ship which would be lost could mean the difference of life and death to future submarine crews.
The Kursk, and the hoped for rescue of its crew, was a popular topic everywhere it seemed. A few people would ask me, “Do you think they will save those men?” No, no I did not believe they would save those men. The submarine veterans were easy for me to pick out of a crowd then. Men, who were normally jovial, were quiet and subdued. We all knew the tragedy of the Kursk could have happened to each of us. When submarines go down, the crews do not survive. As submariners, we all know our only hope for survival depends on us and our shipmates getting our ship back to the surface. The Kursk tragedy was a tragedy felt by submariners around the world. The submarine community is a family undivided by national borders. We are all patriotic and if ordered to do so, will try our best to kill each other. However, we share an existence that only other submariners fully understand; we will do our duty and then after our ship is safely moored in port mourn the loss of a kindred spirit.
I look forward to the day when those damnable ships are no longer necessary and all submarines are science submarines. I will mourn the loss of a community that gave us men like Commander Gilmore and Admirals Lockwood and Bowman, but I will rejoice in the peace they made possible.
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THE AUTHOR
Joe & Elizabeth Combs
THE AUTHOR
Joe Combs served in the United States Navy from Jan 25, 1980 to Nov 8, 1988 serving aboard the USS City of Corpus Christ SSN 705 and the USS John Marshall SSN 611. Joe also spent considerable time at sea on the USS Dallas, USS Philadelphia and the USS Boston. Joe has many interests, art and writing among them he is also a certified scuba diver. Having worked in many different jobs from field hand to engineering he now works for a major automobile manufacture near Columbus, Ohio where he lives with his wife and daughter.
Joe is also the author of:
Titanic, A Search for Answers
Christmas Patrol
The Art Teacher
One last Thought
A Grandfather’s legacy
Granada
Alexandra
&
One last Thought: Behind the Scenes
How To Connect With Me.
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Joe’s other books are available at your favorite e-book retailer and a select few are available in print at your favorite online retailer
ABOUT THE COVER
This photograph was taken in Feb 1981 at the submarine school in Groton, Ct. On the left is instructor Petty Officer Second Class Horowitz and on the right is the author, Seaman Joe C Combs 2nd. We are standing in front of our class’s mural on graduation day. The building has long since been torn down and the mural with it.
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