Chapter I- The Final Voyage
A/N: I got the idea for this story from the old picture of a former commander of the USS Stingray that hangs on the wall in LTCDR Dodge's cabin throughout the film. It's a short story- only two chapters- but I think it does well in telling the story of the Stingray's former life and how her men felt about her in the days when the Navy still regularly used diesel submarines. Also, I could find no indications the US Navy operated submarines in the Atlantic at all during World War II. The American submarine war was focused on Japan, and that's where the Stingray would almost certainly have fought. So, as for her being sent to a 'mothball fleet' in Norfolk, VA, I just decided that Navy bureaucracy could have been the reason for that as well as anything.
It was September 20th, 1975. The USS Stingray, SS-161, cut through the calm seas of the Atlantic under a sunny, nearly cloudless sky as she ran on the surface, her diesels growling at cruising speed. Atop the conning tower, Commander Charles Gray Hunter, V, stood and watched the coast of North Carolina far off to port, and the ocean stretching forth before him in all other directions. It was warm, sunny- and however it had ended, Vietnam was over. No better day for the Stingray to make a run on the surface. The war was over, and they were going home.
The Navy still planned on using diesels for a while yet, but the Stingray's days in the service were over. A list of boats had been published to the various submarine squadrons, telling them which boats were staying in service. The Stingray's name was not on it, and neither was any other submarine of the Balao class. They'd had a good, long run, defying age and obsolescence to remain in service one decade after another. But the end had finally come, and this time when the Stingray sailed into Norfolk, a port she'd never even visited before, she would not be sailing back out.
The boat's transfer to the mothball fleet being gathered in the major Atlantic ports had been a last-minute decision. After reaching Pearl Harbor, the crew were informed that instead of leaving the Stingray at San Diego, they would sail on through the Panama Canal and straight across the Gulf of Mexico, on up past much of the East Coast to Norfolk, Virginia. The men who wanted to leave the Navy sooner than later could get off while they were at Pearl. To a man, young and old, each of the Stingray's crew had chosen to stay aboard for the two weeks of the final voyage to Norfolk. None of the men had been ready to leave her.
The trip had been uneventful, made in good weather and entirely through sailing on the surface. A highlight of the voyage had been Panama, when the incredulous locals had stared at the aging American submarine- whose few visible crewmen were cheerfully 'waving' to a group of disgruntled-looking Russian 'tourists'. Seaman Olds, 'waving' from beside the 5-inch deck gun, said later it was the best laugh he'd ever had. The Russians had clearly been expecting something besides a World War II-vintage diesel when somebody had told them an 'American attack submarine' would be coming through the Panama Canal. Hunter considered it one of the highlights in his career to have sent those 'tourists' home disappointed.
The Stingray had been a long time coming back to any home port to stay; after being constructed in San Francisco, she hadn't been in sight of a single of the 48 continental United States since 1942. She'd spent more than six years at war, sinking half a dozen Japanese ships during World War II, guarding the Pusan Perimeter and patrolling the coast of South Korea. The Navy had then seen fit to send her on patrols up and down the coast of Vietnam, and through her periscopes and hydrophones the Stingray's third mostly-new set of crewmen listened and watched as the war grew from bad to worse. Navy SEALs relied on boats like the Stingray to make appearances where no American was welcome, and when the ones lucky enough to come back returned, the Stingray was always there to get them back out again.
That was where Commander Hunter had come in. He'd taken command of the USS Stingray in 1970, with the Vietnam War in full swing. When the United States withdrew in 1973, Hunter had expected to return to patrolling off the North Korean or Soviet coast, or perhaps returning to Pearl Harbor for another refit of the aging submarine. Her latest had been in 1958.
But the Navy'd had other ideas- they needed "Hunter's Buccaneers", as the three-boat wolfpack Hunter commanded was called, to stay around. Running between Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines and occasionally North Vietnam, the Stingray had made many daring patrols in places a US Navy sub had no business even existing. Once in 1972, straying far north to insert a group of men led by the legendary black-ops Marine commander Francis Xavier Hummel, the Stingray had nearly been rammed by a Chinese destroyer. The Stingray had flooded her tanks and dropped to the bottom in a hurry; with the destroyer banging away with its sonar above them, even some of Hummel's Marines looked worried as the depth charges started exploding overhead.
Standing there on the bridge, Hunter had been as terrified as anybody, but even more fearful of showing it. Something- he had to do something. He began walking the passageways of the boat, not speaking since they'd gone silent, but nodding and doing what he could to reassure the men. Then he'd reached the galley, and Major Hummel was leaned up against a bulkhead with a cup of coffee in his hand. He nodded to Hunter, his eyes stormy and serious- but also respectful. He trusted Hunter completely, and did not believe in hating Navy men as a rule like so many Marines did. If you were risking your life beside him, service affiliation was irrelevant to somebody like Hummel. Even as another charge exploded in the water above them, rattling the Stingray's hull like a beer can and making the lights dim, Hummel didn't so much as flinch. The two culinary specialists in the boat were pretty calm for the circumstances, but Hummel looked like he was at home in his living room. It was as if he was tolerating the Chinese warship above them, humouring their belief that they would soon kill the foreign submarine beneath them.
And it had given Hunter an idea.
Hunter had walked over to the sailors running the galley, motioning to indicate he, too, wanted a cup of coffee. One of the sailors poured him a cup and handed the mug to Hunter, looking vaguely curious. Was this something good commanders did, some secret they had? You drank coffee and just acted like it was no big deal? Hunter knew, in the instant he picked up the mug, that was what Hummel was doing. And that's what he, skipper of the boat, needed to do.
Walking back through the Stingray's narrow passageways, sipping from the coffee mug as he went, Hunter stopped by the engine room before returning to the bridge. Chief Petty Officer Black, head of the engineering section, nodded in greeting. Nodding back, briefly glancing around at the scared faces of the younger, junior-ranked sailors standing by to act as damage control, Hunter realised how important the higher-ranking men were in moments like this. One of the enginemen in the room, Seaman Cameron Olds, was not yet nineteen. He'd worked so hard to earn his silver dolphins before this latest patrol- just barely, he'd made it. Olds shivered a little as a concussive blast in the water shook the boat yet again, but he wasn't panicked; just scared.
All of the men were that way; no submariner could be flighty or prone to panic, but it was simply idiotic to pretend that you never felt fear. To be a good petty officer or commissioned officer, though, Hunter had learned firsthand that the higher your rank, the less you were allowed to show it. The skipper didn't have time to be scared; wearing the golden dolphins meant regulations all but forbid it, too.
So Hunter stood there a moment, yelling at himself not to so much as blink when the next boom came through the water, and the hull rattled yet again. He locked eyes with Black, who seemed to be trying to say something. Black cut his eyes at the sailors around him, raising his eyebrows a little. See what I mean? The look said. Say something already.
Then the Stingray's third commander took a nice, big drink from his mug, savouring the taste of the creamy French Roast. He made sure to smile a little, as if so at ease that enjoying a good cup of coffee was the most pressing thing on his mind.
Then Hunter looked up and scanned the expectant faces of the men around him. In a low voice, but one with such confidence that even he was surprised, Hunter said, "It's all right, fellas. They won't get us."
"Damn straight they won't, sir." Chief Petty Officer Black's dark brown eyes, almost the same color as his skin, were all business. His tone of voice brooked no argument. "They ain't gonna sink this sub, no way."
Nodding again to the men in the engine room, Hunter had turned and ducked, stepping through the small hatch and making his way back up towards the bridge. Each time he passed a group of men, Hunter learned to repeat the phrase, always with that cup of coffee in his hand. "They won't get us."
And they didn't.
After an hour, the Chinese ship gave up and went home, either figuring she'd scored a kill so direct nothing was left or that her prey had somehow escaped. The Stingray waited another two before lifting off the ocean floor, and thirty minutes after that reached her destination. Rising to periscope depth off a remote section of tropical Chinese coast, the Stingray tentatively prepared to surface just enough that her conning tower's hatch would be exposed to the air. Hummel's Marines soon deployed, and the Stingray's skipper had crouched low on the top of the conning tower, scanning the coast and all ends of the horizon for threats. One shot in his boat's direction and he'd crash-dive his boat in a hurry- even if it meant slamming the hatch with him still outside.
His face darkened with earth-coloured face paint and wearing the best Marine jungle camouflage available, Major Hummel had been almost invisible as he joined his men in the water. For now, they clung to the Stingray's hull, but when the sub started to dive they'd simply swim the hundred yards to shore, wearing at least fifty pounds of gear. It was a method Hummel and his elite Marines were almost entirely alone in their willingness to do at all, let alone multiple times.
Hunter had been content to simply nod to the Marines, wishing them good luck with a few quiet words, but Hummel had reached out from the water, his soaking wet hand firmly gripping Hunter's. The men locked eyes one more time, and Hummel said, "Thanks for the ride, Commander. Good luck."
The Stingray's skipper had nodded, moved but unsure of what to say. Finally, he said, "Likewise. Kick some ass out there." The Marines had grinned at that, and so had Hummel. Then Hunter had crawled back to the hatch, closed it and gave the order to dive just as Hummel and his twenty Recon Marines struck off into the water.
That had been only three years ago, but it felt like another lifetime. Those days were over for the Stingray, over for Hunter- and such daring times of diesel wolf-packs and their fearless captains might never be seen in the Navy again. Hunter had no regrets; he'd served his time, done his duty, and though his greatest accomplishments would never go on record, he could even go home knowing he'd scored a kill. That Chinese destroyer had suffered an 'accident' when on patrol along that same section of coast a month later, when the Stingray was returning to pick Hummel and his men up.
Yes, the Peking government had been pissed, but being unable to prove the United States had any role in the sinking, they could do nothing. Just the same had been true of Hummel's Marines- their combat record was sealed even for the members of the Silent Service who brought them to the faraway shores where they operated. But even the rumours were impressive, and the stories before long became legends. But even though much of his career was classified, glory had smiled on now soon-to-be Brigadier General Hummel many times; hailed as the next Audie Murphy, a second Chesty Puller, he had received everything from the Purple Heart and Bronze Star straight up to the Medal of Honor.
Fate had kept different plans for Commander Charles G. Hunter; he had received multiple Navy Commendation Medals, but nothing higher. It had become a joke first among Hunter and his XO and Chief of the Boat, but by this final journey it was a running joke among the whole crew. Speaking as if one was Commander Hunter, you'd say something like, "I did twenty years in the submarines and all I got was this stupid medal". Hunter was a popular man among the crew; those who'd been with him off the coast of China in '72 had taken to calling him "Blackbeard" Hunter, after the famous pirate. While his superiors were hardly thrilled with the nickname, the men aboard the Stingray loved it, and crewmen joining the Stingray became "Blackbeard's Hunters" forever after.
"You're drifting off again, Blackbeard," a voice said beside him, and Hunter jumped a little. He really had been far off with his thoughts this time. His XO, a tall, lanky blonde man about thirty-five years old, was Lieutenant Commander John Clayton. He was staying in while Hunter was retiring, and odds were Clayton would be in the Navy long enough to see the diesels start giving way to nukes. That was all anybody ever talked about these days; nuclear this, nuclear that. Hunter was a DBF man- he was glad he wouldn't be in the Silent Service the day they retired their last diesel boat. After commanding the Stingray for five years and sailing with diesel submarines for twenty, he couldn't imagine sailing any other way.
Hunter was 5' 11, a decidedly average height, and had brown-black hair to Clayton's silvery-blonde, and gray eyes to Clayton's sharp blue. He was slightly shorter than his executive officer, and while being shorter than a subordinate had often bugged Hunter through the years, he didn't much mind with Clayton. The man was a highly skilled submarine officer, and more important than that, a very good friend. When Hunter glanced over at Clayton, who was also surveying the ocean and coastline from atop the conning tower, Clayton was smiling, but his eyes seemed a little sad. He seemed to be having his own qualms over saying goodbye to the Stingray, too.
"They'll just mothball her, skipper, you know that, right? It's not like she's going to the scrapper's," Clayton said, seeming to have picked the very thought from Hunter's mind.
"I know, John," Hunter said with a sigh, "But the Balao's are gone, and you just wait, pretty soon it's gonna be all about these big nukes. No more diesels- like they just have no place in this man's Navy anymore. Hell, weren't they good enough for the last thirty years?"
"Can't control what the Navy does with this stuff, sir," Clayton said with empathy. "Every sailor born has wanted to keep things the way they were when he joined. If one's succeeded I'd like to meet the man." Hunter laughed. "Besides," Clayton said more seriously, "If we don't step up our game, the Russians will. Maybe going all nukes is the best way to fight 'em. Nuke boats don't have to refuel, ever. All they need is food for the crew."
It was true, all of it. But that didn't change the fact that beautiful, slim gray boats like the Stingray, with their speedboat-like hulls that cut through the sea's surface like a knife, were going and soon to be gone. Hunter could already see the day coming when boats like the Stingray, with their cramped quarters and growling diesel engines, would be relics. In their place would be hulking, silent cigar-shaped tubes of titanium and steel, faster underwater than on the surface and able to obliterate cities with the launch of a handful of missiles. That was the future, and if it made the U.S. Navy better able to stand against America's enemies, then so be it. But Hunter didn't have to like it.