Spinax War Patrol ??

Darrell Clapp

In 1956 the Spinax went to Hunters Point for overhaul and one of the first things to be done was testing the torpedo tubes. The boat was tied up to the pier with the bow pointing into the S.F. bay. We were assigned a 40' liberty launch to haul the dummy fish back after firing, ( dummy fish = steel covered wooden torpedo).

We for some reason didn't have IC comunnications within the boat, so the OD on the bridge would look around for hazards and yell down the hatch to the conning tower to "Fire" and someone in the conning tower would yell to the Control Room, "Fire" and it would be repeated compartment to compartment forward to the Fwd Torpedo room and the tube fired. The dummy would go out a little distance and suddenly jump out of the water, going like hell and the liberty launch would take out after it, hook a line on it and tow it back to the boat to be reloaded for firing out of another tube. The liberty launch would take off and go North a little ways to get out of the line of fire.

I believe that it was the second or third time, and nobody noticed that the tide had changed. The OD yelled "Fire" and by the time the torpedo fired the liberty Launch had drifted South and was in front of the boat. The Cox'n was in his cage on the stern of the liberty launch when he must have noticed two things at the same time. One was that he was directly on front of the Spinax and Two, a torpedo was jumping out of the water and heading at the launch at a rather high rate of speed. When the torpedo hit the launch, just below the engine, the Cox'n shook his fist at the OD as his white hat took wing into the opposite direction and started ringing his little bell. I thought it was his diving alarm. The launch picked up speed and made for the next dock which happened to have a large crane on the dock that picked up the launch, aborting the dive.

Some wise guy painted a broken Liberty Launch on the side of the Conning Tower during the night and when the Captain walked down the brow in the morning for his walk through, there was the broken liberty launch on the Conning Tower. It seemed that the Officers of the Spinax endured a rather tough time at the Officers Club the night before about the torpedoing of the bases liberty launch. The Captains face went red and he told the COB to have it painted over.