大象传媒

In May 1945 Terrapin was patrolling off the North coast of Java, close in shore, close to Jakata. On May 19 a tanker was sighted coming from the West, accompanied by two escorts. Terrapin fired her three stern torpedoes. The sea was flat calm, almost glassy. The torpedo tracks were probably sighted and the target turned away - at the same time the escorts turned towards. Terrapin went down very rapidly and hit the bottom where the chart said 150ft but where there proved to be only 57ft of water. We ploughed into the bottom and could hear our screws churning the silt, which made a great deal of noise, so we stopped almost at once. We could hear the escorts coming and they dropped a pattern of depth charges very close. All the lights went out and fan jets of water squirted inwards
(Terrapin had a riveted pressure hull). We rigged emergency lights and put oilskins over the waterjets to direct them into the bilges.

In the meantime, the Japanese were coming round for another go. The next pattern of charges collapsed 40ft of the pressure hull on the portside forward to a distance of 15 inches and rivets blew into the torpedo tubespace, leaving one-inch holes. There was nothing that we could do about that silently and we evacuated the tubespace and shut the bulkhead doors. Several fires were started in the boat, where salt water had sprayed onto the electrics. These fires were quickly got out but they fouled the air and used up oxygen.

This set the pattern for the next seven hours. At one stage we could hear the escorts crossing, but there were no explosions. We started to kid ourselves that they had lost us or had run out of depth charges, but then a depth charge was heard to hit the hull amidships and slide down to rest on the bottom alongside us. It was apparently overset. The problem was that since depth charges are pressure-responsive another depth charge could initiate it with fatal results. The thought then occurred that previous crossing runs without explosions had also been accompanied by overset depth charges, and we could be sitting in a nest of these things all waiting to go off. It was therefore decided to attempt to move away. We tried to blow the forward main ballast tank. Air could be heard roaring about the main vent, which was obviously jammed open. We nevertheless tried to move but our screws made so much noise that we had to stop. That noise and the air blown to the surface from one main ballast gave the Japanese something to aim at and they started all over again.

Eventually, after about seven hours we realised it was dark up top. We timed their crossing runs to estimate when they would be at maximum distance from us. It was not clear that we would be able to surface with the tubespace, one main ballast and, as we found out, the AIV tank flooded. When we blew two, four and six main ballast, the stern came up first. Eventually, the bowl came unstuck and we surfaced stern first and came to rest with the forward part of the boat underwater. The forward hydroplanes were jammed, turned out and hard to dive, and could not be moved. Although propulsion was OK, we couldn't afford to move at any speed because we would have dived inadvertantly.

We saw the Japanese 4,000 yards away to the West. Fortunately, the first-quarter moon was setting in the West and they were silhouetted in the moonpath whereas we were in the dark. We turned stern on and crept out of there. The original intention had been to lie on the bottom of the Thousand Islands, west of Jakata the following day, surfaced that night and try to get out through Sunda Strait, but we saw Japanese war ships coming from the westward.

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