East of Newfoundland
Tuesday, November 18, 1941
Heavy seas tossed the USSAtwood, but the interior communications and plotting room enjoyed relative warmth and stability, nestled below the waterline directly under the bridge.
Jim gathered with the four men who ran the Mark 1 computer, a complex piece of machinery, a little bigger than his mom’s kitchen stove, filled with gears and levers and cams and electrical circuits. Beside the computer, three men operated the stable element, smaller than the computer but no less complex.
“Director to plot.” Mr. Reinhardt’s voice came through Jim’s headphones from his position in the gun director high over Jim’s head. “Captain’s ordered us to run a drill using one of the merchant ships as a pretend target. He suggested we aim at theManchester Merchant.”
Jim grinned. The convoy commodore’s ship. The day before, US Task Unit 4.1.5 had picked up Convoy HX-160 off the coast of Newfoundland. During the night, they’d counted sixteen light violations and had received gruff resistance to their orders to darken ships. One of the captains said he didn’t take orders from “gold braids” in tin cans.
Apparently Durant had chosen mock vengeance on the commodore, although the command ship sailed over a mile away from theAtwoodand the commodore would never know he’d been targeted.
Jim spoke into his microphone. “Ammunition?”
Reinhardt laughed. “Nope. We’ll just practice tracking the target, computing the solution, and transmitting to the guns. You’re in condition Standby 2, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Go to Standby 3.”
“Aye aye.” Jim looked up. “Standby 3, men.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The men turned cranks and dials and pushed buttons.
Jim wandered behind the men at the stable element. The gyro inside had already been activated for their current state of readiness. What a great piece of machinery, calculating all the instantaneous compensations needed to overcome the effects of the ship’s pitch and roll.
“Target angle three-zero-five,” Reinhardt said. “Target speed eight knots.”
Jim repeated the initial values aloud, and the computer operators turned little cranks to enter the data manually. Then he called up to the bridge for wind speed and direction, and the operators entered that data too. “At Standby 3,” he told Reinhardt.
“Very well. Begin tracking,” Reinhardt said.
“Aye aye. Begin tracking.”
In front of Jim, the men at the computer operated their dials. TheAtwood’s speed and course came into the computer automatically, and soon the target’s bearing and range would enter the computer by electrical signals from up in the director.
Sure beat the old system of using a plotting board and a ruler and a roll of paper, even if Jim enjoyed learning the method at the Academy.
“Range matched,” one of the operators said.
“Bearing synchronized.”
“Elevation synchronized.”
“Very well.” Jim looked over the shoulders of the computer operators, each attentive to his duties. Skilled, technical work—and each man here knew all the other men’s jobs as well.
“Solution calculated and transmitted to guns,” an operator said.
Jim repeated the information to Reinhardt. In the time it took electricity to travel and motors to turn, the four 5-inch guns would each train and point at the target, with the fuze-setters in the projectile hoists set for the correct range. An engineering marvel.
“Very well,” Reinhardt said. “Cease tracking.”
Not the most complicated target, moving at a sluggish speed in parallel to theAtwood. But the director and computer could make similar calculations even for dive-bombing airplanes.
“Good job, men. Return to Standby 2.” Jim appreciated the captain’s drills. The monotony, discomfort, and constant vigilance of convoy escort wore on the men’s nerves, and having a task to perform helped distract them while honing their skills.
Jim pulled out his clipboard and filled out his report for the drill. The men had been jumpy since they left Boston, and he didn’t blame them. After theReuben Jameswas sunk on October 31, the men oscillated between cold terror that theAtwoodwould be next and heated desire to avenge the men of theReuben James.
