Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. (Job 38.1–3)
Halsey’s Typhoon
On 17 December 1944, three teenage sailors (fuel technicians), clad in blue-chambray shirts, scaled the ladder leading up to the flat-top roof of the bridge of the T2 oiler USS Wapahani. The ship was part of the Third Fleet under the command of Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey.
The crew had tried all morning to refuel a destroyer. But between the slanting rain and wind-whipped spindrift their work had been made impossible. When both vessels nearly collided, the captain called the op off until the fleet’s aerologists could determine when the storm they were heading into was expected to dissipate.
Felix Plunkett was the oldest of the trio. He had grown up on a small farm in rural Kansas; and his knowledge of the sea had been limited to the Kodachrome photographs of it in his dad’s National Geographic magazines; or in the fleeting glimpses of it that he caught in the films and newsreels that he saw in Topeka’s movie houses.
But when he finally feasted his naked eyes on the placid embayed main from the heights of San Francisco’s Presidio, it was love at first sight. He wrote home to tell his family that he planned to marry himself to the sea and become a merchant mariner after the war. And he did this even before leaving port.
When his new bride bucked beneath him on the wedding night, Plunkett found her feistiness alluring; and, in the arrogance of his youth, he thought that, given time, he could break and tame her, as he’d done the mustang foal he caught in the Flint Hills when he was fourteen.
The ship’s bell signaled noon, but the deck lights were on. The sky was as dark as the soot pouring out of the broad black smokestack astern. In the distance, the aircraft carrier USS Hornet was stretched out on the swells “like somethin’ out o’ Buck Rogers,” Plunkett observed.
As far as the eye could see, which wasn’t far, semaphore lamps winked asynchronously in the mist to alert the other Task Force-38 vessels tilting on the waves of their location and bearing.
A knee-high pipe rail encircled the rooftop. There were cables and handholds that provided grips. If one of the boys had fallen from the roof, he would’ve landed on the superstructure 10-feet below, which would not likely have been fatal unless he had landed on his neck or spine.
A whitewashed aluminum mast (crowned with a pickle-fork antenna) was situated sternward. Insulated wires ran down its length into the upper-level padlocked section of the radio shack at the back of the bridge.
Dietmar Wesel, whom everyone called “Weasel” because the company commander at Farragut had pronounced his surname that way, expressed concern that their boondockers stomping on the roof might alert the bridge crew to their presence.
But Plunkett, whose mouth had condemned him to KP duty for the two weeks and who delivered breakfast to the officers on the bridge, said that it was too loud inside to hear anything outside. He jumped up and down to prove his point, but slipped and almost fell as the oiler crested a wave.
“Besides,” he said, seizing a cable overhead, “Captain said the refuelin’ ops are done for the day and we’re free to do whatever we want—”
“He said,” Aidan Healy interposed, pushing his wire-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose, “that we’re free to do whatever we want so long as we don’t horse around or get in the way. I think this counts as horsin’ around.”
When they had put in at port in Ulithi, Healy and Wesel had spent the majority of their free time ogling the local girls. But Felix contracted a fever and was confined to the infirmary, where he found an Armed Services Edition (ASE) of Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon, printed on long narrow pages bound by a single staple, like a cop’s ticket book.
He’d read the thing so many times that the pages got soggy and started falling out. At night, from the top bunk of the quarters they shared, he’d recite the more exciting passages until Wesel (a Texan from Corpus Christi) and Healy (a Floridian from Saint Augustine) could bear it no more.
“Plunkett,” Wesel said, “both me and Healy’ve seen tropical storms.”
“They’re not fun,” Healy added, silently mouthing the Latin words of Leviticus in his Vulgate Bible. “Beside, you keep callin’ the main character Captain MacWire. It’s Captain MacWhirr.—Like whirrin’ winds.”
“Really? . . . I thought two ‘R’s with an ‘I’ in front of ’em made an ‘ire’ sound.”
“I don’t know where you picked that up,” Healy muttered.
Now that they were standing on the roof like idiots Plunkett raised Conrad’s Typhoon again.
“I ain’t never seen a tropical storm up close,” he said. “But I been in tornadoes. They ain’t dangerous if you stay out o’ the way of ’em. I wanna be outside when this thang hits. Pearl Harbor’s sayin’ it’s already weakenin’. And Bowen, who’s smart and knows science and stuff, said there won’t be any risk o’ lightnin’ cause the vertical winds ain’t strong enough and it’s got a warm core.”
“If it’s got a warm core,” Healy said, “it’s gonna have an eye. Typhoons aren’t tornadoes. They’re much, much bigger.”
“What’s your plan?” Wesel asked, curious.
“I wanna ride through it a couple o’ hours. We ain’t doin’ the refuelin’ op again till tomorrow afternoon—at the earliest. I want you fellas to come up here with me tomorrow mornin’ and lash my arms and legs to the mast so I don’t blow away.”
“Like Odysseus with the sirens?” Healy sneered.
“Somethin’ like that,” Plunkett said, ignorant of the allusion. “I wanna do it after the sun’s up so’s I can see.”
“You don’t even know if the sun’s gonna be up at dawn,” Wesel observed.
“Sun’s always up at dawn, Weasel,” Healy said.
“I didn’t say dawn,” Plunkett interjected. “I’m on KP duty till 08:30. I’m thinkin’ 9:00. That way there’ll be enough light behind the clouds to see by, even if the sun ain’t visible.”
“You guys’ll have to do this on your own,” Healy said, going to the ladder. “I don’t want anything to do with it.”
Wesel and Plunkett waited until they heard Healy’s boots hit the mezzanine floor at the base of the steps. The Texas-German squinted at Plunkett. “Why don’t you tie yourself behind the mast? You’d be able to do it on your own. That way you can brace your back against the radio shack and hide your face behind the pole to protect your face and eyes from the gusts if need be.”
“I don’t wanna do that, ’cause I ain’t a coward, Weasel. I wanna stand proud and face the whirlwind like Job did when the Lord stepped out of it and come lookin’ for him.”
“Suit yourself,” Wesel replied, heading to the ladder.
“Then you’ll do it?” Plunkett asked.
“I suppose.”
Next day at 9:30 a.m. Healy found himself below deck in a starboard fuel tank that had been converted into a cargo hold. A matching one had been fitted up port-side, because both tanks, which were located near the middle of the ship, had been improperly welded; and after the SS Schenectady went down in Oregon, it was decided to reinforce them from the inside and no longer use them to store liquids.
The hold was illuminated by dim bulbs screwed into a row of ceiling sockets padded with black mastic.
Healy was sitting on the galvanized floor playing two-man Pinochle with another sailor. Because the floor kept tilting, they played on a plank of wood lodged between their knees. Healy possessed a thick rubber band (a prized commodity due to the rubber rationing); and he had wrapped the rubber band round the smooth edges of the plank to slip cards under and keep them in place.
Wesel threw open the hatch and climbed down the ladder. He kept close to the wall to steady himself as he made his way to them.
Healy glanced up. “Did you do that thing?” he asked, not wanting to tip the other sailor to Plunkett’s stupid plan.
“Tja,” Wesel nodded, lapsing into a German affirmative. “It’s windy up there. Took me twenty minutes to tighten the knots. I fastened a rope round his waist for good measure. The rain’s pickin’ up. He’s gonna get drenched.”
”What are you guys talkin’ about?” the other sailor asked.
“Nothin’,” Wesel said.—“Hey Garnet!”
“What?!”
“Come over here so’s we can play Five-Card Draw.”
The four sailors played for an hour. The lights flickered due to the fluctuations of the electric current.
Eventually, Wesel stood up and handed Healy his cards. “I gotta go take a piss. After that I’m gonna go get him.”
He went to the ladder, clutching the cargo webbing along the wall, because the ship was rolling more than it had been an hour ago. The closest latrine was above deck and behind the steps that led up to the bridge.
As he reached the bottom of the ladder, the overhead hatch flew open. Several rain-draggled sailors began sliding down, one after the other. Not just a few; but scores. Wesel noticed that some of the men worked different shifts and should’ve been in their quarters.
When the ladder was free, Wesel started climbing it, but had to step back down because an officer was descending.
“Where you goin’, Weasel?” Lieutenant Stout asked.
“I need to hit the head, sir,” Wesel replied.
“You’re gonna have to do it in your britches. Captain’s orders. The waves and winds are mounting, and it’s gonna get worse.”
“But I gotta—”
“You gotta what?” the officer said.
He didn’t respond.
“You’re in Alpha Quarters, right?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Stout.”
“Then you’re in the right place. The hatch ain’t openin’ again till we get the ‘all clear’. Fuel techs and other support crew need to be below deck. Beta Quarter’s in the port-side hold.”
As he said this, he nodded to the petty officer next to him, who climbed the ladder, turned the wheel lock and dogged the hatch. The main lights went out but two large overhead red light bulbs came on.
Wesel went back to Healy, who knew exactly what he was thinking.
Healy gathered up the cards and put the Hoyle pack away. Then he double-wrapped the rubber band round his right wrist and thrust his hand into his pocket where he kept his rosary.
Wesel and Healy pressed their backs against the starboard wall, while the men formed two ranks on either side of the hold. They left a narrow way between them, as they had been taught to during the drills.
“Listen up!” Lieutenant Stout said. “We’re about to go into rough weather. Brace yourselves as best you can. Sit down and snuggle up with your buddies the way you do in your bunks at night when no one’s lookin’.” When the bluff laughter had subsided he added, “Get ready. We’re about to rattle and roll!”
No sooner had the men taken their seats than the room tipped starboard and the guys opposite slid across the floor, and colliding with the men on the other side. The sailors jokingly said “Whooooooah!” all together (like spectators at a ball game or boxing match). The ship righted itself and the guys started scuttling back to the other side, grabbing webbing where available.
But when the ship listed to the starboard side a second time, there was less laughter, since the ship was now tilted 30 degrees, forcing them to put the soles of their boots against the starboard wall.
One man’s initial mirth turned instantly to feral outrage: “You broke my finger, asshole!”
“Why ain’t she rightin’ again?!” someone exclaimed. The man had expressed what the others feared, which was that the ship was about to tip over.
Now they heard alarm bells sounding.
“Is there a fire on deck?!” Healy heard himself say.
“Maybe in the boiler room!” came an answer.
The lieutenant rose in a half-crouch and yanked open the call box to contact the bridge. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “It’s dead.”
Wesel pissed his pants.
“Lieutenant Stout,” a timid sailor said, “How come the bells keep ringing? Does it mean we’re sinking?”
Bowen—who knew science and stuff—spoke up: “We’re completely underwater on this side, but the bulkheads’ll keep us afloat. The bells are probably warnin’ us not to open the hatch ’cause the deck’s awash with waves and it’ll flood the hold.”
“If we’re underwater, dipshit,” said the petty officer who’d dogged the hatch, “we won’t be able to open it.”
“Why are we still leanin’ starboard if nothin’s wrong?!” the man with the broken finger asked.
“Maybe we’re turning about to face the waves,” Bowen suggested.
Abruptly, the red lights went out and the hold was plunged into darkness. The bells stopped ringing, but now they heard the sound of grinding metal followed by a monotonous thumping noise as the pumps sprang to life. The walls and floor shook. Then water started gushing out of the vents.
“What’s happening?!” the men cried out.
Elbows in chests, knees in backs, the men fought their way in the dark, trying to stand, trying to push through the gushing water toward the hatch.
Lieutenant Stout’s voice rose above din. “I’m at the base of the ladder. I got one elbow on a rung and my pistol drawn. If any of you so much as brushes the muzzle, I’ll pull the fuckin’ trigger!”
They stopped. Some men wept and some men moaned. Amid the panic, water continued pouring down on them from the vents. It was now ankle-deep and rising. The thumping metal and the hum of the motorized pumps added to their collective horror.
Without warning, the water stopped. The vessel creakingly began to right itself.
“Lieutenant Stout!” Bowen shouted. “They’re ejecting oil from the starboard fuel tanks ’cause tanks 2 and 4 port-side are low.”
“Of course that’s what they’re doing,” Lieutenant Stout replied. “It’s called deballasting!” His tone made it clear that he hadn’t thought of that until Bowen suggested it.
“But it’ll take a long time for enough fuel to be ejected to raise the draft,” Bowen added. “So that can’t be why we’re tiltin’ back to port now. I imagine—”
“Shut up, Bowen!” Lieutenant Stout snapped. The men could hear the pistol being re-holstered. “You guys find a place and sit down.”
—“When are they gonna turn the lights on?”
—“How are we gonna know the coast is clear?”
“I don’t know,” the lieutenant said. “We just gotta sit in the swamp and wait.”
They sat for hours. Some stood periodically, because their limbs ached or their skin felt pruny. Others complained that they were thirsty.
“Any of you knuckleheads have a flashlight?” Lieutenant Stout asked.
“I had one,” a guy from the Bronx said, “but it’s fucked-up now ’cause o’ the water.”
“Jesus Christ,” the lieutenant mumbled.
The guy with the broken finger started mimicking Lieutenant Stout: ‘If any of you so much as brushes the muzzle, I’ll pull the fuckin’ trigger!’
Everyone laughed, including Lieutenant Stout.
“Yeah,” Bowen snickered. “He sounded like James Cagney!”
“Shut up, Bowen,” the lieutenant said. “I could write you up for insubordination.”
There were no more surprises. But the ride remained bumpy, unpleasant and nauseating. They lost track of time. Some slumped on a neighbor’s shoulder and started snoring. Others grumbled that the “swamp” the lieutenant had spoken of was becoming a cesspool because people were “doin’ their business” in it.
Eventually, the fans kicked on and blew fresh air into the vents, but the hold remained stale and stuffy.
“I’m dying of thirst,” one man said in a weak voice.
“Anyone got a canteen?” the lieutenant asked.
“I do,” another voice replied. “I knew something like this might happen, so I grabbed my water. Why should I share it with him, just ’cause he didn’t think of it himself?”
“You don’t have to share it with anyone, Petersen,” Lieutenant Stout yawned.
“I guess you can have a swig,” Petersen said, passing the canteen down to the man. “Just don’t drink it all.”
The man next to the guy who was dying of thirst upturned the canteen and they heard him gulping.
“Hey!” Petersen said.
“Just kidding,” he said. “I didn’t even open it.” He handed it to the thirsty guy; but, since he still had everyone’s attention, he spoke again: “It does beg the question, Lieutenant Stout: Why did they lock us down here without food or water?”
“It’s ’cause there wasn’t time,” Lieutenant Stout said. “The waves were as high as mountains. I think we’re almost out of it. We ain’t been down here too long.”
“We’ve been down here for at least four hours,” Bowen said. “I’m good at sensin’ time, even in the dark. I’m trainin’ myself so I can be a pilot on a rocket ship if we ever go to outer space, ’cause time’s different up there than it is down here.”
Lieutenant Stout sighed. “Bowen, you’re a goddamned weirdo.”
Someone broke the silence. “This reminds me of when I was an elevator operator in this swank hotel in Philly. It got stuck on it for two hours between floors.”
“Were you sittin’ on your ass in sewage water?” the man with the broken finger asked.
“No.”
“Then this isn’t anything like that.”
“Why are you being so mean, Hackett?” Bowen asked.
“’Cause my finger’s broke!—And I worked in a coal mine; and we got stuck underground one time, and had to wait two days to get out. But I ain’t tellin’ everyone about it and claimin’ it’s the same thing as what we’re goin’ through now!”
Lieutenant Stout spat into the water. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled.
Someone banged on the hatch. The petty officer who had sealed it, climbed the ladder and turned the wheel lock.
The men woke up their sleeping comrades and began to stand. The hatch swung open and they could see again. An officer on the deck called down, saying they could come out but needed to be careful, because the wind was still blustery, and all the cargo crates were busted up and their contents were sliding around.
As they emerged from the hatch, the sailors were ordered to tend to different tasks: securing loose cables, tying down flapping canvas, fetching broken pieces of equipment. But before any of them did that, they ran to the outside spigots near the stern, and slaked their thirst.
Even Healy and Wesel had to do this before they could go to Lieutenant Stout and explain to him about what Plunkett had done. The officer was being briefed on what had happened, but he felt the young sailors’ eyes boring into him, and wheeled around. “What?”
They were both horrible liars and confessed everything. They told Lieutenant Stout about Plunkett’s scheme. Wesel admitted that he himself had lashed Plunkett to the mast. But Healy suggested to the lieutenant that maybe Plunkett escaped and ended up in the port-side hold. But the lieutenant knew that, if this had happened, the boy would be on the deck now. Without a word, the lieutenant dashed across the deck to the bridge.
Healy and Wesel followed. Healy crossed himself, and both of them were praying aloud, hoping that their friend was still alive. But by the time they reached the ladder to the flat-top roof, they could tell by Lieutenant Stout’s swearing that Plunkett was dead.
He was slumped down at the base of the mast, legs wide apart at a crazy angle. The winds had torn open his shirt and the ovoid dog tags (unique to the Navy) rattled in the blasts. The ropes had held him fast; but the violent movements of the ship had caused the one around his waist to bite into his sternum until a cracked rib was poking out above it. The chafing on his wrists proved that he had tried to free himself.
“You two stay here,” the lieutenant said. They waited in silence and utter dejection, until Lieutenant Stout returned with the Captain.
The old man stared at the corpse with an incredulous half-smile. Then he looked the two sailors up and down. It was obvious to him that the story they’d told Lieutenant Stout was the truth, since the pipsqueaks couldn’t possibly have overpowered the stronger kid and dragged him up here in secret.
“Hope you boys can live with youselves knowin’ you helped kill your friend,” he said.
“Captain,” Lieutenant Stout said, pointing to the corpse, “what do you want us to do with . . . ?”
“Get his dog tags and wrap him up. Toss him in the water tomorrow. We don’t got space to store dead meat.”
“What should I say in the telegram, sir?”
“I don’t care what you say. But I ain’t puttin’ my John Hancock on a piece o’ paper claimin’ he died a hero.” The Captain strode back to the ladder and climbed down. They overheard him talking to the Flag Lieutenant as he headed back to the bridge: “Stupid fuckin’ kids. You wouldn’t believe what they did up there.”
The next morning, Healy overheard Wesel crying in the bunk beneath him. As the two made their way outside at dawn to commit their friend to the sea, Healy patted Wesel on the shoulder and said, “Maybe when the war’s over, we’ll visit his parents and tell ’em he died honorably.”
Wesel shrugged. “Tja.”
When word got out of what had happened, many of the sailors said Plunkett’s death was tantamount to suicide and decided not to attend the funeral since they weren’t ordered to. But Lieutenant Stout showed up.
The storm died down, but the rain kept coming. The chaplain recited a brief prayer, after which Healy stepped forward and inserted Plunkett’s ASE copy of Typhoon between the folds of the sewed-up sailcloth serving as his burial shroud.
The weighted burden was dumped overboard, and the chaplain closed by reciting from memory a passage from the Book of Job, which seemed (in Healy’s mind) to contain within it a faint whiff of scorn and admonition:
“But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.”
In the days that followed, the crew of the Wapahani learned the full magnitude of the damage done to the fleet by the three-day storm: one hundred and forty six planes had either been washed away or rendered inoperable; three destroyers had sunk; and seven hundred and ninety souls were lost.
This tragic episode of the War in the Pacific is generally referred to as Typhoon Cobra. But to the men who experienced it, the worst natural disaster in the U.S. Navy’s history (and one that might easily have been avoided), the event would always be referred to as “Halsey’s Typhoon.”
During WWII, T2 tankers (also called oilers) were named after the Native American renderings of famous U.S. rivers. The Miami word for White River is wapahani, meaning either “white shore” or “white water.” There was a T2 oiler called USS Wapahani in WWII, but it was not part of Task Force 38.
This is a work of fiction. But the part about being below deck during Typhoon Cobra was inspired by events a relative of mine who served aboard the USS Monterey at the time confided to me as a cautionary tale when I was about to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces in the 1980s but had not settled on which branch of service I would join.
Daniel, this is brilliant. I was absolutely riveted the whole way through. And it's even more compelling to know that it's inspired by true events experienced by a relative of yours. Tight quarters on a crowded ship is bad enough, but when you factor in all the things that can go wrong, esp. in a storm, it's a nightmare. I grew up by the sea, but I took the ferry across the English Channel and it was very rough, to the point they told everyone to stay in their cabins to avoid getting hurt. The ferries are big enough to move cars, trucks, and buses, etc., but this ship was being thrown around on the waves like it was a raft. And that wasn't even a serious storm, so I can't even imagine what it's like to really be at the sea's mercy. Respect to anyone who makes their living that way.
Great atmospherics here, Daniel. Yes, some storms definitely shouldn’t be faced head on! And Job always good for a little mystery menace. The sound of the sirens. 👌🏻