The Galloping Ghost

The Galloping Ghost

This book has been brought to publication
with the generous assistance of
the United States Naval Academy Class of 1945.

The Extraordinary Life of
Submarine Legend Eugene Fluckey

Carl LaVO

NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS
Annapolis, Maryland

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 2007 by Carl LaVO

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book has been brought to publication with the generous contribution from the Paul Bechtner Foundation of Winnetka, Illinois.

First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published 2011.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

LaVO, Carl,

The galloping ghost : the extraordinary life of submarine legend Eugene Fluckey / Carl LaVO.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-61251-075-0 (alk. paper)

1. Barb (Ship) 2. Fluckey, Eugene B., 1913– 3. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations—Submarine. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, American. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Pacific Ocean. 6. Admirals—United States—Biography. I. Title.

D783.5.B36L38 2007

940.54'51092—dc22

[B]

2006103510

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First printing

In memory of my grandmother,

Ivy Lavon Canning LaVO,

a Utah pioneer

who gave me a love

of the printed word

Preface

Prologue

The Bomb

PART ONE

North Beach

20/20

Over and Under

Submersibles

War Fish

The Boat from Scotland

PART TWO

Rift (Seventh Patrol)

Kito (Eighth Patrol)

Lost (Ninth Patrol)

Chaos (Tenth Patrol)

Secret Harbor (Eleventh Patrol)

Mom Chung

Graduation (Twelfth Patrol)

PART THREE

Nimitz

The Fluckey Factor

Flag Officer

Boomers

Sintra

Epilogue

In His Light

Acknowledgments

Bibliographic Essay

USS
Barb
Muster Rolls

Index

Gene Fluckey was one of the great naval heroes of World War II. His exploits as captain of the submarine USS
Barb
revolutionized undersea warfare and laid the groundwork for the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine fleet that today is the primary deterrent and capability of the United States against nuclear attack by a foreign country.

At this writing, the retired rear admiral is the most decorated living American, having earned numerous presidential, congressional, and military honors in his lifetime. They include four Navy Crosses and the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor. In the war against Japan, he sank more tonnage than any other U.S. submarine captain, a total of eighty-five enemy vessels, including an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, a destroyer, and numerous cargo ships, and he also destroyed a troop train after landing submariners-turned-saboteurs on mainland Japan in 1945—the only invasion by the American military of the Japanese homeland during the war. In postwar years, he served with distinction in a variety of posts, including commander of all submarines in the Pacific, director of Naval Intelligence, and commander of NATO's Iberian Area operations based in Portugal. He knew every president from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton and, even in retirement, participated in numerous national security briefings at the White House.

Admiral Fluckey's infectious, near spiritual optimism throughout his naval career had a transforming effect on the men who served with and under him. He loved people, from flag officers down to the most junior enlisted sailor. He devoted himself to veterans of the
Barb
and always credited them for his early success. And they returned that devotion to a skipper who raised them to greater heights without demeaning or treating them harshly. At the last ship's reunion with Admiral Fluckey in 2003, three crewmen broke down in tears while describing how the skipper had enriched their lives.

I met retired Admiral Fluckey for the first and only time at his home in the Baywood Retirement Center in Annapolis, Maryland, in the fall of 2004. At ninety-one years old, he seemed more like someone in his late fifties or early sixties with his full shock of hair, trim build, natty dress, and buoyant demeanor. I had just begun research into his career and thought he could clear up a few questions. Unfortunately, Alzheimer's disease had progressively robbed him of his recollections. He could recall moments from his childhood, his academy years, and his early service in World War II. However, he was at a loss in answering many of my questions. Still, even then, he displayed the dry wit that has characterized his life. When asked about an episode of his life he had long forgotten, he replied with a twinkle in his eyes and a hearty laugh, “I don't know. You tell me.”

Through Admiral Fluckey's memoirs, Navy documents, relatives, shipmates, and friends, I took up his challenge. Here, then, is his story.

Carl LaVO
6 June 2006

Gene Fluckey stood before two thousand uniformed officers and sailors and Marines gathered on the flight deck of the nuclear supercarrier
Carl Vinson
(CVN-70) on the morning of 2 September 1995. Behind him in Pearl Harbor were the sunken remains of the USS
Arizona
(BB-39) and the battleship's entombed crew, killed on the first day of World War II. The retired rear admiral had come to Hawaii from his home in Annapolis to introduce President Bill Clinton on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war. Fluckey, at age eighty-one, was a living reminder of the heroism that had galvanized the nation following the sinking of the
Arizona
and seven other battleships in Pearl Harbor in 1941. As a young lieutenant commander in the years following that attack, he was determined to win the war against Japan while facing nearly impossible odds. John H. Dalton, secretary of the navy, in introducing him, summarized his wartime feats. “Sailing in the tradition of John Paul Jones, Gene Fluckey carried the Navy's torch for a brief but critical period in the life of our nation. In five patrols as commanding officer of the submarine
Barb
, Gene Fluckey was awarded the Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses—a remarkable achievement for a thirty-year-old submarine skipper.”

Fluckey, in a navy-blue blazer pinned with medals, smiled broadly beneath the bill of a baseball cap denoting his service as a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commander. Approaching the microphone to a thundering ovation, he provided the linkage between a fleet that was
nearly decimated at the beginning of World War II and the powerful, unrivaled armada now at rest in Pearl Harbor. In 1941 diesel-powered submarines were among the few warships that could take the war to the enemy. Their weaponry—twenty-four often-defective torpedoes and a single large deck gun—would have to do. Fifty years later the
Carl Vinson
represented the most powerful single warship in the world, a floating citadel powered by two nuclear reactors, with a crew of 5,617 and ninety aircraft, including dozens of F/A-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat fighter jets. Nearby stood the conning towers of nuclear attack subs that could stay submerged for months at a time if necessary.

“World War II was the first time since the War of 1812 that our home soil was attacked,” Fluckey began in a strong, patient voice. “Americans rose as one to win—and that we did. We won with persistence, determination, and bravery. The average age of the crewmen in the
Barb
was twenty-three. Their spirit and love of country kept us going forward, patrol after patrol. I've always believed luck is where you find it but, by God, you've got to get out there and find it. My experience in World War II gave me my philosophy in life: We don't have problems; we have solutions.”

In his turn, the president acknowledged the admiral's “astonishing service” to his country while recalling the attack on the battleships in Pearl Harbor, the vicious and costly Pacific island fighting, and the hard-won naval battles.

Afterward the president and the First Lady dined with Admiral Fluckey and his wife in the carrier's wardroom. Inevitably the conversation drifted to world politics. It seemed to Clinton that success was within reach in a number of conflicts. In Bosnia a U.S.-led aerial bombardment had beaten back Serbian armed forces threatening to spark ethnic warfare throughout southeast Europe. In Northern Ireland a negotiated end to decades of internal strife had been achieved. And in Israel the government was about to grant Palestinians autonomy in a deal brokered by President Clinton and to be signed by Yassar Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. Trouble percolated elsewhere, however—in Iraq, in North Korea, in Chechnya and Georgia in the old Soviet Union, along the India-Pakistan border, in Afghanistan, in Malaysia, and in the Philippines. The administration also had a growing interest in the whereabouts and activities of a man named Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who had been expelled from his country in 1991. He was believed to be heading up a highly sophisticated and well-financed anti-American terrorist organization from bases in the Sudan. A 1993 car bombing that rattled the World Trade Center and a foiled attempt to blow up planes flying to the United States from the Philippines were believed to be bin Laden's handiwork.

At the luncheon Clinton wondered how the legendary submarine skipper might view the world situation. The president leaned toward the admiral. “What do you think, Gene, is the worst peril facing the United States?”

The answer came back quickly.

“Mr. President, in my opinion it's international terrorism. And I speak from personal experience.”

No one anticipated an attack by men disguised as painters. No one suspected paint drums were packed with explosives and time-delay fuses. Nor was there any hint that their intent on the afternoon of 27 October 1971 was to blow up the new regional headquarters of NATO in Oeiras, Portugal—and kill Gene Fluckey.

The fifty-eight-year-old rear admiral had arrived earlier in the day to go over plans for the dedication of the new facility. For four years he had been involved in its planning and construction at the site of the long-abandoned Fort Gomes Freire. The eighteenth-century gunnery school, which guarded the mouth of the Targus River where it meets the Atlantic near Lisbon, was notable for its stone walls laid out in the shape of a pentagon. At a cost of $6.5 million, Portugal had erected a low-slung, two-story administrative headquarters just outside the perimeter of the fort. The building included VIP briefing rooms, offices, and a dining hall. Work continued on a subterranean communications, intelligence, and command network beneath the old fort. The entire complex, known as IBERLANT headquarters, was to be the nerve center for an expanded oversight of shipping lanes off the Iberian Peninsula, where 90 percent of western Europe's oil passed. The command also would be responsible for the security of the strategic Gibraltar Straits and its approaches from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.