Trapped 200ft underwater with time running out: How a sub crew escaped death… only to meet a fate MUCH worse
By TOM CLAVIN FOR DAILY MAIL
Everything appeared to be in slow motion – except the torpedo spearing through the water towards them at 30 knots.
Only five minutes earlier, the USS Tang had been in the middle of a feeding frenzy that would secure its position as the most successful American submarine in the Pacific Ocean.
But its last torpedo had turned sharply left – and was now coming straight back at the Tang.
Of the 87 men on board that early morning in October 1944, as many as 50 were killed instantly when the torpedo hit.
Of the survivors, most were injured.
One of the few unharmed ones was Clayton Decker, who had been stationed in the control room.
He helped Chief Bill Ballinger to his feet. Blood was leaking from a cut on Ballinger’s forehead, but he had enough foresight to know the pair’s only chance of survival was to get to the forward torpedo room, where the escape chamber was.
When they arrived, as many as 30 other men were already packed in there – the more severely injured lying in bunks, fully aware they would never escape.