Action for Men, May 1960 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘Loss of the Perch” by William C. Cham- bliss, © 1959, California National Pro- ductions, Ine., is @ selection from the Signet book, THE SELENT SERVICE, based on the popular nationwide TV series. Wis is With three of her four Diesels gone and her engine : room| flooded, the patched and battered Perch limped to t In the opening months of the war in the Pacific, our submariners contributed little in damage to the enemy but much to the lore of bravery which will forever attach to the men who went down tnto the sea alone and against hopeless odds. There were many such stories. The loss of the Perch 1s one of them. @ LIEUTENANT COMMANDER David A. Hurt had conned the submarine Perch many times through the channel from Cavite to Manila Bay and thence out to sea. He was doing it again. But this time it was different. He guided his ship delib- erately, cautiously through newly planted mine- fields hastily laid to protect the Navy Yard at Cavite from sneak attack. Hurt glanced briefly astern at the towering flames, punctuated by blasts of exploding ammu- nition, that consumed the bomb-wrecked Cavite Navy Yard. The skeletal outlines of cranes and the yard water tower leaned at drunken angles in their slow collapse as underpinnings melted in the searing heat. This was the night of December 10, 1941, East Longitude Time, the second night of years of travail through which the Philippines were to endure Japanese attack and Japanese domination. In the night sky, Hurt could hear the drone of enemy bombers enjoying the im- munity they had earned when they caught most of the Air Corps planes on the ground hours after the news of Pearl Harbor had been broadcast to the world. he surface COomicboOoks.com