4/10/43 1600 hours – Near Electric Boat

Jason Miller was one of the new people the Navy had selected for training for a combat assignment in the plotting room of the undersea cable site. He had picked up an unknown ship on the south cable about five minutes ago, its signal was increasing steadily. It was a new sound so he set up the recorder and began cutting a track. The recording equipment was a standard dictating machine, the sound was recorded on a plastic belt with a sharp stylus. Jason had no idea of what he was hearing but this much he knew, it was diesel powered and moving along briskly about thirty three miles off shore. He could hear it well on the microphone thirty three, barely on thirty two and not at all on thirty four. He walked to the door and looked out, the area was clouded in fog, the visibility was less than a couple of hundred yards. When he came back the sound was gone. He turned up the gain and a different sound was there, he knew it well, it was a submarine running on batteries, and it was close to the cable. He switched to the two adjacent microphones again and the position was the same, just under thirty two miles. Apparently Electric Boat was testing a new submarine.

The submarine passed the line and soon Jason could no longer hear it. He looked at his watch, 1643, seventeen minutes till the end of his shift. He began to pull out the power down procedure, to have it ready at 1700. The men had planned a party for the evening at a pub, he did not want to be late.

At 1652 Jason was counting minutes and ready to begin turning off the equipment when his luck changed for the worse. His commanding officer came in with an entourage of visiting brass. They began to ask questions, obviously they had something to do with the project. He would be late for the party. With the heavy brass came a lone Naval Ensign, on crutches with a large cast on his leg. He began asking Jason questions, in fact his questions were the only ones that made any sense. He had apparently been on a Destroyer and worked with the sonar watch. He asked to hear something from the cable. Jason checked and there was nothing coming in on any of the microphones. The easiest recording to play was the one Jason had just cut, the unknown submarine. He pulled the stylus back to the start of the track and turned up the volume. The sound of the diesels came through the speaker. The Ensign turned and looked at the speaker, almost with disbelief. The diesels stopped and there was a sound of water rushing into tanks, obviously a diving submarine. The belt was quiet, then in response to Jason’s turning up the volume when he returned from checking the weather, the sound of a submarine running submerged. The Ensign stood transfixed listening to it.