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including 491 Indian POWs, began to jump over the side into the water “like ants off a hot plate.” 21
    Morton ordered his crew to man the deck guns. The Wahoo was now in a “sea of Japanese.” “The water was so thick with enemy soldiers,” recalled George Grider, “that it was literally impossible to cruise through them without pushing them aside like driftwood. These were troops we knew had been bound for New Guinea, to fight and kill our own men, and Mush, whose overwhelming biological hatred of the enemy we were only now beginning to sense, looked about him with exultation at the carnage.” 22
    “There must be close to 10,000 of them in the water,” said one of Morton’s officers.
    “I figure about 9,500 of the sons of bitches,” replied Morton. 23
    “What do you think?” O’Kane asked Morton. “They look like marines to me.” 24
    “You’re damn right they are,” replied Morton. “They’re part of Hirohito’s crack Imperial Marine outfit. I ran into some of them before the war in Shanghai.” 25
    “If those troops get rescued,” O’Kane said, “we’re going to lose a lot of American boys’ lives digging them out of foxholes and shooting them out of palm trees.”
    “I know,” Morton replied, “and it’s a damn stinking shame ... when we’ve got them cold turkey in the water. . . . But there’s still [an] oil tanker and cargo out there. We’re going after those babies as soon as we get a battery charge.” 26
    Morton then ordered his crew to destroy several lifeboats. According to Morton, some of the survivors fired back with pistols—that was all Morton needed to order his men to treat the Japanese as “fair game.” What ensued was the worst slaughter inflicted by an American submarine’s gun crews in World War II, lasting for “nightmarish minutes” in George Grider’s words. 27
    In his patrol report, Morton wrote: “After about an hour of this, we destroyed all the boats and most of the troops.” Back in Hawaii, the Wahoo was welcomed home with a Honolulu Advertiser headline: WAHOO RUNNING JAPS A’GUNNING. Morton and the Wahoo had become famous overnight. In the official endorsements of Morton’s patrol report, no mention was made of what some submariners considered the cold-blooded killing of defenseless troops. 28
    As it turned out, Morton never had to justify his actions after the war. By then, he and the Wahoo ’s crew were dead, entombed by iron somewhere in the Sea of Japan after Japanese patrol planes had caught her, fatally exposed, on the surface. O’Kane would have gone to the bottom along with his mentor had he not been given his own command of the Tang before Wahoo set out on her final patrol in July 1943.
    Fellow submarine captain Ned Beach knew both Morton and O’Kane. “O’Kane was not an over-sentimental man,” he recalled. “Only one who has experienced the extinction of a whole unit of comrades without trace can fully appreciate the icy fingers which must have clutched around his heart when he received the grim news.” 29
    Ever since, Beach added, Dick O’Kane had been on a “mission of vengeance.”

5
    Battle Royal
    D ICK O’KANE LAY IN HIS BUNK, listening to the intercom.
    Suddenly, the duty chief’s messenger burst into his cabin.
    “We’ve got another convoy, captain!” said the excited messenger. “The chief says it’s the best one since the Yellow Sea.” 1
    It was well after dark on October 22, 1944, when O’Kane began to track convoy U-03, which was comprised of six ships, two of them well-armed destroyers, the Tsuga and Hasu. O’Kane considered his options. He would rather not have to penetrate the escort screen on the surface at night, but if he waited, the convoy would reach shallower water.
    Howard Walker handed O’Kane a fresh cup of coffee, and O’Kane began his approach. It was around midnight when one of the Japanese escorts left the convoy to make a search. O’Kane seized his moment, ordering two-thirds speed. By