S-4 Submarine sunk off Wood Eng

Prohibition spawned an entirely new industry in Provincetown: rumrunning. Policing it caused the Coast Guard destroyer, Paulding, to collide with the submarine, S-4, killing all aboard.

It was getting near the holidays and rumrunners were active. The Coast Guard dispatched the Paulding from Boston to police them, and as it rounded Race Point Light, the U.S. submarine, S-4 , which was on sea trials, was breaking surface on a collision course with it. The conning tower of the S-4 was half out of the water when they struck, crushing her sharp iron stem into a batter room of the submarine, just forward of the conning tower. The sub sank at once. The Paulding launched rescue boats immediately in an effort to rescue any survivors. For hours boatswain Gracie, who had launched his surf boat to where it went down, used a grappling hook in the bitter southwest wind trying to locate the sub. He was determined to save the men in what would prove to be more than 100 feet of water. At 10:00 Saturday night, almost six and a half hours after the collision, Gracie located the S-4. The southwest wind of the afternoon had change to northwest with a 30 M.P.H. gale force wind by evening. The resources of the U.S. Navy had been put on alert when the Paulding had radioed a message that she had hit an unknown sub. The Bushnell had been dispatched from Portsmouth, N.H. as well as the Navy salvage ship, Falcon, from New London, CT. Tugboats towing pontoons to raise the S-4 were enroute from NY. Gracie's grapnel line snapped before the lights of the Bushnell had even appeared. At 10:30 A.M. Sunday morning, 19 hours after collision, Gracie succeeded in relocating the sub. Eight Navy divers had arrived with the Falcon. Diver Thomas Eadie descended the grapnel line to the S-4 despite highly unfavorable weather. He found the starboard bow had received the full force of the destroyers' keel. To locate survivors he had been tapping a hammer against the sides hoping to get a response. He received only one answering signal from the forward torpedo room compartment. Plans were made on the Falcon to raise the sub by connecting an air hose to the main balast tank, forcing the water ballast out, allowing the sub to rise to the survace. Diver William Carr secured the hose to the valve and waited to observe escaping air bubbles, indicating leaks in the hull. The naval vessels in the area shifted their positions to allow the sub to rise to the surface without fouling them. After an hour, the first bubbles appeared; the sub could not get off the bottom. The weather was growing steadily worse when a third attempt was made to dive to the sub to attach an air line for the men trapped inside. This dive resulted in Frederick Michael's life line and air line becoming tangled in the submarine's wreckage, trapping him on the bottom. Diver Thomas Eadie descended for a rescue attempt. Though he managed to free Michaels form the wreckage, using a hacksaw, his own diving suit became torn in the process. Only the compressed air in his helmet kept him from drowning. Michaels and Eadie were placed in a decompresion chamber on board the Falcon. Michale's injuries were so severe that the Falcon transported him to a hospital in Boston the next morning. Eadie was awarded a congressional Medal of Honor for his part in the resue.

By this time, another sub, the S-8, and additional rescue ships, were standing by . Due to the storm, however, all they could do was send messages to the trapped men by way of an oscillograph. Microphones had been attached to the hull of the S-4. The imprisoned sailors answered the oscillograph messages by tapping against the wall of the sub. From these messages it was learned that out of the crew of 40 sailors and 2 civilians there were 6 survivors. It was also determined that the container of oxygen would be exhaused by Monday night.

The commanders of the salvage operation devised a plan where, at the first break in the weather, those inside the S-4 would open the outer port of a torpedo tube where a diver could place a cylinder of oxygen, food and lime soda to purify the bood. Then the imprisoned men, after closing the outer torpedo port, could open the inner port to obtain the supplies enabling them to survive a few more days. The weather did not subside, however,so no oxygen cylinder was lowered to the S-4.

Throughout Provincetown people kept vigil with the men on the S-4. The Town Hall had been converted into a headquarters for the press. The people, through their experience with the sea, were openly affected by the progress, or rather the lack of it,of the attempt to rescue the men on board the submarine. The Navy had forbidden the press or anyone else to go in boats to the scene of the disaster. The seeming inactivity caused by the weather caused feelings to run very high in Provincetown. Captains of local fishing boats met at Odd Fellows Hall to discuss the situation. In an effort to alleviate tensions, Town Moderator George F. Miller invited the officers of the Bushnell and Falcon to meet with townspeople at the Masonic Hall to explain the technical difficulties that were causing the apparent inaction. The explanations that the short choppy sea caused by the weather would not allow divers to reach the S-4 without great danger infuriated the local fishing captains. In the middle of the meeting they walked out, informing the officers present that they were going fishing. The weather, they implied, might be too bad for the Navy, but it wasn't too bad for the fishermen.

The last communication with the men trapped on board the S-4 was made at 6 A.M. on Tuesday, December 20. It is believed the last trapped man died before noon that day. By Wednesday the gale ended and divers were able to pump air into the submarine. Chains were placed around the hull, but the S-4 could not be brought to the surface. The bodies of the 42 crewmen were later brought out one by one. Each one was buried with military honors.

January and February of 1928 passed and the S-4 still remained on the bottom of the sea. Roy Syphax, a deep sea diver and an expert on helium gas, was in charge of the recompression work in connection with diving operations incidental to salvaging the S-4. On the afternoon of March 17, 1928, with the aid of three pairs of wooden pontoons, compressed air displaced all the water aboard the sub and the S-4 returned to the surface. Without ceremony, salvage tugs affixed lines and cables and the submarine was towed to the Charleston Navy Yard. Repaired and refitted, the S-4 later became a Naval experimental vessel.

In the garden of the Church of St. Mary of the Harbor, Provincetown, is the S-4 Cross placed there in memory of the 42 men who lost their lives off Wood End. A broken circle of metal at the base of the cross is part of the sealing ring from the S-4 conning tower brought up in the net of a fisherman and placed with the cross. (Theriault 95-99)