Following is a slightly edited transcript of an interview with Gun- ner’s Mate First Class Hank Kudzik, a World War II member of the crew of the USS Nautilus (SS-168). The interview was conducted on 4 June 2015. Some explanatory notes have been provided by the editor in brackets.
Interviewer – CAPT Tim Oliver, USN, (Ret)
Hank Kudzik enlisted in the Navy at the age of 16, just weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He left the Navy at the end of the war and stayed in the Reserves for 12 years. He married his sweetheart, a friend of his sister’s whom he met during the war while home on leave. They had two daughters and he had a career as a draftsman and sales- man of pneumatic conveyors and industrial equipment. He is 93 and lives in Pennsylvania.
The USS Nautilus (SS-168) was a Narwhal class submarine. Keel laid 5/10/27 in Vallejo, CA; commissioned 7/1/30 with LCDR Thomas J. Doyle in command; departed Pearl Harbor on first war patrol, to Mid- way Island, on 5/24/42 with LCDR William H. Brockman in command.
The WWII Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942 is considered by many to be one of the greatest victories in the history of the United States Navy. In preparation for the battle, submarines patrolled on radials out from Midway Island to detect and announce the approach of Japanese forces. One of the submarines was the USS Nautilus, which encountered Japanese forces.
Interviewer: What got you into Submarines?
Hank Kudzik: The year was 1941, and you know the date was De- cember 7th. I still had one more year of schooling left. But I always had it in my mind that when I was through with high school, I would enter the Navy. Only what happened on December 7th kind of pushed things along. I spent Christmas that month home. Two days after Christmas I went to the recruiting station. I was only 16. But the recruiting officer was nice. I didn’t lie. I had it in mind to lie but he was so nice to me. I told him flat out, “My birthday is less than two weeks from now.” He said, “We’ll get rid of all the preliminaries and physicals and everything. All you have to do is wait for our call and put up your hand and you’ll be in the Navy.” And that’s exactly what happened.
Interviewer: That’s the last time a recruiter ever told the truth, right?
(laughter)
Hank Kudzik: When I started to fill out there was a question about stuttering. I said, “Yes, I stuttered” and he said, “We can’t take you.” I said, “Come on, come on.” So he gave me things to read, with all R’s and S’s and everything, and I passed. As a matter of fact, a naval officer just happened to come in at the same time. He [the recruiter] motioned to him [the naval officer] and said, “I’m ready to tear his application up.” He, [the naval officer], looked at it and he asked me a few questions and said, “This man’s all right. This man’s all right.” I never stuttered, not once in the Navy.
Interviewer: So then, you went on to boot-camp?
Hank Kudzik: I found myself at Great Lakes. And after that (it was a brief stay), I wound up at Treasure Island, and from Treasure Island I wound up in Pearl Harbor. Five inches of cooking oil all over the place. Because while they don’t really know what to do with you, when they’re figuring out, they put you on work details. And my first work detail was to help to remove the body of the souls who died on the Oklahoma and the Ogallala, a mine layer. Not a very pleasant task. For my next detail they put me on the XXXX which was sitting in the yard, and I found my- self in a fresh water tank wire-brushing the inside of the fresh water tank. I knew I was being groomed to be part of the crew on the Saratoga and I had no desire for that. So the next day, I went back into the fresh water tank to finish wire-brushing and they took the Saratoga out for a little run down. And guess what? There was an explosion. I was in the tank. It was quite loud. Then I got out of the tank and I said, “What was that?” And they said, “We don’t know. Something, something hit the side of the
carrier. We don’t know. Maybe it was a drifting mine.” “At least, did we think it was another submarine?” I said. I looked, and people with a little boat were going inside this hole at the waterline of the Saratoga. From the carrier deck, I could see the submarine base at Pearl and I said to the Chief who was in charge of the work detail that I was on, “That was too close. I want out.” “No, you’re not getting out. You’re going to get back into that tank.” He said, “We’re going to patch you up.” And I remember somebody said, that if you want something done, go see the Chaplain. That’s exactly what I did. I went to see the Chaplain on the Saratoga and he said, “Son what’s on your mind?” And I said, “I’d rather be on the end firing the torpedoes than taking them.” He said, “Do you know what you’re asking? They have a very critical examination, mental health, and if you could pass that…” I said, “I’d like to try.” He was trying to talk me out of it. He said, “I’ll tell you what to do, son. You go over there, and you have them sign a chit, about what you want to do, and if they’ll accept you, you bring that back to me and I’ll release you.” And that’s exactly what happened. I was waiting for a submarine.
We had an old submarine there called the Dolphin, the D1. They used it for a school boat. She wasn’t battle ready, so I made a few school-run dives on her, went through the big tank and all that, and waited for about the middle of May and along came a submarine called the Nautilus. I got assigned to the Nautilus. Now this is completely new to me. When I signed the application to go into the Navy there was a questionnaire that said, “Do you want to see combat, or do you want to be ship’s compa- ny?” I said, “I want combat. I don’t want to get stuck on the shore.” He said, “Well you know what you’re saying. You can pick the kind of ship you want to be on.” I didn’t say a submarine. I said a destroyer. I never got on a destroyer.
I took a look at the Nautilus and compared her to the other submarine that was there. She was 375 feet long, as long as a tin can [slang for a destroyer}. In those days they built three large submarines, the Argonaut, the Narwhal and the Nautilus. The Nautilus was built in 1930. And they didn’t know what to do with them. They were half inch pressure hull and riveted. My pappy said, “Don’t go to sea on a submarine that’s riveted.” I know what he meant; it was like you’re sailing in the shower. I hadn’t experienced any depth charges yet. But the ship wasn’t that bad even though.
What could they possibly do with us on a submarine? When I got accustomed to it, we received the orders. We were going to leave very shortly on a patrol, our first war patrol. That happened to be northwest of Midway. What’s Midway? Why does somebody want Midway? It’s nothing but a sand bar. Goony birds all over the place; those were the na- tives. And it was an atoll. It was a coral growth. We went on that patrol, and it wasn’t long, we were in our station and a flotilla of the Imperial Japanese Navy going somewhere. The name of my skipper was Wil- liam Brockman, we called him ’Bull’. The Executive Officer was Ozzy Lynch. Everybody gets something to do on a submarine, stand a watch, or do something. You don’t go for a free ride. All my watches were right in the middle of the submarine, the control room. Above that was the conning tower and above that was the bridge. I was privy to any officer who had the duty. You didn’t fire from the control room; you fired from the conning tower. You steered the ship from the conning tower. That was one of my duties, steering. When we submerge, you do a 360 on the scope every 20 to 30 minutes to see when you come up there are no surprises. Manifolds have to be manned. The trim manifold, that was one of my specialties. The planes, the forward planes and the stern planes, have to be manned. Other air valves and the hydraulic system have to be manned. Everything that is in that area.
It happened to be my turn on the scope. Now we had a few guys, I think six, and we alternated these positions. You’re four on and eight off, four on and eight off. I was on a scope and to the officer on duty I said, “I think I see smoke on the horizon.” He looks and says, “It appears to be smoke, but no vessel, just smoke.” He confirmed that it was smoke, so he called up the Captain. The Captain came running up! He took a look too and he said, “The only way we’re going to find out is if we get on the surface.” Now this is broad daylight. We get on the surface and head for that smoke.
I’m getting a little ahead of schedule; back up another day and a half. A flotilla came right over us. It was heading for us, a cluster of the Japanese fleet. We didn’t even have to plot any torpedo routes to hit these ships. The skipper picked out two. Like I say, I was privy to the conver- sations. The skipper always talked with Ozzy to confirm what he was going to do and Ozzy either agreed or didn’t agree. He said, “We don’t have to use the torpedo computer to shoot. We’re so close.” Here again, nobody would tell us what the proper distance is to shoot. But we were so close. 1500 is the prime distance they want you to be from a target. A torpedo travels 35 miles an hour underwater. So he would get pretty close and he would make tubes one, two, three and four. The Nautilus was built with six tubes when she was commissioned in 1930. After she came to Pearl Harbor, when I got on her, they had added four [external] tubes forward. On the gun deck she had two big six-inch guns. Of course, once you have fired those torpedoes [in the external tubes] you can’t re- load them. You can only reload what’s in there [in the Torpedo Rooms]. But anyway, he fired one, two, three and four at these two ships. It was a piece of cake. They all hit, but not one exploded. What a disaster. This is what we’re going to face? Our first encounter and we get four hits. We took some [depth] charges: if I remember, somebody counted 39. But they were impatient. They wanted to go. They couldn’t find us, so they proceeded on their way.
So, I think it was a day, a day and a half after, I spotted the smoke. The Captain agreed to surface and get us close until he finally saw the silhouette. We didn’t know what the score was there. At that time, three of the Japanese carriers were already sunk by our aircraft carrier. This was the Soryu. We determined this was the Soryu and she was repairing her deck so the airplanes that she had could land somewhere and that’s where the smoke was coming from. But they were doing a pretty good job. We dove and proceeded, and we got pretty close again too, and then the skipper was talking with Ozzy. He said, “I wonder if any of these torpedoes are going to explode at all. What do you think Ozzy? We can get close.” It’s unheard of to get that close, 750 yards. You’re asking for trouble. Between the skipper and the Executive Officer, they agreed that if they got close, the carrier wasn’t moving very fast and the destroyer was right alongside, and there was another escort to rear of the carrier just there. He said, “Ozzy, I’m going to try to get him in the position I like. I want him to turn. How are we going to do that? So, I have a bigger target.” He wanted that tin can out of there, but the tin can just kept stay- ing there. One of the torpedoes might accidentally hit the tin can, which he didn’t want. He wanted to hit the one [carrier Soryu]…so he did. We were getting ready tubes number one, two and three. Like I said, we were pretty, pretty close, between 750 and 800 yards. He fired one, two, three. One hit, two hit, three hit the carrier – the Soryu. The first two exploded. The third one did not. But the war[head] had broke off. In later, years, when we were comparing notes with the Imperial Japanese Navy, a sur- vivor off of that carrier confirmed that it was a submarine that sank him, and the way he survived was, he clung to the torpedo that didn’t explode.
So, our carrier fleet said they sank the whole four [carriers]. They did not. The Nautilus had something to say about that. We got credit for sinking it.
But now there were two tin cans to contend with, though, like I say, the skipper and Ozzy talked amongst themselves and he wanted that tin can to turn. Well I’ll tell you what happened, when he pumped that scope up, the tin can did turn. At that time, at 750 yards, he fired. The tin can could not get out of the way in that short time. A torpedo travels 35 miles per hour underwater. It cut him right in half. Cut him in half!
Though we still had the other one to deal with, but that wasn’t until the next day. He knew we were in that area and he was determined to find us. Skipper again said, “Ozzy, do you think it will work the second time?” Ozzy was a camera nut. He was trying to adapt his camera to the eye piece on the periscope. So they agreed that they would get in the same position. Let him see the scope. That’s suicide because if it doesn’t work…you, you bought it. Anyway, he got him in the position he wanted and fired. It was more of a bow shot but he blew them to bits. He was so elated! Brockman was a little stocky guy, so he kept jumping up and down. The deck plates were flying back and forth. He said, “Ozzy! Did you see it? Did you see it? Did you see it?” Ozzy said, “I didn’t see a thing, Captain.” Of course, he did not. His camera happened to adapt to what he put it on and he took the thing. When Ozzy developed the film, there it was. And in Life magazine in 1942, there was the picture of this ship, going to eat the meatball you can see on one of the turrets. They sent Bill back to the United States to help sell bonds with that picture in Life magazine.
We thought we were done with our patrol after Midway. Lockwood was the submarine skipper. He said,” Not so fast Nautilus. You’ve still got 21 torpedoes left and we’re going to send you to Honshu.” Where’s Honshu? Well that’s the Bay of Japan. Believe it or not, we created such a confusion, that helped us get away [from Honshu]. We sank five more, good-sized vessels before we managed to get out of there by the skin of our teeth. Only because they were so eager to get us, that in their eager- ness, that affected how they were trying to find us and we got lost, and we managed to get in there and survive and come back. So we came back to Pearl, our first run.
There was a man there, a naval officer to greet us when we came back, Chester W. Nimitz himself. He was so elated by what we did at Midway. He presented us with not the qualification dolphins, but the combat pin. What do you say to an admiral, especially if he’s a prime admiral in the Pacific. He said,” Good work, son.” I said,” Aye, aye.” Number 1 run was in the books.
At Midway I said, “I’m not going to make patrol run two. A man could get killed.” I said that to myself. When came time for two, guess who threw the bow line off to make run number two? You’re looking at him. I threw the bow line off and I was hooked. I was going to be a submariner.
Interviewer: How many more runs did you do?
Hank Kudzik: Thirteen more. Thirteen more patrols. Well when you make a run, when you come in, they send you to the Royal Hawaiian, so you can drink beer and sleep as long as you want. And the big band is playing and girls are coming to dance with you, so it’s your time. All right, our two weeks were up, a relief crew comes on and does all the work that the depth charges created. We had a beer garden on sub base, so you could quench your thirst very easily by going up there and I did. I drank a beer and decided to come back.
I came back to the boat and it was loaded with marines with gear and standing on a dock. I said, “You guys are blocking our way. What did you do, lose your way? The beer garden is up there you know?” They said, “No. We’re going on that.” They were pointing at the Nautilus. I said, “What? You’re going on the Nautilus?” They said, “Some of us are. And over there is the Argonaut, some 220 on each submarine.” I said, “You got to be kidding. What are we going to do with 220 marines with all their gear on her?” But, sure enough, these were the Marines that were going to go to Mackin Island, Carlson’s Raiders. Hallelujah, now we’ve got to feed them and give them a place to sleep. We didn’t have enough places to sleep ourselves, but they were welcome to what we had. They made a special place to put rubber boats and we fashioned up a manifold, so we could, as soon as the ship came up, we could put air in these rubber boats. The Captain made it so that when he got up so far, it floated and all they had to do was paddle off. They had little motors and some of them didn’t even work but away they went to Mackin Island. Carlson had 220 on our boat and the Argonaut had James Roosevelt with 220 Raiders also.
Speaker 1: When you said James Roosevelt, was that the President’s
son?
Hank Kudzik: Yes, it was. Yes, James Roosevelt. He survived the conflict, and they did one heck of a job. And the reason it was so import- ant to get rid of Mackin, because this was the Japanese staging point for Guadalcanal. We were having a bad time. Our troops, we were getting beat because they were so close, and they were controlling that. So the Marines had to go there and wipe it out, and they did a tremendous job. Now remember I told you we had two big six-inch guns. So did the Argonaut. …ammunition potential… but that’s OK; these were not new submarines. So with their [the marines’] assistance (they were on shore), they advised us what we could take out with our big guns. When we ar- rived there at night, there were two big vessels tied up at Mackin. One of them still had troops on and the other one did not. Us and the Argonaut, we destroyed them with our guns.
Now the enemy knew there was a submarine there. And of course during the day, when we were shooting at what the Marines were telling us to, they had a seaplane there who was giving us fits. He would fly over and drop a bomb on us or machine gun us pretty bad. They were setting up on the water where we were shooting at and the skipper said, “He’s going to get us before we get him. That airplane, he’s a pain in the butt.” They just had put 20 millimeters on a topside before we left for Midway and I remember shooting. We caught him. We caught him on top of the water, setting. He was ready to get up in the air again and we opened fire on him with the two 20’s and the 50. We filled him full of holes and when the wing fell off we figured he’s not going to fly and bother us anymore.
The sad part about it, we lost thirty Marines, thirty souls we didn’t get back. We picked them [the surviving marines] up to take them back. The surf gave them a lot of problems. They had difficulty getting off of the island, getting over the surf and getting back to the submarine, but they managed to. But another sad thing happened was, out of the ones that were missing, I think it was nineteen of them, they were captured. They managed to stray away from the main force. We found out later they were executed. They were beheaded on Kwajalein. After the war, they managed to bring these souls back and bury them at Arlington.
[Interviewer: How did the war end for you?]Hank Kudzik: The skipper said, “Get your bags together Hank. You’re going over to Hickam and you’re going back.” I said, “I don’t want to go home.” He said, “I don’t care where you go, but you’re not going to be here. You’re going to be in the States.” So they flew us in one of these big, four engine Army planes and we flew over Diamond Head and one of the engines caught fire. In my mind I saw the headlines in the paper, “Submarine Sailor Amongst the Ones Who Died in the Air at Diamond Head in the Big Airplane Crash.” But no, we survived that, and they sent us over to Ford Island to get on a PBY [a seaplane] and got on that thing and started to fly to Alameda. I’m sitting right below the pilot, and he said, “You’re the submariner?” I said, “Yes I am.” He said, “Come on up here. How long have you been away from home?” I said, “Three years. Maybe three and a half.” He said, “Come on up here. What do you see ahead of you?” I said, “Clouds.” There were lots of clouds and he said, “Keep looking.” I said, “Well there’s a little dark stuff there,” He said, “That’s Mount Rainier. This is what you’re fighting for. Good old USA, Welcome home.”
