August 1, 2024 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, America won the Second World War because of men like Rear Admiral “Fearless” Freddie Warder. Here's his story.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
There's some of our favorites. This next story is a
war story America. Well, it's made up of.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Great men and women, and we are as good as
the people in our country. And America won the Second
World War because of men like fearless Freddie Water, whose
story we're about to hear. Here's Greg Hengler.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
There are many incredible stories of courageous men, incredible battles
and heroes during World War Two. Rear Admiral Fred ward
a submarine skipper whose exploits in World War II won
him a Navy Cross and a nickname he detested. Was
average sized, possessed firm lips, a determined chin, with piercing
(01:11):
blue eyes under narrowed lids, and a smooth face. Warder
graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis class of
nineteen twenty five, received his master's in Marine engineering at
University cal Berkeley in nineteen thirty four. Was married and
the father of four children, having narrowly avoided the attack
(01:33):
on Pearl Harbor. Rear Admiral Wardour took charge of the
USS Sea Wolf and set out for the seas of
the Pacific to wreck havoc on Japanese shipping and quickly
became known as the Artist of Submarining. Water fought his
enemy hard, but he also respected and loved him. Let's
(01:53):
begin our deep dive into this story with submarine warfare
Guru John Gorum.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
I attended church here in Baltimore, Grace Bible Baptist Church,
and one of our church members mentioned that she had
an uncle named Freddy Warter, and I said, I said,
did you say Freddy Water And she said yes. I said,
you mean like US submarine Captain Freddie Water and she says, yes,
(02:21):
how'd you know nobody knows that? I said, oh no.
To the contrary, he's the ultimate submarine warrior from World
War Two. He's just it. Most people don't know this,
but the vast majority of tonnage that was sunk during
World War two enemy Japanese tonnage was done by the
submarine fleet, what's known as the Silent service. These men
(02:41):
paid the ultimate price, but something like fifty five percent
of all surface supply shipping to the Japanese. Both warshipping
and merchant marine were sunk specifically by submarines. So these guys,
to me are the heroes. They were very small, efficient
crew that punched way beyond their weight.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Fred Water really did punch way beyond his weight, even
at family gatherings. Here's Fearless Freddie's cousin and Water Lynn.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
I just know that if there was going to be
a brawl, Fred was gonna, you know, punch out the
biggest man in the room, and he was going to
hit him good the first time, so we didn't have
to go back. Fred wasn't that big, you know, and
his brother Frank was big and I had broad shoulders,
and he was you know, it looked to me like
he was at least a foot or maybe more taller
(03:35):
than Fred. And Frank was an FBI agent. Fred just
knocked him out. He got to that first punch and
that was it. And Fred was gone and Frank was
down and out. And my mother said to my father, John,
why do your relatives always have to pass out in
our room? And my father said, pass out nothing, that's
(03:56):
a ko from Fred. It was he not so it
seemed to me that Fred fought with men the way
he fought the war.
Speaker 6 (04:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
He was the little guy that had to get the
big guy, and he had to get him with one
punch and knockout.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Here's another one of Fred's cousins, Hugh Fordyce.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
Freddie was the oldest of my uncle Hugh's family. They
had eight children, and he was the oldest. And Freddie
was valictorian in his high school graduating class. I remember
as always had having a big smile, he had a
quick wit about him. His mother was Irish, you know,
(04:37):
and he would make jokes about Catholics. And even though
he was Catholic him job.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
No one in our family ever called Uncle Fred fearless
or Freddie. He was known as the Admiral Uncle Fred Fred.
And when my grandmother was feeling particularly stern, Frederick, especially
when he was teasing her about drinking, or about being
Catholic or something.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
Yesterday, December some.
Speaker 8 (05:08):
Nineteen forty one, a date which will live in infamy,
the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked
my naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Hugh's former aid of Rear Admiral fred Ward Don almer Well.
Speaker 9 (05:35):
The instructions that came out from the Commander of the
Pacific Fleet was first off, it was the announcement that
the Japanese that attacked Pearl Harbor, and the only instructions
they gave was conduct yourself accordingly. And then shortly after
a message came out saying engage, attack and sink all
(05:57):
enemy shipping encountered.
Speaker 7 (06:00):
And that was very simple.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Back in those days, the United States had already tried
to stop the Japanese from colonizing and invading the mainland
of China and Korea. A lot of misbehavior by the
Japanese Empire in these areas that they quote unquote colonized,
They basically invaded them and abused the citizens of the
(06:23):
nations of Korea and China.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And you've been listening to the story of Fearless Freddy
Water and it's just underappreciated the role that the submarine
played in World War two and beyond and the risks
these guys, mostly guys, took. It was all volunteer, always
was and is because it is unique duty, submarine duty,
(06:46):
and it's dangerous and well, only certain types need apply.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
If you're claustrophobic. It is not a job for you.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
When we come back, more of the life of Fearless
Freddy Water. And we already love the guy, don't we.
But wait till you hear the rest of this story.
Here on our American Stories. Here are to our American Stories.
(07:32):
We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
need to be told. But we can't do it without you.
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love our stories in America
like we do, please go to our American Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
(07:53):
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and the remarkable story of Fearless Ready Water.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Let's return to the story and to Greg Hanglo.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Here's Stephen Trent Smith, author of Wolfpack, the American submarine
strategy that helped defeat Japan.
Speaker 10 (08:29):
In the late nineteen twenties. Fred went to the Submarine
School in London, Connecticut, and after that he was junior
officer on a number of US Navy submarines. And in
nineteen thirty nine he was the commanding officer at the
commissioning of the USSCA Wolf and remained commanding officer of
the boat until nineteen forty three. War cloud started gathering
(08:52):
around nineteen forty and his submarine was sent to the
Pacific and eventually to the Philippines along with a number
of other US submarines. His submarine was at the Kavidian
Naval Yard in Manila Bay in the Philippines. On December eight,
nineteen forty one, when the Japanese attacked the Philippines, they
(09:15):
destroyed a couple of submarines not too far.
Speaker 7 (09:17):
Away from him.
Speaker 10 (09:19):
He got her underway and left Manila Bay and was
sent on patrol in the Northern Philippines off the coast
of Luzon. The east coast of Luzon, near a town
called a Pari. He saw a destroyer outside of Pari
the harbor there, and he went to attack it. But
then he stumbled on a seaplane tender that was in
(09:41):
the harbor, and he decided to attack that and he
got a really good He made a really good approach.
He had everything all set up. He fired four torpedoes
from his forward tubes and none of them exploded, so
he turned tail because the destroyer was going to come
after him. They set up for stern tubes to fire
(10:04):
at the seaplane tender and they fired those and none
of those exploded. And the only thing that exploded that
day was Fred Warder, who was furious about the bad torpedoes,
and that became a scandal during World War two that
for the first couple of years of the war the
torpedoes did not work reliably and he was just fit
(10:24):
to be tied about that.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Here is Rear Admiral Fred Water.
Speaker 9 (10:30):
If we had torpedoes, we could have made a damn
fly an effort that we did not have a good torpedoes.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Here again is former aide of Rear Admiral Fred Warter
don Olmer.
Speaker 9 (10:48):
So Admirald Warner knew that the torpedoes were not working well.
So he actually went into a place called Deval Golf
and there was a ship that was anchored there, but
he was firing torpedoes after the ship. So one of
the torpedoes went under the ship. Okay, went up on
the beach and exploded. So that was one you see,
it's my fault, tarpedo's fault. And then he fired two
(11:10):
more and was against the side of the ship and
they didn't explode, so that that kind of confirmed that.
And then another when he fired and it was an
erratic run called a circular run. The rider is going
to lock over in one position, it makes a circle run,
and the circle run would bring it right back to
(11:31):
about where the machinery compartment is. It would both a
ship up. We did lose a couple of submarines, by
the way, but not the Sea Wolf. When Water anticipated
this and he had sooner people listening, he knew it
was a circle run. He went down, so the torpedo
passed overhead and came back up again and he fired
a couple more torpedoes and then he finished the ship off.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Here again is Submarine Warfare Guru John Gorham.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
What they did was the Japanese pre set. If you've
seen in the movies, they look like fifty five gallon
drums being rolled off the back of the tail of
a corvette or a destroyer, and they were just basically
loaded up with TNT. They would drop to a certain
predetermined level based on and the sensor that was used
(12:19):
was a depth sensor based on water pressure, and then
they would just blow up. And if you had, if
your submarine vessel was nearby, when one of those blew up,
the shock was such that it could break open the
hull or weaken it, or wrinkle the skin and do
all kinds of damage. The vast majority of anyone's submarines
that were lost during the war were lost to depth charges.
Speaker 9 (12:42):
He talked to me one to them about depth charge evasion,
and the way he put it to me, he said, well,
you've got to understand that what this Japanese destroyer, the
enemy destroyers doing is he's making a noise and he's
listening to the echo. Well, the more aspect that you
(13:02):
show that ship, the stronger the echo. So basically what
he would always do is turn and point directly toward
the ship, and that gave him the most narrow aspect.
Speaker 7 (13:17):
And even though it meant that he was going right
toward this.
Speaker 9 (13:19):
Guy that was trying to get him, the echoes were
just coming back strong. They would come back week, which
would indicate that the submarine was much further away. So
the guy would go overhead and he'd go racing out
there and bang, bang bang.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
The charges that go off, and that was the time.
Speaker 9 (13:39):
Then he would make his course change or maneuver in
order to put a distance between him and that destroyer.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
The strategy the United States Navy had with our submarine
service was to go after the merchant ring because they
were easy targets. They were soft targets. We could sink them,
they couldn't fight back. It allowed our American submarine fleet
to last a little longer. It's a little more dangerous
when you go after a Japanese warship because they can
fight back. And the most deadly warships were corvettes and
(14:11):
destroyers because the destroyers are very shallow draft vessels. If
you attempt to fire at a torpedo at it, well,
at least at a corvette. Corvette's even smaller than a destroyer.
Corvettes are so shallow that torpedo's go underneath, and you
have to be a very good shot to take out
a destroyer with a torpedo. The vast majority of American
(14:34):
submarine commanders wouldn't tangle with the destroyer, but that's not
the case with freight order.
Speaker 10 (14:40):
Submarine commanders were a breed apart. A lot of them
had a strong streak of independence. They didn't like being
pushed around by admirals and captains, you know, and the
Submarine Service gave them that kind of freedom because when
a submarine left port, they had virtually no contact with
the admirals and the captains. It was all up to
(15:02):
the submarine commander. They didn't have anybody breathing down their necks.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Everybody was required to go on seven patrols, and generally
the custom was for a captain not to press his luck.
Just like in Vietnam, when a guy was down to
his last month, he didn't go out on any scary patrols.
You don't want to risk a guy's life if he's
made it through a whole year, and no, you don't
want to push your luck at the last minute. But
(15:30):
Warter is Warter, and he's determined to make this very
last of his patrols count. He was on his way
back from the Palau Islands and he discovered another anchorage
or an area where there was a tremendous amount of activity.
He sailed in a torpedo and he was able to
sink a three thousand ton ship.
Speaker 11 (15:49):
Then he sank a transport.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
This is very valuable because not only is a tonnage
but it's Japanese fighting troops, men that will never make
it to shore and threatened American lives. A seven thousand
ton transport. That was a tremendous prize that he got.
Then again he was able to torpedo it again. On
his way coming home, he was able to torpedo another
(16:13):
ship to the tune of three thousand tons. So that
means he sank thirteen thousand tons in one patrol. That's
more than the majority of sub captains ever sank in
their entire career of seven patrols in the South Pacific.
How Freddy Water got that name Fearless Freddy. He was
(16:35):
the last boat out on patrol leaving the Java Sea area,
very low on fuel, very low on food provisions. The
men were smoking coffee grounds rolled in toilet paper because
they'd been out of cigarettes for a while. They're low
on torpedoes. But Freddie Water wasn't about to go back
to his base with unspent torpedoes.
Speaker 11 (16:58):
Ridiculous. He'd never do that.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
He found out that the Japanese had invaded the Christmas Islands,
about two hundred miles south of Java, and he took
his boat down in that way. He decided he just
patrolled the area, cruise around and see what's going on.
As he approached Flying Fish Cove, that's the one where
the Japanese had their anchorage. It was an absolute sub
mariner's dream. Four cruisers lined up in a row, lined
(17:25):
up in a row.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And when we come back, we're going to hear the
rest of this remarkable story. Thirteen thousand tons in one patrol,
the artist of submarining, the ultimate submarine warrior.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And we're talking about Fearless Freddy Water. Again.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
This is our American stories, always telling the stories of
our fighting men and women. More after these messages and
(18:08):
we continue here with our American stories, and let's return
to Greg Hangler and his story about Rear Admiral Fearless
Freddie Water. Here again is submarine warfare Guru John Gorum.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
He found out that the Japanese had invaded the Christmas Islands,
about two hundred miles south of Java, and he took
his boat down in that way. He decided he just
patrolled the area, cruise around and see what's going on.
As he approached Flying Fish Cove, it was an absolute
sub mariner's dream. Four cruisers lined up in a row,
(18:41):
lined up, in a row. He got in close and
destroyers recognized him right away.
Speaker 11 (18:47):
He heard the pinging.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
But he fired off four torpedoes at a cruiser that
was about one thousand yards away, and that's about as
close as a sub mariner will ever want to get
to his target. So he fired these four torpedoes. As
soon as he was convinced that he had assunk that ship.
He dove low, and his log book reports that the
(19:10):
Japanese were very effective in placing their depth charges. So
he stayed low and he waited overnight the next day
and he slipped out of the cove. The next day,
he slipped back in, and the Japanese, of course were
alerted to him.
Speaker 11 (19:25):
They were on patrol.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
But he was able to maneuver in again and nail
a second cruiser, and again he was depth charged, fled
the area, waited until later on that afternoon he came
back in and he struck a cruiser a third time.
Captain Water comes in the very next day again because
(19:48):
he wants to finish off this juicy collection. He's down
to just two torpedoes left. They're on attack mode now
because they're just absolutely patrolling the area that Water's boiling,
with ships going back and forth looking for him. He
slips in because he's determined to use up his last torpedoes.
Speaker 11 (20:08):
There's one more cruiser left.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
It's flying the pennant of the Admiral of the squadron,
and he says, I'm going to take this guy out.
So he fires his last two torpedoes at the cruiser
and he hits them, but in the meantime, the destroyers
got perilously close to him. He dove down deep and
he endured nine hours of depth charge from multiple patrol
(20:33):
votes corvette's destroyers.
Speaker 11 (20:35):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
That may be the record for the United States Navy
for this submarine fleet. And during nine hours of well
placed depth charging, and he says in his logbook, he says,
my men were really at the end of their rope,
and he realized he had to go and there's no
point in staying around. He had no more torpedoes. He's
already taken out all four of the capital ships that
(20:57):
were anchored at Flying Fish Cove.
Speaker 11 (21:00):
And he returned home in victory.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
And on the way, the men said, I'm gonna call
you fearless Freddy from now on after what we saw
you do.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Here again is former aid of Rear Admiral Fred Ward
don Almer.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
He later came back.
Speaker 9 (21:16):
That's what they call a division commander or a wolf
pack commander, and that was after he was relieved by
Lieutenant Commander Royce Gross. He went into Christen's Island because
they knew that the Japanese were going to come there in
order to, you know.
Speaker 7 (21:31):
Take advantage of the potassium.
Speaker 9 (21:32):
At the time, there were nothing but Aberge and all
the people that were there, and that to give you
some feel for everra water. He got there before the
Japanese did, and there were facilities there, doc and that
sort of thing, and someone suggested that, well, maybe it's
a good idea for we go in there and blow
all that up. Well, now you got to understand these
(21:53):
this is a war going on, and these are just
Aboriginal people. You would think that you know, who really
cares about them ordered it. And he said, no, he said,
We're not going to go in there and blow anything up.
He says, because these people need this to make a
living there, and we don't want to hurt him. I
guess later on I learned from the person who succeeded
(22:13):
him in command of the sea. Wolf Roy scrouts that
he sent a Japanese merchant ship not far from that place.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
It went down.
Speaker 9 (22:23):
There were two survivors in the water, and the water
wanted to bring him one board, and one of them
blew himself up with a hen grenade, and the other
was he just refused to come because the Japanese culture
at the time you do not surrender. You died for
the emperor and their water has figured he needed something,
so he actually had tossed him a life jacket and
a fifth of bourbon. The Japanese acknowledged with a nod,
(22:46):
but from what water could tell that he was carried
out to sea and ultimately was lost.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Here again is Stephen Trent Smith, author of wolf Pack,
the American submarine strategy that helped defeat Japan.
Speaker 10 (23:00):
When he was patrolling down in the job to See area,
he sunk a Japanese ship and he surfaced and discovered
a lot of Japanese just floating in the water without
life jackets. So he had the crew his crew throw
as many life jackets as they could to help the
surviving sailors. He saw them as an enemy. I mean,
(23:22):
the Japanese is truly an enemy. Because of what they
had done, particularly a pearl Harmer. But he believed that
your enemy is also your brother.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
To be a successful captain, you have to have a
crew that will obey you, and you have to have
a crew that respects you enough to risk their lives.
Because he isn't called fearless Freddy for nothing. He would
take risks that almost no other submarine captain did.
Speaker 7 (23:47):
Well.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Some of them took risks and they just didn't live
to tell about it, which is understandable. That's what they
called risk. But Freddie absolutely earned that title being called fearless.
He absolutely was fearless, and his men would go to
the gates of Helen back for him.
Speaker 11 (24:03):
He had their utmost respect.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Here again is Fearless Freddy's cousin and Ward Lynne.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
He really did believe in a hard war and an
easy peace. He wanted the war to be fought hard
and fast and be over with so that humanity could
get back to being humanity. Because I never really heard
him say an ugly thing about anyone. I never heard
anyone say he said an ugly thing about another person.
(24:32):
If you were with him, you just felt like you
were the only person on earth. He really made people
feel his warmth. I mean, you just fearly wanted him
to be proud of you. You were proud to be
with him, and you wanted him to be proud of you.
And he's one of my fondest childhood memories.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Actually. They went on to earn two Navy crosses.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
Of course, he got a legion hurt with those Navy
Combination Medal, Tavy Achievement Medal than the usual ones, the
Victory Medal, of Philippine Service Medal and Asiatic Pacific Medal.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
From what I've read in his obituary and been told
by my father, Uncle Fred really didn't like the name
fearless Freddy because he was just as afraid as anybody
else on the submarine and his crew. And his crew
were his heroes, whom he fondly referred to as his
beloved sons of you know what. And he felt and
(25:33):
said that the real heroes in war are those that
give their lives.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Here again is Rear Admiral Fred Water said, you.
Speaker 7 (25:42):
Get the name fearless, well, I know all I did.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
One.
Speaker 9 (25:53):
I'm scared that really, I mean, my garb, I'm scary.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Fred Warder became assistant Chief of naval operations for undersea
warfare in nineteen fifty five. He commanded the Submarine Force
Atlantic Fleet in nineteen fifty seven and retired in nineteen
sixty two after two years as Commandant of the eighth
Naval District in New Orleans. He retired in nineteen sixty
(26:22):
two and died at his home on February first, two thousand.
He was ninety five years old. I'm Greg Hengler and
this is our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And great job is always to Greg Hengler. And special
thanks to dang Lynn Productions for allowing us access to
their one of a kind interviews from their documentary Fearless Freddy.
Checked out the trailer and the film at Fearless freddymovie
dot com. That's Fearless freddymovie dot com. And what a
story we heard. Indeed, this Annapolis grad class of nineteen
(26:58):
twenty five, married, father of four and a leader and
in the end a soldier underground. He rose above his
fear and led anyway. And that's why he was the man.
He was the artist of submarine and the ultimate submarine warrior.
Freddie Water Fearless, Freddie Water History Here on our American
(27:21):
Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
There's some of our favorites. This next story is a
war story America. Well, it's made up of.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Great men and women, and we are as good as
the people in our country. And America won the Second
World War because of men like fearless Freddie Water, whose
story we're about to hear. Here's Greg Hengler.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
There are many incredible stories of courageous men, incredible battles
and heroes during World War Two. Rear Admiral Fred ward
a submarine skipper whose exploits in World War II won
him a Navy Cross and a nickname he detested. Was
average sized, possessed firm lips, a determined chin, with piercing
(01:11):
blue eyes under narrowed lids, and a smooth face. Warder
graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis class of
nineteen twenty five, received his master's in Marine engineering at
University cal Berkeley in nineteen thirty four. Was married and
the father of four children, having narrowly avoided the attack
(01:33):
on Pearl Harbor. Rear Admiral Wardour took charge of the
USS Sea Wolf and set out for the seas of
the Pacific to wreck havoc on Japanese shipping and quickly
became known as the Artist of Submarining. Water fought his
enemy hard, but he also respected and loved him. Let's
(01:53):
begin our deep dive into this story with submarine warfare
Guru John Gorum.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
I attended church here in Baltimore, Grace Bible Baptist Church,
and one of our church members mentioned that she had
an uncle named Freddy Warter, and I said, I said,
did you say Freddy Water And she said yes. I said,
you mean like US submarine Captain Freddie Water and she says, yes,
(02:21):
how'd you know nobody knows that? I said, oh no.
To the contrary, he's the ultimate submarine warrior from World
War Two. He's just it. Most people don't know this,
but the vast majority of tonnage that was sunk during
World War two enemy Japanese tonnage was done by the
submarine fleet, what's known as the Silent service. These men
(02:41):
paid the ultimate price, but something like fifty five percent
of all surface supply shipping to the Japanese. Both warshipping
and merchant marine were sunk specifically by submarines. So these guys,
to me are the heroes. They were very small, efficient
crew that punched way beyond their weight.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Fred Water really did punch way beyond his weight, even
at family gatherings. Here's Fearless Freddie's cousin and Water Lynn.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
I just know that if there was going to be
a brawl, Fred was gonna, you know, punch out the
biggest man in the room, and he was going to
hit him good the first time, so we didn't have
to go back. Fred wasn't that big, you know, and
his brother Frank was big and I had broad shoulders,
and he was you know, it looked to me like
he was at least a foot or maybe more taller
(03:35):
than Fred. And Frank was an FBI agent. Fred just
knocked him out. He got to that first punch and
that was it. And Fred was gone and Frank was
down and out. And my mother said to my father, John,
why do your relatives always have to pass out in
our room? And my father said, pass out nothing, that's
(03:56):
a ko from Fred. It was he not so it
seemed to me that Fred fought with men the way
he fought the war.
Speaker 6 (04:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
He was the little guy that had to get the
big guy, and he had to get him with one
punch and knockout.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Here's another one of Fred's cousins, Hugh Fordyce.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
Freddie was the oldest of my uncle Hugh's family. They
had eight children, and he was the oldest. And Freddie
was valictorian in his high school graduating class. I remember
as always had having a big smile, he had a
quick wit about him. His mother was Irish, you know,
(04:37):
and he would make jokes about Catholics. And even though
he was Catholic him job.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
No one in our family ever called Uncle Fred fearless
or Freddie. He was known as the Admiral Uncle Fred Fred.
And when my grandmother was feeling particularly stern, Frederick, especially
when he was teasing her about drinking, or about being
Catholic or something.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
Yesterday, December some.
Speaker 8 (05:08):
Nineteen forty one, a date which will live in infamy,
the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked
my naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Hugh's former aid of Rear Admiral fred Ward Don almer Well.
Speaker 9 (05:35):
The instructions that came out from the Commander of the
Pacific Fleet was first off, it was the announcement that
the Japanese that attacked Pearl Harbor, and the only instructions
they gave was conduct yourself accordingly. And then shortly after
a message came out saying engage, attack and sink all
(05:57):
enemy shipping encountered.
Speaker 7 (06:00):
And that was very simple.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Back in those days, the United States had already tried
to stop the Japanese from colonizing and invading the mainland
of China and Korea. A lot of misbehavior by the
Japanese Empire in these areas that they quote unquote colonized,
They basically invaded them and abused the citizens of the
(06:23):
nations of Korea and China.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And you've been listening to the story of Fearless Freddy
Water and it's just underappreciated the role that the submarine
played in World War two and beyond and the risks
these guys, mostly guys, took. It was all volunteer, always
was and is because it is unique duty, submarine duty,
(06:46):
and it's dangerous and well, only certain types need apply.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
If you're claustrophobic. It is not a job for you.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
When we come back, more of the life of Fearless
Freddy Water. And we already love the guy, don't we.
But wait till you hear the rest of this story.
Here on our American Stories. Here are to our American Stories.
(07:32):
We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
need to be told. But we can't do it without you.
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love our stories in America
like we do, please go to our American Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
(07:53):
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and the remarkable story of Fearless Ready Water.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Let's return to the story and to Greg Hanglo.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Here's Stephen Trent Smith, author of Wolfpack, the American submarine
strategy that helped defeat Japan.
Speaker 10 (08:29):
In the late nineteen twenties. Fred went to the Submarine
School in London, Connecticut, and after that he was junior
officer on a number of US Navy submarines. And in
nineteen thirty nine he was the commanding officer at the
commissioning of the USSCA Wolf and remained commanding officer of
the boat until nineteen forty three. War cloud started gathering
(08:52):
around nineteen forty and his submarine was sent to the
Pacific and eventually to the Philippines along with a number
of other US submarines. His submarine was at the Kavidian
Naval Yard in Manila Bay in the Philippines. On December eight,
nineteen forty one, when the Japanese attacked the Philippines, they
(09:15):
destroyed a couple of submarines not too far.
Speaker 7 (09:17):
Away from him.
Speaker 10 (09:19):
He got her underway and left Manila Bay and was
sent on patrol in the Northern Philippines off the coast
of Luzon. The east coast of Luzon, near a town
called a Pari. He saw a destroyer outside of Pari
the harbor there, and he went to attack it. But
then he stumbled on a seaplane tender that was in
(09:41):
the harbor, and he decided to attack that and he
got a really good He made a really good approach.
He had everything all set up. He fired four torpedoes
from his forward tubes and none of them exploded, so
he turned tail because the destroyer was going to come
after him. They set up for stern tubes to fire
(10:04):
at the seaplane tender and they fired those and none
of those exploded. And the only thing that exploded that
day was Fred Warder, who was furious about the bad torpedoes,
and that became a scandal during World War two that
for the first couple of years of the war the
torpedoes did not work reliably and he was just fit
(10:24):
to be tied about that.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Here is Rear Admiral Fred Water.
Speaker 9 (10:30):
If we had torpedoes, we could have made a damn
fly an effort that we did not have a good torpedoes.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Here again is former aide of Rear Admiral Fred Warter
don Olmer.
Speaker 9 (10:48):
So Admirald Warner knew that the torpedoes were not working well.
So he actually went into a place called Deval Golf
and there was a ship that was anchored there, but
he was firing torpedoes after the ship. So one of
the torpedoes went under the ship. Okay, went up on
the beach and exploded. So that was one you see,
it's my fault, tarpedo's fault. And then he fired two
(11:10):
more and was against the side of the ship and
they didn't explode, so that that kind of confirmed that.
And then another when he fired and it was an
erratic run called a circular run. The rider is going
to lock over in one position, it makes a circle run,
and the circle run would bring it right back to
(11:31):
about where the machinery compartment is. It would both a
ship up. We did lose a couple of submarines, by
the way, but not the Sea Wolf. When Water anticipated
this and he had sooner people listening, he knew it
was a circle run. He went down, so the torpedo
passed overhead and came back up again and he fired
a couple more torpedoes and then he finished the ship off.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Here again is Submarine Warfare Guru John Gorham.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
What they did was the Japanese pre set. If you've
seen in the movies, they look like fifty five gallon
drums being rolled off the back of the tail of
a corvette or a destroyer, and they were just basically
loaded up with TNT. They would drop to a certain
predetermined level based on and the sensor that was used
(12:19):
was a depth sensor based on water pressure, and then
they would just blow up. And if you had, if
your submarine vessel was nearby, when one of those blew up,
the shock was such that it could break open the
hull or weaken it, or wrinkle the skin and do
all kinds of damage. The vast majority of anyone's submarines
that were lost during the war were lost to depth charges.
Speaker 9 (12:42):
He talked to me one to them about depth charge evasion,
and the way he put it to me, he said, well,
you've got to understand that what this Japanese destroyer, the
enemy destroyers doing is he's making a noise and he's
listening to the echo. Well, the more aspect that you
(13:02):
show that ship, the stronger the echo. So basically what
he would always do is turn and point directly toward
the ship, and that gave him the most narrow aspect.
Speaker 7 (13:17):
And even though it meant that he was going right
toward this.
Speaker 9 (13:19):
Guy that was trying to get him, the echoes were
just coming back strong. They would come back week, which
would indicate that the submarine was much further away. So
the guy would go overhead and he'd go racing out
there and bang, bang bang.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
The charges that go off, and that was the time.
Speaker 9 (13:39):
Then he would make his course change or maneuver in
order to put a distance between him and that destroyer.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
The strategy the United States Navy had with our submarine
service was to go after the merchant ring because they
were easy targets. They were soft targets. We could sink them,
they couldn't fight back. It allowed our American submarine fleet
to last a little longer. It's a little more dangerous
when you go after a Japanese warship because they can
fight back. And the most deadly warships were corvettes and
(14:11):
destroyers because the destroyers are very shallow draft vessels. If
you attempt to fire at a torpedo at it, well,
at least at a corvette. Corvette's even smaller than a destroyer.
Corvettes are so shallow that torpedo's go underneath, and you
have to be a very good shot to take out
a destroyer with a torpedo. The vast majority of American
(14:34):
submarine commanders wouldn't tangle with the destroyer, but that's not
the case with freight order.
Speaker 10 (14:40):
Submarine commanders were a breed apart. A lot of them
had a strong streak of independence. They didn't like being
pushed around by admirals and captains, you know, and the
Submarine Service gave them that kind of freedom because when
a submarine left port, they had virtually no contact with
the admirals and the captains. It was all up to
(15:02):
the submarine commander. They didn't have anybody breathing down their necks.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Everybody was required to go on seven patrols, and generally
the custom was for a captain not to press his luck.
Just like in Vietnam, when a guy was down to
his last month, he didn't go out on any scary patrols.
You don't want to risk a guy's life if he's
made it through a whole year, and no, you don't
want to push your luck at the last minute. But
(15:30):
Warter is Warter, and he's determined to make this very
last of his patrols count. He was on his way
back from the Palau Islands and he discovered another anchorage
or an area where there was a tremendous amount of activity.
He sailed in a torpedo and he was able to
sink a three thousand ton ship.
Speaker 11 (15:49):
Then he sank a transport.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
This is very valuable because not only is a tonnage
but it's Japanese fighting troops, men that will never make
it to shore and threatened American lives. A seven thousand
ton transport. That was a tremendous prize that he got.
Then again he was able to torpedo it again. On
his way coming home, he was able to torpedo another
(16:13):
ship to the tune of three thousand tons. So that
means he sank thirteen thousand tons in one patrol. That's
more than the majority of sub captains ever sank in
their entire career of seven patrols in the South Pacific.
How Freddy Water got that name Fearless Freddy. He was
(16:35):
the last boat out on patrol leaving the Java Sea area,
very low on fuel, very low on food provisions. The
men were smoking coffee grounds rolled in toilet paper because
they'd been out of cigarettes for a while. They're low
on torpedoes. But Freddie Water wasn't about to go back
to his base with unspent torpedoes.
Speaker 11 (16:58):
Ridiculous. He'd never do that.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
He found out that the Japanese had invaded the Christmas Islands,
about two hundred miles south of Java, and he took
his boat down in that way. He decided he just
patrolled the area, cruise around and see what's going on.
As he approached Flying Fish Cove, that's the one where
the Japanese had their anchorage. It was an absolute sub
mariner's dream. Four cruisers lined up in a row, lined
(17:25):
up in a row.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And when we come back, we're going to hear the
rest of this remarkable story. Thirteen thousand tons in one patrol,
the artist of submarining, the ultimate submarine warrior.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And we're talking about Fearless Freddy Water. Again.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
This is our American stories, always telling the stories of
our fighting men and women. More after these messages and
(18:08):
we continue here with our American stories, and let's return
to Greg Hangler and his story about Rear Admiral Fearless
Freddie Water. Here again is submarine warfare Guru John Gorum.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
He found out that the Japanese had invaded the Christmas Islands,
about two hundred miles south of Java, and he took
his boat down in that way. He decided he just
patrolled the area, cruise around and see what's going on.
As he approached Flying Fish Cove, it was an absolute
sub mariner's dream. Four cruisers lined up in a row,
(18:41):
lined up, in a row. He got in close and
destroyers recognized him right away.
Speaker 11 (18:47):
He heard the pinging.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
But he fired off four torpedoes at a cruiser that
was about one thousand yards away, and that's about as
close as a sub mariner will ever want to get
to his target. So he fired these four torpedoes. As
soon as he was convinced that he had assunk that ship.
He dove low, and his log book reports that the
(19:10):
Japanese were very effective in placing their depth charges. So
he stayed low and he waited overnight the next day
and he slipped out of the cove. The next day,
he slipped back in, and the Japanese, of course were
alerted to him.
Speaker 11 (19:25):
They were on patrol.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
But he was able to maneuver in again and nail
a second cruiser, and again he was depth charged, fled
the area, waited until later on that afternoon he came
back in and he struck a cruiser a third time.
Captain Water comes in the very next day again because
(19:48):
he wants to finish off this juicy collection. He's down
to just two torpedoes left. They're on attack mode now
because they're just absolutely patrolling the area that Water's boiling,
with ships going back and forth looking for him. He
slips in because he's determined to use up his last torpedoes.
Speaker 11 (20:08):
There's one more cruiser left.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
It's flying the pennant of the Admiral of the squadron,
and he says, I'm going to take this guy out.
So he fires his last two torpedoes at the cruiser
and he hits them, but in the meantime, the destroyers
got perilously close to him. He dove down deep and
he endured nine hours of depth charge from multiple patrol
(20:33):
votes corvette's destroyers.
Speaker 11 (20:35):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
That may be the record for the United States Navy
for this submarine fleet. And during nine hours of well
placed depth charging, and he says in his logbook, he says,
my men were really at the end of their rope,
and he realized he had to go and there's no
point in staying around. He had no more torpedoes. He's
already taken out all four of the capital ships that
(20:57):
were anchored at Flying Fish Cove.
Speaker 11 (21:00):
And he returned home in victory.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
And on the way, the men said, I'm gonna call
you fearless Freddy from now on after what we saw
you do.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Here again is former aid of Rear Admiral Fred Ward
don Almer.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
He later came back.
Speaker 9 (21:16):
That's what they call a division commander or a wolf
pack commander, and that was after he was relieved by
Lieutenant Commander Royce Gross. He went into Christen's Island because
they knew that the Japanese were going to come there in
order to, you know.
Speaker 7 (21:31):
Take advantage of the potassium.
Speaker 9 (21:32):
At the time, there were nothing but Aberge and all
the people that were there, and that to give you
some feel for everra water. He got there before the
Japanese did, and there were facilities there, doc and that
sort of thing, and someone suggested that, well, maybe it's
a good idea for we go in there and blow
all that up. Well, now you got to understand these
(21:53):
this is a war going on, and these are just
Aboriginal people. You would think that you know, who really
cares about them ordered it. And he said, no, he said,
We're not going to go in there and blow anything up.
He says, because these people need this to make a
living there, and we don't want to hurt him. I
guess later on I learned from the person who succeeded
(22:13):
him in command of the sea. Wolf Roy scrouts that
he sent a Japanese merchant ship not far from that place.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
It went down.
Speaker 9 (22:23):
There were two survivors in the water, and the water
wanted to bring him one board, and one of them
blew himself up with a hen grenade, and the other
was he just refused to come because the Japanese culture
at the time you do not surrender. You died for
the emperor and their water has figured he needed something,
so he actually had tossed him a life jacket and
a fifth of bourbon. The Japanese acknowledged with a nod,
(22:46):
but from what water could tell that he was carried
out to sea and ultimately was lost.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Here again is Stephen Trent Smith, author of wolf Pack,
the American submarine strategy that helped defeat Japan.
Speaker 10 (23:00):
When he was patrolling down in the job to See area,
he sunk a Japanese ship and he surfaced and discovered
a lot of Japanese just floating in the water without
life jackets. So he had the crew his crew throw
as many life jackets as they could to help the
surviving sailors. He saw them as an enemy. I mean,
(23:22):
the Japanese is truly an enemy. Because of what they
had done, particularly a pearl Harmer. But he believed that
your enemy is also your brother.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
To be a successful captain, you have to have a
crew that will obey you, and you have to have
a crew that respects you enough to risk their lives.
Because he isn't called fearless Freddy for nothing. He would
take risks that almost no other submarine captain did.
Speaker 7 (23:47):
Well.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Some of them took risks and they just didn't live
to tell about it, which is understandable. That's what they
called risk. But Freddie absolutely earned that title being called fearless.
He absolutely was fearless, and his men would go to
the gates of Helen back for him.
Speaker 11 (24:03):
He had their utmost respect.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Here again is Fearless Freddy's cousin and Ward Lynne.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
He really did believe in a hard war and an
easy peace. He wanted the war to be fought hard
and fast and be over with so that humanity could
get back to being humanity. Because I never really heard
him say an ugly thing about anyone. I never heard
anyone say he said an ugly thing about another person.
(24:32):
If you were with him, you just felt like you
were the only person on earth. He really made people
feel his warmth. I mean, you just fearly wanted him
to be proud of you. You were proud to be
with him, and you wanted him to be proud of you.
And he's one of my fondest childhood memories.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Actually. They went on to earn two Navy crosses.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
Of course, he got a legion hurt with those Navy
Combination Medal, Tavy Achievement Medal than the usual ones, the
Victory Medal, of Philippine Service Medal and Asiatic Pacific Medal.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
From what I've read in his obituary and been told
by my father, Uncle Fred really didn't like the name
fearless Freddy because he was just as afraid as anybody
else on the submarine and his crew. And his crew
were his heroes, whom he fondly referred to as his
beloved sons of you know what. And he felt and
(25:33):
said that the real heroes in war are those that
give their lives.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Here again is Rear Admiral Fred Water said, you.
Speaker 7 (25:42):
Get the name fearless, well, I know all I did.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
One.
Speaker 9 (25:53):
I'm scared that really, I mean, my garb, I'm scary.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Fred Warder became assistant Chief of naval operations for undersea
warfare in nineteen fifty five. He commanded the Submarine Force
Atlantic Fleet in nineteen fifty seven and retired in nineteen
sixty two after two years as Commandant of the eighth
Naval District in New Orleans. He retired in nineteen sixty
(26:22):
two and died at his home on February first, two thousand.
He was ninety five years old. I'm Greg Hengler and
this is our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And great job is always to Greg Hengler. And special
thanks to dang Lynn Productions for allowing us access to
their one of a kind interviews from their documentary Fearless Freddy.
Checked out the trailer and the film at Fearless freddymovie
dot com. That's Fearless freddymovie dot com. And what a
story we heard. Indeed, this Annapolis grad class of nineteen
(26:58):
twenty five, married, father of four and a leader and
in the end a soldier underground. He rose above his
fear and led anyway. And that's why he was the man.
He was the artist of submarine and the ultimate submarine warrior.
Freddie Water Fearless, Freddie Water History Here on our American
(27:21):
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.