148- Up Periscope

You, finding life rather dull, dreaming again of exotic places, wishing you were somewhere else. We offer you escape. Escape with us now to the yellow sea and the story of a man who fought the entire Japanese Navy, with an ancient submarine and an untrained crew, as Alec Hudson tells it in his exciting story,

Up Periscope. It happened in 1938. Pearl Harbor was just another naval bay somewhere in the Pacific, and China, still further away, was swarming with Japanese invaders. And in 1938, a United States submarine, the S-52, docked at Pearl Harbor, and I walked on her gangplank.

No longer a commanding officer. Mary-Lay Lieutenant Thomas J. Baker, USN, retired. I set a farm farewell to the Bosen's mate, tucked my commissioning penon under one arm, milled into the Moana hotel on Waikiki, just outside Honolulu.

And an hour later I was at the Moana bar, sipping an exotic Hawaiian drink, known as bourbon and water, and toasting my lost career in silence. That was, until a strange little man behind Hornrim glasses tapped my elbow. Excuse me, please. Let me buy this drink for you, Lieutenant Baker.

Yeah, beg your pardon? Oh, you do not know me, of course. But I have spent some hours searching for you, Lieutenant. I didn't get the name. It is Lee. Song Lee. You are, of course, the former commanding officer of the submarine S-52.

Yeah. You docked at Pearl Harbor on Tuesday and today, at precisely 12 o'clock noon, you were relieved of your command by your executive officer. And wait a minute. You received what your Navy refers to as a medical discharge.

It was found that you are dead in your left ear. Is that not correct, Lieutenant Baker? Yeah. You see, my facts are accurate. Yeah. I am an unofficial representative of the Chinese government. I have come to you with a business proposition.