Oral History: Richard Harrison

[0:00] my name is Richard Harrison I was a sonarman on Growler well the first piece of equipment and the most frequently used piece of equipment for us was was the bqr 2 uh it was the Workhorse of the submarine Fleet um when I was when I was in uh we were just getting rid of the old bqr uh ones and the Old World War II versions um which uh were pretty good sonars for the for the time but uh the bqr 2 was was an array of individual hydrophones in a circle um and we would be able to actively select the individual hydrophones I don't remember how many there were um were a bunch of them um and um U so we would be able to

[0:52] select one or two of them at a time and that way be able to actively track um the various contacts uh where we were um that was strictly a passive piece of gear but it was also tied with um the bqs 4 um and it was um that was our our active sonar we never really used it that much it was always on ready to go um but it what the uh bqs would do was it had a a CRT a cathod ray tube display that would show um a wedge of sound so it would match what we were tracking on the uh the passive set as well and then we would record of course

[1:42] um the the sounds that we were the tape recorder was running all the time um and U that was in the in the in the U in the sonar room but also in the sonar room um trying to remember um we had we had a we had two or three other pieces of equipment I can't remember their designators right away um but um one of them was a repeater for um the fathometer um which was housed out in the in the control room um the um officer of the deck and the Navigator would use that more often than anything else um more often than we would anyways um but um there were um various filters

[2:29] and stuff that we could use to if we were taping something we could filter out the background noise to be able to listen specifically um to Unique Sounds uh so again so we could identify a a particular vessel uh that type of stuff but that was it the hydrophone array on Growler was was in the nose uh right underneath the U the forward torpedo room um it was uh an appendage that stuck down um and it housed the array of the the hydrophones and then it also um housed in the center of it the ball that was the transmitter uh the transducer I should say um that um uh was used to uh transmit the

[3:23] sound well the biggest reason it was located there was it was the quietest um if you housed it anywhere else it would have to be picking up uh all the background noise from the the equipment um in in the back of the boat um you know the the various auxiliary stuff the engines the motors uh the electrical equipment all of that stuff so they put it somewhere where it would be uh ideally uh as quiet as it possibly could be and then they of course sound isolated it uh when they when they built it up and so that's why they put it up there these are this is the the bqs 4 yeah see that hold it up under

[4:09] your that's the active that's the active stack of the the bqs 4 and so this is where you would see um you could track the yeah what what we would what we would see U when we had a contact is this this yellow or orange CRT would would have a wedge of sound that would show up um and and it would show up on a on a u uh on a bearing that wherever the contact was um and that's the the bqr 2 and that's the passive stack and that's what we would um that's what we would be listening on and the um that's where we spend most of our time um this was this

[4:54] was the controller that that um allowed us to select which hydrophones we were listening to so uh it matched um the the course and speed of our our our ship our submarine and um the uh we would be able to then determine what direction the uh contact was in relationship to the ship um the um this particular graph up here again was um visual display of the sounds that were coming in um was a graph okay this would be um you know the CRT uh but this would give you a graph uh of the overall noise level that was going on and you'd be able to tell when it was dark that there was a contact there um and uh

[5:43] various meters on either side would uh you know You' go left or right and it would the sound would vary on it and it would tell you whether or not you need to turn back and and you know go back to a different direction if it was shifting one way or the other so and you know the various volume controls and then was what they called an automatic tracking feature uh where if you if you had just one contact that you were were dealing with you could switch it into ATF and what it would do is it would take the information from the uh U the various uh meters here and it would self- select

[6:22] the hydrophones that you wanted so it made it easier for you to uh let the equipment tell you what direction it was going and give you a better idea of what was what was actually happening The Lazy Man's way of listening to it and of course connections to the sound and so that you could talk to that's what those things are up there is uh when if you wanted it U they could patch into the equipment that was in the forward torpedo room while you were working on it and so on and so forth so you didn't have to holler out the door they couldn't hear you anyway that way J generally speaking I I can tell

[7:01] whether or not it's it's a um a commercial vessel or a military vessel uh I can tell whether it's U large or small um I can tell uh based on its uh speed um you know how big it is and and uh uh the sounds uh um from a smaller vessel are different than the sounds from a larger vessel um by the number of of screws that they had um I could tell you know um I could tell basically what we were looking at what we what we were hearing um and um where it was um and and how fast it was going but other than that not much uh again um part of part

[7:51] of my job and what I did um that made me bounce around on so many different submarines was I I concentrated on being able to identify the Unique Sounds um uh I became an analyst um and um so I was very good at being able to differentiate between the various sounds and could identify various vessels uh based on what I'd heard before based on what I was anticipating that would be in the in the region um and um you know be able to tell what was going on we always had a reel loaded ready to go and any time we got a contact that you know we would hit record and we would start recording it if it was something

[8:40] we could identify without any problems and we didn't need to have anything more of it uh we stopped the recording and and um um just let it go but any time we did get a contact and we started the recording if it was something that was unique or there was something unique about the the encounter then we would keep the recording we would mark it and send it back to uh analysts when we got back in what happened was uh we uh we were on station um and they were moving from one spot to another and um we picked up uh we picked up a contact and it was uh it was was a military contact it was um um um

[9:29] I'm trying to remember what the designator was on it and I frankly I'm sorry I can't it was one of the smaller vessels uh but it was it was U they used them in in the U anti- submarine warfare uh was smaller than a destroyer um and there were a couple of Destroyers a couple of these smaller craft and I picked up the smaller craft to start with and um uh we recognized it as a military and so we started listening for for anything else and we started picking up a couple of the other um uh vessels uh one of them was larger turned out to be a destroyer um and um we reported it and of course we're

[10:11] tracking it and trying to stay out of the way at the same time staying on station you know not going too far from where we were supposed to be um and uh where the the the spooks um told us that it was in fact uh an ASW operation um and because they had listened to the radio chatter and um the what happened was we started to be as quiet as possible but they were all over the place and we tracked them and um uh what ended up happening was um the the Destroyer uh and the the uh Coastal um vessel um decided to um that they had a good track on the submarine they so they and that's

[11:07] that was the the exercises they would they would go out and they would try and find it they would track it they would get a course and speed on it um and then report it as you know being such and such and and then they would radio and say uh we hold you bearing such and such and at range so and so and um you know so that way they would say how good their soner men were and all this kind of stuff and they had done this exercise a couple of times and then they went through it another time and what happened was um they they plotted the course in speed and they reported it to the submarine

[11:43] saying this is what we have we hold you bearing Humpty Dumpty and um the sub submarine radioed back and said no we are at such and such a point and and doing such and such a course and speed um and they said Oh no you're over here and this is what it is and they said no no no we are not we are over here and they shot a flare to verify where they were and it just absolutely brought chaos into the entire operation I mean whoa wait a minute we've got a contact here and and they had had identified it as a submarine um so obviously they picked up something that we were we were

[12:23] making noise with and um so they instantly went into okay we've got to find out what this is and we decided now was a good time to get the hell out of Dodge um and we we had to try and do that as quietly as possible so of course we went down as deep as we could possibly go um and um sat on the bottom for a little while and and tried to be as quiet as we could and they did their damnest to find us and then they dropped dep charges on us to try and force us to the surface I mean they had a good enough fix on us that they came damn

[12:57] close um and um uh they obviously missed us um thank God and um so we managed to quietly scoot away as they would run their course and drop their depth charges and and um try to make a surface um I I really don't think they were trying to SN us per se I think they were just trying to make us surface um and and that way they got all kinds of PR out of it you know American submarine n and God knows if we had have surfaced and it had been The Growler they would have went crazy with that with the you know missile submarines off their Coast no no no no there was no way we were going to let

[13:41] them see us um and we managed to get out of the get out of the way it took us a while but uh we got out of the way and they lost us and lost interest on us and and and ended up going back home so that was it a very very large boom okay depending on how far away it is but what they were I think what they started with was they started with what they call practice depth charges which are a much smaller um much smaller explosive um but when that you know didn't do anything they started getting a little bit bigger um and and it it's just that it's it's a boom I if

[14:28] you're on the stack and goes off it'll it'll deafen you um you won't be able to hear anything for a while but um um when they when they drop something into the water you can hear it drop um you will also hear other sounds as it's going down and that's time to take the headphones off and let it go without having it deafen you