The "Zoomie Schwantzer"

By: Roger "RamJet" Burleigh
This story is absolutely true and is related here to the best of my memory. It occured during the WestPac run of '69-'70. We had spent a very boring week working with a bunch of sub-hunter Airdales and I'll have to appoligize for my lack of proper terminology regarding Naval Air. Shit, all I know about Airplanes is that there are a lot more of them in the ocean than there are submarines in the sky! On Friday, our week was finally over and we got to pull into some port for a weekends liberty much to the relief of all hands. Like I said, it was boring.
When Saturday morning rolled around Capt. Gleason came into the Sonar Shack. He had two long, tubular, gray plastic containers with him, which he proudly presented to "AC" Mary ST1/SS and me. Unscrewing the top of one of the containers he slid out a brand new Sonar Bouy and explained how he'd spent the previous evening getting chummie with the Airdales we'd been working with last week, (and unfortunately, he announced, we'd also be working with for the upcoming week as well!) After gettting his cohorts sufficently drunk, he had talked them out of two channel-nine sonar bouys. With a big smile he said, "I know you two will think of something great to do with them."
Now at this point in the story, I have to insert some technical data for the Snipes, or they are going to lose grip on what's going on. Sonar Bouys are carried in P3 Orion Sub Hunter aircraft. When the air-crew suspects the presence of a submarine by use of "MAD" gear, they drop a row of Sonar Bouys across the submarines track. The Sonar Bouys have a parachute that provides a slow descent to the water. When it hits the water, the impact releases an antenna and a hydrophone. The Bouy floats on the surface and the salt water activates a battery. The hydrophone would hang down deep in the water, listening for any sounds the submarine might make as it approached this line of listening devices. Inside the Bouy was a transmitter which sent the sound signal, via the antenna back up to the aircraft to be analyzed by onboard Sonarmen. Each Bouy transmitted on it's own channel, that way the Airdale Sonarmen could determine which Bouy had detected the Submarine and could then carry out an attack in the correct area.
" AC" and I took one Sonar Bouy all apart. We submerged the salt-water battery in a #10 can of ocean water and read all the various voltages produced to power the transmitter. (We also discovered that the battery contained a water released, dye-packet, and ended up with yellow hands!) Now knowing what voltage was required for the various componants of the transmitter, we built up battery packs to supply them. Somewhere along the line we had painted the body of the transmitter with fluorescent green paint and made a shoulder strap for it out of white line. Now that we had a portable Sonar Bouy transmitter, we needed someone to talk with. We cornered Joe Cwitlinski RM1/SS and enlisted his assistance. It didn't take Joe long to determine the frequency the thing transmitted on and soon we were walking around the base with a microphone we had substituted for the hydrophone and with our antenna standing up proudly we conducted radio checks with the Sailfish Radio Room. Oh yes, boys and girls, a nasty, nasy idea was beginning to form. It wasn't long before the Radiomen had discovered that they could determine where we were transmitting from by using the Radio Detection Finder (RDF). So we brought the Quatermasters in on the project. A QM was stationed in the conn on the periscope to watch the ST walking around with the foolish looking fluorescent green pipe and a big box of batteries. Now, with our combined efforts, we could determine just how accurately the RDF could track the Sonar Bouy, which by now had been dubbed "The Zoomie Schwantzer".
We were ready to go to sea Monday morning, and some of us were actually looking forward to it!
Here was our diabolical plan. By using the small antenna on top of #1 periscope, (the 8B stub, I think) the Radiomen would monitor for a transmission from a Channel Nine, Sonar Bouy. Once they determined that there was a Chan. 9 Bouy in the water they would determine its relative bearing to the Sailfish with RDF. Capt. Gleason would then turn the boat in the opposite direction and the ST's would pick an interesting tape from their collection and set it up on the tape deck in Sonar. "(No, it wasn't a tape of the "Hotel California", or "Louie, Louie", but rather a secret tape you Snipes weren't even supposed to know about, like a Russian Whiskey on the snorkel, or some Russkie HEN class running submerged. We would then transmit that signal back to the aircraft with our Sonar Bouy, the soon to be infamous, "Zoomie Schwantzer"! You can imagine the ruckus receiving that sort of signal would cause in the aircraft!! We would receive an emergency radio transmission telling us to clear the area of operations, as a boogie had been detected and would have to be delt with by our Airdale friends. Well, of course we'd be glad to clear out and bring the endless drills to an "unanticipated early conclusion". Go get'em boys!!!
When Friday finally rolled around we were operating in a box drawn on one of "Troops" QMC/SS, charts showing the limits of where we were allowed to go to escape our airborn tormenters. The After Battery clock was nearing 1600 and that would signify the end of our operations with the Zoomies. Capt. Gleason showed up in Sonar. "Can they receive voice transmissions over their equipment?" He wanted to know. "AC" and I figured it would work. (The Captain had us located in the corner of the chart box closest to port, while we were sending them a radio signal of the Sailfish submerged. They on the other hand, were way out to sea, circling their #9 bouy, wondering why they couldn't detect us on their MAD equipment!) "AC" and I rigged a microphone into the tape deck and slapped on a clean reel for the Captian to talk over. Imagine what went on in the aircraft. One minute they had a strong signal of a submerged submarine, suddenly it went dead, then a voice from the deep! "This is your Channel Nine Bouy speaking. There are no submarines out here. You may as well return to base, because we are!" Capt. Joe gave us a grin, stepped out into Control and the surface alarm sounded. "All ahead full on four, liberty call as soon as we hit port!" The Zoomie Schwantzer had Schwantzed the Zoomies!