"Have you heard of a ship called the good Reuben James

Manned by hard fighting men both of honor and fame?

She flew the Stars and Stripes of the land of the free

But tonight she's in her grave at the bottom of the sea."

- "Sinking of the Reuben James" by Woodie Guthrie

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"Sinking of the Reuben James"

by Johnny Horton

Atlantic Shipping Lanes, circa Portugal; December 8, 1941

Before the Reuben James exited port, Clint knew things were heating up. The crew was assigned to general quarters and then sent to battle stations to "prepare," which was officer-speak for "get ready in case you have to shoot like hell at whatever comes our way." To make matters worse, rumors flew through the ranks that the ship was being positioned between a key ammunition transport ship and known U-boat wolfpack channels, making it a prime target for attack.

Everyone was nervous, and Clint was surely no exception, but at the same time a heady confidence brought a spring in every sailor's step. The crew had fought off one U-boat before. Why didn't they make their record a winning streak against the Krauts?

Casablanca stood hundreds of miles behind the quickened pace of the Reuben James. The increased speed was surely straining the engines of the heavily-loaded British cargo ships, but quickness was a necessity in the dangerous waters. Clint could understand the officers' reasoning – who wouldn't want to get out of German waters as fast as they could? Who cared what Tony said about war being declared? U-boats attacking merchant ships was war enough for Clint.

The thought of Tony made his blood boil, but Clint kept his temper in check. He could imagine Steve's disapproving face even though he was probably oceans away by now, getting trained to defuse bombs and blend into enemy populations. A pouty expression wouldn't be enough to keep him from putting Tony's nose in the back of his head when he saw the brat again, though.

The entire ship had briefly mourned the loss of Steve; Clint bet there wasn't a single sailor on board who wasn't sad to see the back of him, which was no small feat. He had been replaced almost immediately, though, with morning calisthenics swapped out for increased training for artillery fire. Clint's post on the anti-aircraft force, with three other sailors manning the 20-millimeter mount on deck beside him, drilled until they could fire without watching their hands perform the motions. Clint served as spotter on the small band, searching the sky for planes and making adjustments to the level and angle of the gun barrels as they aimed. At the end of the day's training, his mount had the highest record for accuracy.

The first true test of action came at 0900 hours, when air defense sounded in the middle of Clint's washing duties. He had thrown down the sweat-stained uniform he was scrubbing with the first peal of air defense, his feet pounding up the stairs to reach the deck. Soldiers swarmed onto the surface in a sea of white, and Clint pushed his way through the crush of bodies to reach his gun. The lead gunner, whose name Clint hadn't learned yet, had strapped himself into the main gun brace, which was padded against his shoulders and followed his motions to hit enemy bogies. Clint was tearing off the canvas cover for the gun when someone tugged on his uniform sleeve.

Farley's grinning face looked down at him, eyes shining with childish excitement – he looked very much his true age at the moment, all smiles and adrenaline. "We're really fighting 'em! Bet you a buck my mount'll shoot down more Krauts than you."

"You're on." Clint spat in his palm and shook the kid's hand. Farley served as lead gunner on the forward deck, with Clint's 20 on the aft. Shooing him away, Clint loaded the first magazine into the gun while the other two sailors ran up and took their places on the sides of the mount.

The trampling of feet pounded against the metal deck, with sailors swarming up the rigging to the gundecks and taking their positions on the main deck. It was a well-executed affair, with everyone in place in minutes, and Clint could tell from the tensed forms of the sailors beside him that they were all ready for action. They had been trained for this endlessly, and they were ready to prove their mettle.

He was glad he was stationed on the deck, because he could see the massive form of the U-boat below circle and rise to the surface with ungodly grace, water tumbling down its flanks as the metal structure surfaced. The ship's conning tower rose first, and Clint was shocked to see the form of a running devil figure painted on the sleek side. Some sense of humor...

In one lithe motion, panels along the curved edge of the submarine slid forward and folded back over the top, revealing the oiled barrels of massive guns staring up at the Reuben James. At some point the coxswain must have ordered for the larger guns to fire, because the air filled with shells and smoke and the stench of gunpowder that choked Clint's throat. The 20s would be useless against a submarine – unless this submarine from hell had planes to launch – so he could only stare as the U-boat began its barrage of the hull of the airship.

The firefight hadn't lasted but a minute when a shrill whistle filled the air. Clint leaned against the rail and watched as the massive form of a gun barrel cranked upward to angle towards the Reuben James. Fire immediately concentrated on the gun with razor-sharp precision, but the German machinery seemed unaffected by the pounding shells. The yawning mouth of the cannon burst into a spark of flame for a moment before sending the sleek body of a tapered torpedo pinwheeling towards the deck.

Clint would never forget the sound of the torpedo drilling through the hull and colliding with the forward magazine. The ship itself seemed to release a scream of pain as the front half of the deck erupted in a fireball, tearing away from the body of the ship with a wrenching of metal. The front half of the ship was there, and then it was gone, metal shrieking and clashing together as it was ground to pieces and tossed into the sea.

All firing ceased, a moment of shock reigned in the still silence. The ash of the burning canvas suspending the zeppelin's helium rained down gently on Clint's shoulders. His body was in motion, tugging dials and levers to aim his gun at the German U-boat below, but his mind was numb. The first scream split the calm as the gentle snowfall of burning Navy might dusted the deck. Flames leaped across the ship, or what was left of it, as German artillery pounded against the side of the Reuben James and forced it back.

Alarms blared in and out of earshot, the chattering on gunfire and crunches of metal as the hull was beaten back. An explosion threw Clint to his knees, the familiar sound of depth charge that had been set off by the raging fires. This must be what hell is like, Clint thought absently as his fingers grew numb adjusting the dials, fire and death and grinning demons. I'll let some of the Krauts share this experience.

And he did. He didn't think, he just moved, fixing cartridges and concentrating fire towards the best targets he could spot. As expected, the artillery from the 20-millimeter guns was like shooting a spitball at a tank, but Clint knew he was doing something. He was fighting even as the ship tilted to a dramatic angle beneath his feet, even as the screams for medics bled out of focus and the smoke grew too thick to see through. The Reuben James jolted like a dying horse, thrashing and bucking as air-based miniature torpedoes peppered its hull. Air defense whined high and nasally above the din, like its alert could somehow contribute to the firestorm.

Clint had to be wrestled from his post; he was still forcing another cartridge into the gun's magazine when a soldier tore him away and slung a half-inflated life vest over his neck. His lips flapped soundlessly, but the message was clear. The ship was going down. The tilting deck forced soldiers to slide toward the torn half of the ship, the angle growing steeper every second. There would be no rescue. They were going in the water.

Tears streaked the face of the soldier, but Clint remained controlled as he pulled his leg over the side of the railing. He latched his harness into the winch like he had done the night the Calliope sank, like he felt he had done a thousand times, and looked down over the open sea.

The forward half of the Reuben James sat in the churning water, already below the surface of the dark blue waves. A few sailors floundered in the water, desperately trying to swim out of the way of the aft half of the ship careening towards the water. Smoke billowed from the torn half of the ship, forming a column of smoke as thick and dark as concrete that boiled toward the sky. Cables whirred beside him and Clint stumbled forward to catch up with the sailors who had abandoned ship, releasing his hands and leaping toward the open face of the sea. The wind tore at his clothing as he plummeted closer and closer to the water where the U-boat lingered like a fat cat stalking its prey. Light guns folded forward from the ship's smooth flanks, turning not the main body of the Reuben James but the sailors falling from the deck.

Bullets chattered through the air, and Clint looked to his left just in time to see a fellow sailor jerk back on his line, lifeless as he fell. Shouts and screams rose from the falling sailors as comrades were torn apart before their eyes, the wave of German fire tearing through the body of sailors and making their limp bodies dance. Clint drew up his knees as a hail of bullets sailed beneath him, but he miraculously wasn't harmed as he plunged into the water.

The ice-cold water numbed every feeling in his body, wiping his mind blank, but he forced his fingers to clumsily undo his tether and kicked his way to the surface. Clint's life vest had inflated fully by this point, but the brilliantly colored plastic seemed to only make him more of a target in water infested by hostiles. Another barrage of gunfire sounded above his head and he looked up to see the flailing lines of the next round of sailors, many frozen in their harnesses. They looked like they had been hanged, spinning lifelessly above the face of the water as the Reuben James neared the white-tipped waves.

Clint would be crushed if the ship continued its course, so he swiveled his head back and forth to see if there were any other sailors forming up for rescue procedures. He noticed a ring of sailors forming in the distance and he set out with a powerful stroke, kicking life into his numbed limbs as he fought to cross the distance. The shadow of the Reuben James loomed over him as he swam, throwing the water in even colder temperatures, or maybe it was Clint's paralyzed mind playing tricks on him. He refused to look over his shoulder, fixing his eyes on the sailors ahead of him, one paddle after another.

His arms and legs throbbed with pain and cold, but desperation and an inkling of reason pushed him onward. If the ship came down it would create a vacuum of air under the water that would drag him down with it. He had to get away fast if he wanted to avoid death by drowning. It would be a rather embarrassing death, Clint figured, if his picture appeared in the paper of a Navy man dying by drowning. This also spurred him on and he dragged himself forward throughout the water. His clothes felt like they added an extra hundred pounds of weight to his body, and the nearness of the German U-boat made his skin crawl.

The resounding crash of the Reuben James entering the water thrust Clint forward ten feet on a tidal wave, into earshot of the other sailors. Sheets of black water enveloped him, and Clint retched as the ship's leaking oil entered his lungs. The sailors shouted and pointed back over Clint's shoulder, and he looked to see the distant form of the U-boat swarming with activity. Narrowing his eyes, he could make out the forms of soldiers running up to the surface of the German submarine, and it appeared that they were armed.

Clint dove under the water a moment before a bullet cracked over his head – the Krauts were picking off the sailors in the water! His flotation device made him an easy target among the neutral blues and dark hues of the sea. Keeping his head below water, Clint disentangled himself from the life vest and kicked off in the direction of the other sailors, scarcely allowing himself to take in a breath for fear the Krauts would fire at him again.

He raised his head and wiped the oil from his eyes until he could see above the lapping waves, watching as the bridge lifted above the water at a perpendicular angle to the horizon. The structure jutted like a massive mountain, slowly sinking down in the depths under continued, although sporadic, German fire. Blood, oil, and water blended in the chilling winter morning.

Sharp cracks bloomed into explosions that billowed above the surface of the water in enormous plumes as the depth charges went off. Used for destroying submarines, the charges triggered each other and radiated outward in one deadly blast that tore open the hull of the Reuben James and riddled the sailors closest to the ship with shrapnel. Clint closed his eyes against the sight, but he couldn't block out the screams of the sailors as they drifted helpless and wounded in the unrelenting waves.

A hand dragged him into the circle of sailors, and he wrapped his hands around the shoulders of the closest men as he had been drilled to do in boot camp. They didn't joke, didn't jest, didn't even speak about the Germans lingering nearby, picking off their friends like flies. They only hovered above the frigid surface of the Atlantic Ocean, watching as the forms of the first Allied ships responded to the SOS, and waited.

If you have time go check out the song "Sinking of the Reuben James" on Youtube... One video had the names of the sailors on board, and you might recognize one or two. Feedback is always appreciated! :)