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through with this, and surface.
Bessac was calculating, figuring his options even at the last minute. Gudgeon would need at least twenty minutes of snorkel time to clear the air minimally, and that wouldn't even begin to charge her batteries. If she had to dive again, she could, at best, crawl through the water on battery power. If she stayed at snorkel depth, she could transfer one engine to charging the batteries and still move a little faster. But it was only on the surface that Gudgeon could make a run for Japan at her top speed of about 20 knots. There was no telling whether the Soviet ships would try to charge again, but at that speed, and with a head start, maybe, just maybe, she could outrun them.
He made the only decision he could. Bessac told his crew to surface.
No one had been wounded, no swords had been broken, and no territory had been given up. But the United States had just lost a crucial battle. For the first time in this cold war under the sea, a U.S. sub had been forced to give up, to come out from hiding and sit vulnerable on top of the waves.
After that, Bessac told his men to send out an all-too-late cry for help.

"Send the damn thing in English," he shouted, answering a question from the radioman the crew called "Bad Ass."
There was no use trying to hide who they were anymore. The message went out unencoded. Meanwhile, the captain began climbing the long ladder that led from the hatch in the control room to the sail and up to the bridge. After him climbed one of the officers, a signalman, and a crew member to man the voice-powered phones that would send Bessac's orders ringing through the ship if the Soviets moved in for a fight. If there was a destroyer out there, Gudgeon didn't stand a chance.
It was still daylight outside. And the men on the bridge could see the Soviets. Two ships, maybe three, were left on the surface. All of them were smallish sub-hunters. The Soviets had pulled the rest of the ships back. It didn't take a crowd to herd a sub on dying batteries.
The Soviets signaled "Able. Able."-international Morse code for Who are you? Identify yourself."
Gudgeon sent back, "Able. Able."
The Soviets answered, "CCCP," Russian for USSR.
Gudgeon sent back, again in international Morse code, "USN. We are going to Japan."
The response came back, a directive for Gudgeon to get under way and away from Soviet seas. The signalman blithely interpreted for the crew: "They said, `Thanks for the ASW exercise."' Thanks for helping us practice antisubmarine warfare. He unsuccessfully suppressed a grin. The rest of the crew was grinning as well. In fact, the men were elated. They were getting the hell out of there.
The celebration had already begun when, it seemed like hours later, U.S. planes flew over to see whether Gudgeon was okay as she raced on the surface, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the Soviet Union.
For the first time in days, the cooks heated up the ovens. There was steak for dinner that night and two cans of beer per man. The men were amazed. It had never occurred to them that there would he beer on hoard, certainly not cases of it. But there it was, and these men would much rather drink than quote regulations to the old man. They were moving, they were breathing, the batteries were charging. They were embarassed, even bloodied. But at that moment, they didn't care. They were safely away, and for the first time the men admitted to one another that they had never been certain they would escape. The Soviets had obviously been capable of sinking the sub. They just didn't want to. Or maybe, the crew mused, they did want to but weren't allowed.

There was no official celebration for Gudgeon's return back at Yokosuka when she pulled in that Monday, August 26, eight years to the day since Cochino had sunk. The mood at the base was grim: the Soviets announced that day that they had conducted their first successful flight test of a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile