Free Hellcats by Peter Sasgen

artistry, both on piano and violin, his interest in photography, woodworking, and drawing and painting. His watercolors of tropical flowers are sublimely beautiful. One might think Edge would have been more at home on the faculty of a small college, happily ensconced in an office strewn with books, than in the hot conning tower of a submarine filled with sweating sailors. Not so.
    Upon graduation from the Naval Academy, Ensign Edge served a two-and-a-half-year tour of duty in the battleship USS Maryland (BB-46). It may have been that the “real Navy” of battleships and cruisers that so appealed to Charles Lockwood appealed less to Edge’s deep inner nature than one might expect inasmuch as he requested duty in submarines, which even then was a service still shunned by officers with ambitions to flag rank.
    After selection for duty in subs Lawrence reported to the U.S. Navy’s modernized and bustling submarine school at New London, Connecticut, in January 1938. A week after graduating from sub school, on June 15, 1938, he and Sarah Simms married in Atlanta, Georgia. They had met while Lawrence was attending Georgia Tech and Sarah was attending Hollins College in Virginia. Their romance continued through Lawrence’s graduation from the Naval Academy and Sarah’s graduation from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.
    Lawrence and Sarah came from prominent families in Columbus and Atlanta, Georgia. Both were descended from ancestors long associated with the cultural and business life of those cities. Their June wedding became a centerpiece in the society pages of the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer and the Atlanta Constitution . The Atlanta Georgian ’s society columnist, Polly Peachtree, called it a “fashionable event,” and dubbed Sarah “the charming Atlanta belle” and Lawrence “the handsome naval officer.” The papers featured long, detailed descriptions of the bride’s and her attendants’ gowns, the floral arrangements, the music, even the interior of the church. The Constitution gushed that attendees included fashionable members of Atlanta society and prominent out-of-town guests.
    A month after their wedding a full-page banner headline topping the Constitution ’s society page announced: “Pacific Ocean Borders Front Yard of Atlanta Bride.” An accompanying article informed society-conscious Atlantans that the newlyweds had arrived in the exotic Pacific outpost of Hawaii, with its palm trees, swaying grass skirts, and uninhibited American sailors, and where Lawrence, now a lieutenant junior grade, started his career in submarines aboard the big V-class Narwhal (whose six-inch guns would in the future bombard Matsuwa To during that pioneering foray into the Sea of Japan).
    After he completed his tour in the Narwhal in December 1940, Edge reported aboard the rusty World War I-vintage submarine O-4 based at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where many obsolete submarines were laid up before scrapping. Unlike her sisters destined for the breaker’s yard, the O-4 had been chosen by the Navy for duty as a submarine school training boat. Edge worked hard and put in long hours on the refurbishing and fitting out of the rusty old sub. Then, in July 1941, with World War II looming for America, Edge received orders to report to the Naval Academy to undertake a two-year postgraduate course of instruction in what was then called “radio engineering.” This new field married electronics to communications and other technologies that were coming into wider use in the Navy. The equipment required highly skilled technicians to operate it and repair it.
    The assignment must have convinced Lawrence that he was doomed to attend classes ashore while the war everyone knew was coming got started without him. He may have doubted that he’d ever get aboard a submarine to join the battle. After all, it was no secret that submarines would play a major role in a war against the