Iron Cross

At 10 o'clock in the middle of the night on December 27, 1942, a dark and shiny periscope poked out of the sea again. After careful observation and found that everything was normal, U-107 slowly surfaced. After confirming its safety again, it began to send telegrams as usual. .

In recent days, this British and American transport fleet heading towards Australia has probably vaguely noticed something. Since passing by Madagascar on the 24th, it has been carrying out various types of anti-submarine operations, and aircraft on the two escort aircraft carriers have also taken off frequently. A total of no less than 100 sorties were conducted to search the surrounding waters, but each time they returned without success, because during the day the U-107 lurked in nearly 150 meters of water, making it impossible for aircraft overhead to detect it, and at night even with the help of flares With the help of the ship's searchlight, it was difficult for the aircraft to detect the submarine sneaking up in the corner of the vast sea. After losing three aircraft during the night landing, the British stopped this futile operation.

Hassler knew that it was only a matter of time before he was noticed by the enemy, because the submarine had to send out signals every night. Although he had tried his best to avoid generating electricity at the same time period to avoid being caught in the pattern, the longer the time, the greater the possibility of exposure. When the enemy fleet is large in size, occasionally receiving an unknown message is nothing, but in front of a greatly reduced fleet, inexplicable messages are always caught, and anyone will become suspicious, not to mention Kenya after the Indian Ocean War. The Escort Command has issued a stop-sailing order. A large number of merchant ships are stuck in ports in India, South Africa, and Persia, unable to move. The number of telegrams has dropped sharply. The difficulty of discovering this radio wave spread by U-107 has been greatly reduced.

However, there were still four days until the day when the chief engineer determined that he had to return, and there was no latest instruction from headquarters, so he was determined to stick to it.

A moment later, he realized that he had thought wrong. The telegraph operator handed him a call back: This time to U-107, it was not a simple "acknowledged" or "received", but a long instruction: According to your ship's position report Combined with friendly intelligence, it is expected that the friendly fleet will arrive at the attack position at 6 a.m. on the 28th to launch an attack. I hope your ship will seize the opportunity to launch an attack while ensuring its own safety, and prioritize destroying the enemy escort aircraft carrier...

Is the attack finally about to begin?

Hassler was overjoyed and immediately delivered the order through the microphone: "Brothers, get ready... the war is about to begin... the war is about to begin..."

After so many days of day and night, the submarine officers and soldiers have long since adjusted their biological clocks and become extremely energetic at night. When they heard about the attack, everyone was excited - the feeling was no less than that of a policeman tracking a thief for a long time. Finally decided to arrest him and bring him to justice.

The gunnery commander waved his fist fiercely: "I've wanted to do it for a long time. If I hold it in any longer, I'm afraid I'm going to shoot out..."

This is a double-entendre "joke" that all men understand, and the sailors couldn't help laughing when they heard it.

Following Hassler's order, U-107, the ferocious sea wolf, opened its bloody mouth and began to pounce towards the ship.

There are two escort carriers in the Southeast Column. One is the Sangamon (CVE26) and the other is the Suwannee (CVE27). This is an escort carrier converted from a tanker hull. (The same class of hull as the tanker captured by the Combined Fleet), collectively known as the Sangamon class. Compared with the Borg class, this class is faster, has a larger displacement, a wider and longer deck, and more aircraft. However, since oil tankers are also an extremely needed type of ship, the subsequent reconstruction plan was stopped after only 4 ships of this class were rebuilt. All four ships were dispatched in Operation Torch, but two were sunk by U-boats off the coast of Morocco, and the remaining two were used to march towards Australia. Admiral King's plan was to use two Sangamon-class ships to enhance the strength of the Pacific Fleet and replace the inferior Borg-class ships. Nimitz also believed in this.

"David, is that mysterious radio wave still there?" Standing on the deck of the flagship Dido-class air defense cruiser Charybdis, the commander of the southeast column, British Rear Admiral Burroughs, looked at the black paint In the dark distance, he turned around and asked his chief of staff.

"We caught it again today, but the time was different from yesterday."

"What do you think he is?"

"It's probably a submarine." David thought for a moment, "It's either Japanese or German - but I think it's more likely to be Japanese. They damaged our submarine half a year ago. Lamie, and German submarines generally operate in the Atlantic Ocean and cannot easily enter the Indian Ocean, let alone go wild in the South Indian Ocean.”

"Does it react to sea radar?"

"No." David smiled bitterly, "You shouldn't have too high expectations for the radar. The ability to search for sea targets, which is a distance of 20 nautical miles, still makes mistakes all the time."

Sea radar is very unreliable, and its ability to detect large sea targets, especially cruiser-level ships, is okay, but it is really not good at detecting submarines. In the past two days, the British have been tormented by the endless false alarms from radar and have become neurotic.

"I guess he hid in the water after sending the report." Burroughs sighed, "We have thought of countless ways in the past two days. How can we find this rat out?"

In order to catch U-107, the Southeast Column really racked their brains and did everything possible, including taking a Z-shaped route from time to time; deliberately creating the illusion that a transport ship's engine was damaged and leaving it alone to lure submarines to attack; During the march, let the destroyers drop depth charges aimlessly; let the aircraft search vigorously and shoot and drop bombs on the sea surface, etc. But these methods failed to impress U-107. It still hid quietly in the water every day and only came out at night. The Germans did not even bother to look at the British decoy.

Because of these actions by the British, the Southeast Column moved extremely slowly. Basler originally thought that it would take at least the 30th or 31st before the Japanese fleet could catch up with them. As a result, they could catch up with them in the early morning of the 28th. At this time, the center of the Southeast Column The location is also within the large triangular sea area surrounded by three locations: the Seychelles Islands, Mauritius, and the Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory).

"Tomorrow morning, all planes will take off to conduct a careful search. The range will be expanded to more than 100 nautical miles." David gritted his teeth and said, "I can't find it."

"Well, hopefully we'll have better luck tomorrow - the Royal Navy's been having really bad luck lately."

"The same goes for the Army." David said worriedly. "The Germans are advancing very fast in the Middle East. This evening, the leading troops have reached the Iraqi border. Our garrison has no power to fight back. It is obvious that the Iraqi oil fields cannot be saved. If the Persian oil fields cannot be maintained, the Royal Navy’s oil use will be a problem in the future.”

"We can only ask the Americans to send us oil." Burroughs sighed. "We have repeatedly emphasized the blockade axis. Unexpectedly, the British Empire was blocked first. The Germans can still use coal to make oil. We don't even have this ability." None.”

At 3:40 in the morning, in the dead of night and when sleepiness was at its highest, U-107 quietly sneaked into the huge fleet group, accurately posted to the starboard side of the Sangamon, only 2,500 meters away, and passed the opponent's ship with its speed. Head, keep opening this distance to more than 6 chains.

"Left rudder 35 degrees."

"Yes! Left rudder 35 degrees."

The submarine with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons turned around deftly.

"Torpedo preparation, set depth 4.2 meters."

In less than 20 seconds, a voice came from the torpedo room: "The torpedoes are ready."

"120-degree sector angle, prepare to fire 4 salvos!" Basler watched the target's movement closely while asking the gunner to nervously calculate the advance.

As the huge ship gradually entered the center of the sight, Basler gave the order decisively: "Torpedoes, launch!"

After four "swish, swish, swish" sounds, four G7e torpedoes flew towards the target.

"Dive immediately." Basler knew that he only had one chance, so he didn't even think about reloading or launching again, but everyone still had high expectations for hitting the target.

"17, 18..." When the count reached 33, a violent explosion sounded from the sea, and then two more sounds soon followed.

"Success!" The submarine cheered. Not to mention a mere escort aircraft carrier, three torpedoes in a slightly older battleship could not withstand it. Now it seems that only one torpedo missed the target. This aircraft carrier is doomed. Sure enough, the hull of the Sangamon, which had been hit by three mines in a row, broke in the middle and immediately began to sink, with sirens blaring on the sea.

More than 20 seconds later, there was another dull explosion on the sea, and another transport ship was sunk outside the original position of the aircraft carrier. In terms of location, this place is quite far away from U-107. It is obvious that the torpedo missed the target and caught the next unjust killer.

This sound caused great misunderstandings to the ships in the southeast column, making them mistakenly believe that the submarine had moved to that direction. The destroyers drove over and dropped the depth charges as hard as they could.

Although U-107 was shaken by the distant explosion, it was far away from the core area and posed no threat to the submarine. Now U-107 slowly exited the sea in the opposite direction at a speed of 6 knots.

"You won't be rampant for a few more hours. The Japanese will come to harvest you at dawn!"

At 5:45 in the morning, 370 kilometers north-northwest of the Southeast Column, all carrier-based aircraft of the First Guerrilla Detachment commanded by Tsukahara 243 had begun warming up and were preparing to take off.

Although he was very confident about sinking the southeastern column, Tsukahara was initially worried because although the oil problem was solved by capturing British and American oil tankers, after this battle, the fleet's inventory of ammunition, especially bombs and torpedoes, was The number will drop to a very low level, which will pose a great threat to subsequent operations.

But the Germans solved his worries in another way.