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

In the past few days, the British and American transport fleets heading for Australia have probably vaguely noticed something, since the 24th swept over the island of Madagascar, has been carrying out various types of anti-submarine operations, two escort aircraft carriers on the plane also frequently take off to search the surrounding waters, a total of no less than 100 sorties, but each time to no avail, because during the day U-107 is lurking in nearly 150 meters of deep water, overhead aircraft are impossible to find, and at night even with the help of flares and ship searchlights, It was also difficult for planes to spot submarines secretly floating in the corners of the vast sea, and after losing three planes in succession during the night landing, the British stopped this futile operation.

Hasler knew that it was only a matter of time before he was detected by the enemy, as the submarine had to send out a report every night, and although he had tried his best to avoid generating electricity at the same time so as not to catch the pattern, the longer the time passed, the greater the likelihood of exposure. When the enemy's fleet is large, it is nothing to occasionally harvest a telegram that does not know the truth, but in front of the greatly reduced fleet, there is always an inexplicable telegram, and anyone will be suspicious, not to mention that after the Indian Ocean war, the Kenyan escort command has issued a cease sailing order, and a large number of merchant ships have accumulated in the ports of India, South Africa, and Persia and cannot move, and the number of telegrams has decreased sharply, and it is much more difficult to find this radio wave spread by U-107.

However, there are still four days left before the day when the chief engineer is sure that he must return to the sea. There were no latest instructions from headquarters, and he was determined to stick to it.

After a few moments, he realized that he had thought wrong. The telegraph operator handed him a call back: This time the U-107 was not simply "informed" or "received", but a long instruction: According to the direction of your ship and 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......

Is it finally time to attack?

Hasler was overjoyed and immediately passed the command through the microphone: "Brothers, get ready...... The war has begun...... The war has begun......"

After so many days of day and night. The officers and men of the submarine had already adjusted their biological clocks, and they became extremely energetic at night, and when they heard about the attack, they launched an attack. The excitement on everyone's faces was no less satisfying than the satisfaction of the police who had decided to arrest the thief after following him for a long time.

The gun commander waved his fist fiercely: "I have long wanted to do it, and if I hold it any longer, I'm afraid I can't help but shoot out......"

This is a pun on the "joke", which is understood by men, and the sailors can't help but laugh when they hear it.

With Hasler's order. U-107, the ferocious sea wolf, opened its bloody mouth. began to pounce on the ship.

There are a total of 2 escort aircraft carriers in the southeast column, one is called Sangamon (CVE26) and the other is Suwannee (CVE27), which is an escort aircraft carrier converted from the hull of a tanker (with the same hull as the tanker captured by the Combined Fleet), collectively referred to as the Sangamon class, compared with the Borg class. It is faster, has a larger displacement, a wider and longer deck, and more aircraft. However, because oil tankers are also extremely needed ships. After only 4 ships of this class, the follow-up reconstruction program was discontinued. All four ships were dispatched during the torch operation, but two were sunk by U-boats off the coast of Morocco, and the remaining two were all used to march towards Australia. Admiral King's plan was to strengthen the Pacific Fleet with two Sangamon-class ships and replace the inferior Borg-class, and Nimitz was convinced of this.

"David, is that mysterious radio wave still there?" Standing on the deck of the flagship Dedot-class air defense cruiser Charybdis, the commander of the southeast column, British Rear Admiral Burroughs, looked into the dark distance and turned his head to ask his chief of staff.

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

"What do you think he is?"

"Probably a submarine." David thought for a moment, "It's either Japanese or German -- but I think it's more likely that it's the Japanese, they damaged our Lamiy half a year ago, and German submarines are generally active in the Atlantic, and they don't easily run into the Indian Ocean, let alone go wild in the South Indian Ocean." ”

"Do you have a reaction to the sea radar?"

"Nope." David smiled wryly, "You shouldn't have high expectations for radar, the ability to search for surface targets, which is 20 nautical miles, is still wrong." ”

The ability to detect large sea targets, especially cruisers and above, is not bad, but it is really not enough to see submarines, and the British have been nervous about the endless false alarms of radar in the past two days.

"It is estimated that he hid in the water after sending the report." Burroughs sighed, "We've thought of countless ways in the past two days, how can we get this rat out?" ”

In order to catch the U-107, the southeast column really racked its brains, and it did everything it could, including taking the Z-shaped route from time to time; deliberately creating the illusion that a transport ship's engine is damaged and left alone to lure a submarine to attack; let the destroyer drop depth charges aimlessly on the march; Let the planes vigorously search and shoot at the sea, drop bombs, and so on. But none of these means could impress the U-107, who remained quietly in the water every day, and only came out at night, not bothering to even glance at the decoy Germans of the British.

Because of these moves by the British, the southeastern column moved extremely slowly, and Basler thought that it would take at least 30 or 31 days for the Japanese fleet to catch up with them, but in the early morning of the 28th, the center of the southeastern column was still in the large triangle of sea surrounded by the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory).

"Tomorrow morning, all planes will take off and search carefully again, and the range will be expanded to more than 100 nautical miles." David gritted his teeth and said, "I can't turn it over." ”

"Well, hopefully tomorrow we'll have a little better luck - the Royal Navy has had so bad luck lately."

"It's the same with the Army." David said worriedly, "The Germans are advancing very fast in the Middle East, and this evening the vanguard has reached the Iraqi border, and our garrison has no power to fight back, and it is obvious that the Iraqi oil fields cannot be saved, and if the Persian oil fields cannot be preserved, the oil supply of the Royal Navy 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, but we did not expect that the British Empire was blockaded first, and the Germans could still use coal to make oil, we don't even have the ability." ”

At 3:40 a.m., when the drowsiness was at its highest in the dead of night, U-107 crept into the huge fleet group, accurately approached the starboard side of the Sangamon at a distance of only 2,500 meters, and with its speed crossed the bow of the opposing ship, until it reached more than 6 chains.

"Left rudder 35 degrees."

"Yes! Left rudder 35 degrees. ”

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

"Torpedo ready, set at a depth of 4.2 meters."

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

"120-degree fan angle, prepare for 4 salvos!" Basler watched closely the movement of his target while the gunner nervously calculated the amount of advance.

As the massive hull gradually moved into the center of the crosshairs, Basler gave the order categorically: "Torpedo, launch!" ”

After 4 "whoosh" sounds, 4 G7e torpedoes fluttered towards the target.

"Dive now." Basler knew he only had one chance, and he didn't even think about reloading and firing again, but everyone still had high expectations about hitting the target.

"17,18......" was counted to 33, and a violent explosion was heard on the surface of the sea, and then two more were heard soon after.

"It's a success!" There was cheering from the submarine. Not to mention just one escort aircraft carrier, three torpedoes in a slightly older battleship could not withstand it, and now it seems that only one torpedo misses the target, and this aircraft carrier is finished. Sure enough, the hull of the Sangamun, which had three mines in the middle, broke off from the middle and immediately began to sink, and the sirens sounded on the sea.

After another 20 seconds, another dull explosion was heard on the sea, and another transport ship was sunk on the outer edge of the aircraft carrier's original position. In terms of location, it was quite a bit of distance from the U-107, and it was obvious that the off-target torpedo caught the next unjustly killed.

This sound caused a great misunderstanding among the ships of the southeastern column, making them mistakenly believe that the submarine had moved in that direction, and the destroyers rushed over and dropped the depth charges in a desperate manner.

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

"You can't be rampant for more than a few hours, and the Japanese will come to harvest you at dawn!"

At 5:45 a.m., 370 kilometers north-northwest of the southeast column, all the carrier-based planes of the 1st Guerrilla Detachment under the command of Tsukahara 243 had begun to warm up and were ready to take off.

Although he had great confidence in sinking the southeast column, Tsukahara was initially worried, because although the fuel problem was solved by capturing British and American oil tankers, after this operation, the amount of ammunition in the fleet's stockpile, especially bombs and torpedoes, would drop to a very low level, and the threat to follow-up operations would be very great.

But the Germans solved his worries in another way. (To be continued.) )