16:32 (Berlin Time)
Sunday, November 8, 1942
Ski resort, Krummhuebel, Lower Silesia
Germany
The Kriegsmarine officer’s feet hurt and his lungs were nearly on fire when he finally met up with Otto Kretschmer along the mountain trail, a good eight kilometers away from the ski resort in Krummhuebel. There were also seven other men with Kretschmer, all dressed in hiking boots and Winter coats.
‘’Aaah, Kapitän Kretschmer: I catch you at last! I am Oberleutnant zur See Ernest Bollinger and I was sent by Admiral Dönitz to get you and bring you back to Lorient, where you and your crew are urgently required.’’
Otto, who was smoking a Cuban cigar, frowned at those words while returning the salute from Bollinger.
‘’Already? But the admiral had promised me and my crew a month of quiet leave.’’
‘’He truly intended to keep his word on that, Herr Kapitän, but the Allies decided otherwise. They just started an amphibious invasion of the Vichy French territories in Morocco and Algeria and Admiral Dönitz needs all of his available submarines to counter that invasion. Your U-800 in particular is to deal with the American invasion fleet off the Casablanca area in Morocco.’’
‘’My U-800 was undergoing a thorough maintenance refit in Lorient. Has that refit been completed yet? And what about rearming and resupplying? I can’t be expected to return to sea overnight.’’
‘’Admiral Dönitz has given orders to accelerate the work on your submarine and he will brief you personally on the state of your U-800 once you are back in Lorient. Are these men members of your crew, Kapitän Kretschmer?’’
‘’Yes, they are. Why?’’
‘’Then, they are to come back with you as well. I have a plane ready for us in Hirschberg.’’
Otto sighed and looked with regret at the magnificent mountainous countryside around him. The pure mountain air had done wonders for him and the group of crewmen who had accompanied him to his home area and he could have stayed here forever. However, duty called…again.
06:15 (Paris Time)
Monday, November 9, 1942
BdU Headquarters, Lorient
France
‘’Korvettenkapitän Kretschmer, reporting back for duty, Admiral!’’
‘’At ease, my good Kretschmer!’’ Replied Karl Dönitz after returning Otto’s salute. ‘’Please, sit down, so that I can properly brief you on what has caused your recall from leave.’’
Otto took the padded chair offered by Dönitz and looked at the map of North Africa pinned on the admiral’s map board: that map had not been there the last time that he had visited this office. Not wasting any time, the admiral went to that map and, using a wooden pointer stick, designated in succession three locations along the Moroccan and Algerian coasts.
‘’Early in the morning of yesterday, a large Allied amphibious fleet attacked multiple points along the Moroccan and Algerian coasts and started landing troops and supplies. The reports on what followed are confused but it seems that the French Vichy forces in those areas resisted and fought, at least at the start of the invasion. However, they were not able to push back into the sea the American and British troops that had landed and some French units have already surrendered or stood down. Our job will be to attack the ships of that invasion fleet and cause as much damage as possible, in order to limit the amount of troops, equipment and supplies that the Allies can land in Morocco and Algeria. Since your U-800 is much larger than our other submarines and would have some difficulty to pass stealthily through the Strait of Gibraltar to attack the fleets off Oran and Algiers, I have decided to assign you to attack the fleet anchored off the Casablanca area. That fleet is reportedly split into sub-elements that landed troops at Safi, 220 kilometers south of Casablanca, at Fedala, twenty kilometers north of Casablanca, and at Mehdia, 130 kilometers north of Casablanca. We estimate that invasion force off Casablanca to consist of one reinforced army corps, supported by a strong naval task force consisting of a few escort carriers, three battleships and a few cruisers and destroyers, plus dozens of troopships, transport ships and auxiliaries. Your priority targets will be the transport ships: we want to cut off the troops already landed from their supplies and stop reinforcements from landing. By the way, our radio intercepts indicate that the fleet off Casablanca, along with the troops landed, is purely American. The force off Oran is a mixed American-British one, while the force off Algiers is British.’’
‘’That mission is fine with me, Admiral, but what about my boat? It was undergoing a thorough maintenance check and needed to be fully rearmed and resupplied. When will it be ready for sea again?’’
‘’Early tomorrow morning!’’ Replied at once Dönitz, making Otto frown. ‘’I gave your boat top priority with my maintenance, repair and resupply teams.’’
‘’Tomorrow morning? But, this sounds rushed as hell, Admiral! Are you sure that the job will not be bungled as a result of this haste?’’
‘’I don’t think so, my good Otto: my best submarine maintenance engineer was put in charge of the U-800’s refit and he is presently using all the maintenance teams available in Lorient. Your boat is presently swarming with technicians and specialists. I can also give you a piece of good news that may help you feel better about this rushed departure: your U-800 is presently being rearmed with a full complement of a new type of torpedo, the T-3. The T-3 has a new combined magnetic and contact pistol for its warhead that has been thoroughly tested and is fully functional. With that new magnetic pistol, you will be able to fire a single torpedo under a ship, which will then explode under the keel and break that ship in two. With that new T-3 torpedo, you will be able to use to the maximum your legendary accuracy. By the way, you will be the first to be armed with the T-3. Yes?’’
‘’Uh, don’t take this wrong, Admiral, but I would like that the Japanese Type 96 torpedoes that I had in my aft torpedo room be kept there and that only the forward torpedo room be reloaded with your new T-3 torpedo. The Type 96 has unequaled performances in speed, plus a massive warhead, two things that make it ideal to attack large, fast warships that could otherwise evade our slower German torpedoes. I also have one Japanese naval officer and four sailors that would be available to maintain and fire those Type 96 torpedoes.’’
Dönitz thought over that for a moment before nodding his head.
‘’Granted! I will give orders right after this meeting to have those Japanese torpedoes kept in your aft torpedo room. As for your crew, every effort is being done to reassemble it here as quickly as possible. Thankfully, the Luftwaffe has given me full assistance by providing transport planes on demand and with top priority to get your various crewmen back to Lorient. It seems that the gift of aviation gasoline and aluminum metal that you brought back from the Falklands, along with those centimetric radar sets, has done much to improve our relations with the Luftwaffe.’’
‘’Talking of those centimetric radars, how long before we could get warning receivers set to those new radar frequencies?’’
‘’Well, normally such new detectors take many months to design and develop before they can become operational. However, having in our hands examples of those new radars is making the job a lot easier for our specialists. That new ‘magnetron’ thing in particular was a real wakeup call for our experts, who are now hard at work reverse-engineering the American radar sets. With luck, we will be able to equip your U-800 with a centimetric radar detector in about two to three months, while the Luftwaffe may get airborne centimetric radar sets in its aircraft in about five to six months. Unfortunately, you will have to leave for your next war patrol without such a detector.’’
‘’That’s alright, Admiral: I never lounge around on the surface for any length of time anyway.’’
‘’Then, I believe that we are done here. Go see my intelligence officer after this, so that he can provide you with detailed charts and maps of the Moroccan coast, along with the appropriate current and tide information. We will continue to keep in contact via one-time pad codes for this operation. Good luck, Kapitän Kretschmer!’’
‘’Thank you, Herr Admiral!’’ Replied Otto, getting up from his chair and saluting before pivoting around and walking out of Dönitz’ office.
23:08 (Paris Time)
Friday, November 13, 1942
Headquarters, Western Task Force of Operation Torch
Casablanca, Morocco
Major General George S. Patton Junior had just finished writing a letter to his wife and was getting ready to go to bed when someone started knocking insistently on the door of his room, a luxury suite of the hotel in Casablanca that he had requisitioned as his headquarters.
‘’YES, COME IN!’’
His naval aide, a lieutenant-commander, entered at once with an expression on his face that made the old general frown.
‘’What is it, Commander Stockwell?’’
‘’Sir, someone has started attacking our fleet off Casablanca. The heavy cruiser AUGUSTA and the destroyers BUCK and LUDLOW have been sunk, along with five transport and cargo ships. We think that a German submarine pack is now operating off Casablanca. More ships are being sunk as we speak.’’
‘’WHAT?’’ Shouted Patton, instantly furious. The U.S.S. AUGUSTA had carried him to North Africa for this operation and had been the flagship of his naval component. Some of his staff had still been aboard the heavy cruiser tonight. ‘’WHAT THE HELL ARE OUR DESTROYERS DOING? SITTING ON THEIR THUMBS?’’
‘’Uh, they are doing the best they can, General, but they seem unable to locate and strike these submarines.’’
A nasty thought then struck Patton’s mind.
‘’How much of our army equipment and supplies have been landed up to now, Commander? Are we in danger of losing our sole nearby source of supplies?’’
‘’I will need to check on that, General. I will get back to you soon with an answer.’’
The Navy officer then nearly ran out of Patton’s suite, leaving the general fuming with frustration. All thoughts of sleeping now gone, Patton decided to shave and put on a fresh uniform before going down to his operations center, situated in a banquet hall of the hotel.
It was in the operations center that his naval liaison officer came back to him with his promised answer.
‘’General, as of midnight, all the troops and nearly all the army vehicles have been landed, but only 24 percent of the army supplies have been unloaded from the ships.’’
‘’Only a quarter of my supplies are ashore, Commander?’’ Replied Patton, distinctly unhappy with that information. ‘’Where is Rear-admiral Hewitt? I will need to speak with him.’’
From anxious, the expression of his naval aide turned somber.
‘’Rear-admiral Hewitt went down with the AUGUSTA, General. Furthermore, I am pained to have to tell you that we suffered more casualties at sea in the last two hours: the escort carrier SANGAMON was torpedoed and sunk, along with the destroyer EDISON and seven more cargo ships. The last cargo ship to be hit was at dockside when it was torpedoed. I am afraid that we probably won’t have more than forty percent of our army supplies ashore by daybreak, General: the rest is already at the bottom of the sea.’’
Patton had to sit down, struck hard by these news. By daybreak, he learned that a further ten cargo ships, along with the escort carrier SANTEE and the light cruiser BROOKLYN, had been sunk. Then, the submarines that had attacked his force seemed to vanish without a trace, leaving his American expeditionary force literally high and dry with only thirty percent of its planned supplies, until more supplies could be shipped from across the Atlantic.
19:24 (Paris Time)
Saturday, November 14, 1942
Control Room of the U-800
On submerged approach to the Strait of Gibraltar
‘’HELM, DIVE TO DEPTH OF 280 METERS! SPEED: SIX KNOTS! TO ALL THE CREW: WE NOW ARE ON SILENT RUN MODE.’’
Lieutenant-commander Takeshi Nagaoka, who was standing beside the navigation plot table with Leutnant Hermann Spielberger, gave a curious look to Otto when the latter approached the plot table.
‘’I thought that the Strait of Gibraltar had the reputation of being a very dangerous point of passage for German submarines, what with all the British ships, patrol aircraft and minefields protecting the strait.’’
‘’That is true…for normal U-Bootes, but the U-800 is not a normal U-Boote. We can dive much deeper than any Type VII or Type IX submarine and can stay submerged much longer while going much faster. We will stay at a depth of 280 meters until we pass the Camarinal Sill, the shallowest point of the strait at 300 meters. Then, we will dive even further, to a cruising depth of 350 meters, our operational limit. There, well under the thermal cline layer and way beyond the fuse settings of Allied depth charges, we will be both completely safe and nearly undetectable. The bottom floor will in fact get deeper as we go eastward, to attain 900 meters by the time we enter the Mediterranean proper. With all the transport ships of the American force off Morocco that were still carrying cargo now having been sunk, there was no sense for us to waste more time there. We will find plenty more targets off Oran and Algiers, Commander.’’
‘’I don’t doubt that one minute, Herr Kapitän.’’ Said Nagaoka, smiling.
Otto’s predictions came true, the U-800 negotiating the Strait of Gibraltar in less than nine hours while apparently encountering no obstacles on its way. Otto stayed deep and silent for another four hours, time to clear the heavily patrolled zone around the mouth of the Mediterranean, then accelerated to ten knots while still on batteries. The U-800 finally went back up to deploy its schnorchel and recharge its batteries after nightfall on November 15, a technical feat that Nagaoka had not believed possible. By then, they were less than 130 nautical miles from their next target: the coastal waters off Oran, in Algeria.
01:36 (Paris Time)
Monday, November 16, 1942
U-800, forty nautical miles northwest of Oran
‘’I think that we have a bunch of really big fish approaching us, Herr Kapitän. We are talking about at least five big, fast warships, plus about seven to ten smaller warships, all coming generally at us at a speed of about fifteen knots. From the way they have been doing long loop circuits off the Algerian coast, my bet would be that these ships are a carrier task group.’’
‘’I agree, Herr Grote.’’ Said Otto Kretschmer while bent over the shoulders of his senior hydrophone and sonar operator. ‘’They are too far from the coast to be a gun fire support group and they certainly are not some transport group. The radio reports we got during the last day said that the Allies are now well established on the ground in Algeria, but have minimal ground-based air support. Let’s take an ambush position to await these ships. How long before they are on us?’’
‘’I would say less than one hour, Herr Kapitän.”
‘’Good! We will be ready for them. Advise me the moment that they change course or speed.’’
‘’Will do, Herr Kapitän!’’
Otto then left the claustrophobic sonar section and returned into the control room, where he went to the navigation plot table and made a few quick calculations. With that done, he grabbed the microphone of the nearest intercom set and activated it.
‘’Attention all hands! This is the Captain speaking! We have a flotilla of major warships, possibly an aircraft carrier group, approaching us. Join your battle stations now…quietly!’’
Otto’s well drilled and experienced crew went into action at once, donning their special felt overshoes before walking quickly to their various battle stations. Lieutenant-commander Nagaoka, according to a now well-established drill, went aft to join the four Japanese torpedo specialists in the aft torpedo room, where all the remaining Type 96 and Type 92 torpedoes were stored. There, he was going to be able to translate into Japanese to his sailors any orders from Otto, as he had done off Casablanca, where the Japanese torpedo men had more than proved their effectiveness, as well as their eagerness. Staying under the thermal layer and letting his towed passive hydrophone array float above it while slowly cruising at three knots, Otto made sure that no surface ship could detect him before he went into action.
With his preys within a few nautical miles and on a near collision course with him, Otto slowly rose from the depths while having his helmsman turn on a course perpendicular to that of the incoming enemy ships. The unique sensors arrangement of his boat was going to allow him to triangulate in purely passive hydrophone mode the position and distance of the incoming enemy ships, using the long baseline between his towed hydrophone array, trailing 300 meters behind his propeller, and his ‘Gross Balkon’ bow passive hydrophone array, situated a full hundred meters ahead of his propeller. Within four minutes, Ulrich von Wittgenstein, manning the tactical plot table near the fire control calculator machine, was able to give Otto a full report on the incoming flotilla.
‘’We have the enemy plotted down, Herr Kapitän. The lead enemy ship is now 4,000 meters from us and coming up at a speed of fourteen knots. The enemy is sailing in three parallel columns, with the heavy units in the center column. The lead center unit is a probable battleship, followed by two probable aircraft carriers and a cruiser. The wing columns are formed of six probable destroyers each, with a distance of about 2,000 meters between each column.’’
‘’Did you say ‘two aircraft carriers’?’’ Said Otto, not believing his luck. Ulrich smiled at his reaction.
‘’You heard right, Herr Kapitän. Where do you want us for the first attack?’’
‘’Let’s slide quietly in a waiting position between the center column and the wing column to its starboard. We will keep our bow pointed outward and will use time-on-target tactical shooting, with our bow tubes engaging two destroyers with one G7e T-3 each and with our stern tubes firing two Type 96 torpedoes at each aircraft carrier. We will then turn around and fire three G7e T-3s at the battleship and two at the cruiser. Once our tubes are empty, we will crash dive to a depth of 300 meters and reload our tubes out of reach of the enemy. But first, let’s reel in our towed array before we go into battle.’’
‘’Aye, Herr Kapitän!’’
Watching and listening as his men acted on his orders, Otto went briefly to the tactical plot table and took a glimpse of the symbols now marked with colored grease pencils on the illuminated transparent glass surface, estimating mentally the times each of his moves would take while glancing at his watch. Going next to his attack periscope, he partly raised it out and gave more orders.
‘’HELM, GO TO PERISCOPE DEPTH AND REDUCE SPEED TO TWO KNOTS! FIRE CONTROL TEAM, BE READY TO ENTER FIRE DATA! BOW AND STERN TORPEDO ROOMS, FLOOD ALL TUBES AND BE READY TO FIRE. COUNTER-MEASURES, BE READY ON MY COMMAND TO RELEASE TWO BOLD CANISTERS.’’
Taking frequent, quick glimpses at his watch, Otto waited for his hydrophone senior operator’s final piece of information, given in a bit of a tense voice.
‘’The lead ships of the enemy columns are now passing us, Herr Kapitän. The second ships in the columns will pass us in about forty seconds.
‘’FIRE CONTROL, STAND BY!’’
Twenty seconds later, Otto raised the head of his attack periscope above the surface of the water for the first time and immediately pointed it at the third destroyer of the starboard column, visible in the moonlight.
‘’FIRST TARGET, RELATIVE HEADING 140 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!’’
‘’FIRST TARGET, SECOND HEADING 131 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!... FIRE SOLUTION COMPUTED!’’
‘’MATCH BEARINGS AND SHOOT TUBE ONE!’’
‘’TUBE ONE FIRED!’’
‘’SECOND TARGET, RELATIVE HEADING 025 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!’’
‘’SECOND TARGET, SECOND HEADING 016 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!... FIRE SOLUTION COMPUTED!’’
‘’MATCH BEARINGS AND SHOOT TUBE TWO!’’
‘’TUBE TWO FIRED!’’
As his first two torpedoes, German G7e T-3 set to pass under their targets and explode under their keels, went on their way at thirty knots, Otto performed a half turn to point his attack periscope aft. What he saw made his heart jump from excitement.
‘’THIRD TARGET: ILLUSTRIOUS-CLASS BRITISH AIRCRAFT CARRIER IN SIGHT, RELATIVE HEADING 160 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!’’
‘’THIRD TARGET, SECOND HEADING 165 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!... FIRE SOLUTION COMPUTED!’’
‘’MATCH BEARINGS AND SHOOT TUBES NINE AND TEN!’’
‘’TUBES NINE AND TEN FIRED!’’
Otto, having just fired at the second aircraft carrier in line, then pointed at the first carrier, nearer to him, as two speady Type 96 rushed out at fifty knots.
‘’FOURTH TARGET: ANOTHER ILLUSTRIOUS-CLASS CARRIER, RELATIVE HEADING 183 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!’’
‘’FOURTH TARGET, SECOND HEADING 195 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!... FIRE SOLUTION COMPUTED!’’
‘’MATCH BEARINGS AND SHOOT TUBES ELEVEN AND TWELVE!’’
‘’TUBES ELEVEN AND TWELVE FIRED!’’
‘’RELOAD ALL EMPTY TUBES! HELM, TIGHT TURN TO PORT! COME TO HEADING 270!’’
‘’TURNING TO HEADING 270, AYE!’’
‘’IMPACT OF FIRST TORPEDO IN TEN SECONDS!’’ Announced Wolfgang Leeb, who was assisting Ulrich von Wittgenstein at the tactical plot table. The U-800 was still turning nearly on the spot, with Otto already pointing his periscope at the lead ship of the central column, when a muffled underwater explosion was heard through the steel hull. The crewmembers didn’t explode in happy shouts then, realizing that they were still in the thick of it and that their captain needed to concentrate on his next moves.
‘’FIFTH TARGET: REPULSE-CLASS BRITISH BATTLECRUISER! RELATIVE HEADING 005 DEGREES! MARK!’’
‘’MARKED!’’
A series of five separate underwater explosions was heard as Otto announced his second relative heading on the battlecruiser, then ordered the firing of three of the bow tubes. Nearly hyperventilating from the intense concentration and tension of his job, Otto switched his attention to the last ship of the central column, a DIDO-Class anti-aircraft cruiser, and fired two more torpedoes, then lowered his periscope.
‘’HELM, EMERGENCY DIVE TO 300 METERS! HEADING, 085 DEGREES! RELEASE BOLD CANISTERS IN TWENTY SECONDS!’’
More underwater explosions were heard as the U-800 dove down like a plane while turning tightly, forcing its crewmembers to hold tight to hull fixtures in order not to lose their balance. Two short bursts of compressed air announced the ejection of the two ‘Bold’ canisters, which then started producing clouds of hydrogen bubbles on which active sonar pings would reflect, giving false echoes and hiding the true position of the submarine to the sonar operators of the now frantic escort destroyers.
Otto’s planned move proved salutary, as the U-800 leveled off at a depth of 310 meters just as dozens of underwater explosions well above it could be heard, marking the detonations of salvoes of depth charges. Those depth charges however caused no more than some noise, the U-800 being way too deep to be affected by them. Otto used a few seconds then to happily shake hands with his crewmen in the control room.
‘’Well done, men! However, that job is not finished yet. We still have to assess the damage we caused and finish off our wounded targets. How long before all tubes are reloaded, Ulrich?’’
‘’About 25 minutes, Herr Kapitän.’’
‘’Good! In the meantime, let’s turn around to follow that wounded flotilla and see what the enemy will do next, apart from wasting dozens of depth charges.’’
On the surface, the commander of the destroyer escort was nearly pulling his hair out as his destroyers crisscrossed the dark ocean while releasing salvo after salvo of depth charges, all without any apparent effect except for killing thousands of fish. The carriers ILLUSTRIOUS and INDOMITABLE were already in dire shape, the torpedoes that had hit them having proven to be very powerful ones. The battlecruiser RENOWN was listing heavily, its belly slit wide open by three under the keel explosions, while the cruiser ARGONAUT had broken in two pieces and was sinking. The destroyer commander had also lost two destroyers, each broken in half by single torpedo hits that had exploded under their keels. The screen commander had never seen such deadly torpedoes, nor such incredibly accurate shooting by a submarine.
‘’SIGNAL TO ALL DESTROYERS: STOP DROPPING DEPTH CHARGES, SLOW DOWN TO FIVE KNOTS AND DO PROPER RADAR AND ASDIC SWEEPS!’’
A shout from a lookout then made his head snap around towards the stricken RENOWN.
‘’SIR, THE RENOWN: IT IS CAPSIZING!’’
The screen commander felt a hard lump in his throat as he watched the old 36,000 ton battlecruiser turn over and then sink in the dark, huge air bubbles and white foam escaping from its breached hull: He had served before on the RENOWN and knew many of the 1,200 officers and men who were presently dying right under his eyes. He had to shake himself up to come out of his gloomy contemplation. Looking around at the general situation of the stricken flotilla, he became angry when he saw that one of his destroyers had not obeyed his orders and was still dropping depth charges in the water.
‘’WHAT THE HELL DOES JARVIS THINKS THAT HE IS DOING? SIGNAL THE NERISSA TO IMMEDIATELY STOP DROPPING DEPTH CHARGES!’’
‘’AYE, SIR!’’
The next half hour brought no good news to the screen commander, as repeated ASDIC sweeps found no trace of any submarine, as if their attacker or attackers had simply vanished. In that same half hour, the carrier ILLUSTRIOUS also capsized and sank, followed one hour later by the INDOMITABLE despite the heroic efforts of its damage control teams. In both cases, the two aircraft carriers owed their final fate to the fact that the torpedo hits had cut all power to the pumps and fire hoses, making it impossible to fight the massive flooding and fires. The screen commander had just sent off a radio message to the British Mediterranean Fleet Headquarters in Alexandria after ordering four of his destroyers to start picking up the survivors floating on the surface of the ocean, when a lookout shouted again.
‘’SIR, THE NEPAL SEEMS TO HAVE DETECTED SOMETHING: IT IS ACCELERATING AND TURNING TO THE EAST.’’
Bringing his binoculars up to his eyes, the screen commander watched the H.M.S. NEPAL as it charged alone towards the rear of the formation. That charge however abruptly ended when a powerful underwater explosion right under the keel of the destroyer raised the warship out of the water, where it dropped back in two pieces.
‘’BLOODY HELL! HOW CAN TORPEDOES CONSISTENTLY EXPLODE RIGHT UNDER OUR KEELS? THESE MUST BE NEW GERMAN TORPEDOES.’’
To his renewed rage, that was the last thing he saw that day that proved that a submarine had been present in this piece of ocean. Others had that dubious privilege, as a total of sixteen cargo ships, all of them still full of equipment and supplies, were sunk in or near Oran Harbor at daybreak, along with the British light cruisers HMS ARETHUSA and HMS AURORA. Then followed two days of tense calm for the surviving Allied ships of Operation Torch, as they waited for the proverbial second shoe to drop and as the commanders of the landed ground forces were pondering the perilously low state of their supplies reserves. However, no more torpedoes hit them again.
The relief of not experiencing more submarine attacks was cut short when the British battleship HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH hit a sea mine and was seriously damaged as she was entering the harbor at Alexandria, Egypt, on November 19. A tugboat and a minesweeper also fell victim to the extensive minefield that ended up closing off Alexandria Harbor for more than five days, throwing a further wrench into the Allies’ already disturbed war schedule. All that bedlam actually profited the Italian Navy and Marshal Rommel’s Africa Corps, as a number of Italian supply convoys were able to go through unmolested and land their precious cargo in Benghazi, thanks to the frightful naval losses suffered by the Allies in the Mediterranean at the hands of the U-800.
08:06 (Paris Time)
Thursday, Nov