At the northern end of St. George's Channel, between the Cohen Peninsula in North Wales and County Wicklow in East Ireland, beneath the undulating waves lies man-made objects that resemble giant whales, the main body of which is located at a depth of 20 meters, and the crew of the interior peeres directly into the sea with the help of special periscopes. From the point of view of size, their tonnage should not exceed 1 www.biquge.info,000 tons, and according to the current accepted standards, they belong to the category of medium-sized submarines, which are usually used to perform alert cruises and medium- and short-range attack missions. The submarines' hulls were not painted with conspicuous patterns or insignia, and were simply marked with tactical numbers on the sides of the command compartments, making them unrecognizable at first glance, but when they stared at the ships on the surface of the sea with their mouths wide open, one did not have to wonder which side they belonged to.

"Torpedo tracks have been spotted ahead, there are British submarines!"

On a destroyer with the Irish Navy battle flag flying high on its mast, the lookout signalled the encounter in a high-pitched and hurried voice. On the bridge of the battle ship, the officers on duty searched for the enemy's traces with binoculars, and although it was difficult to capture the tiny periscope shot on the vast sea, the white track left by the torpedo gliding and the violent explosion of the attacked ship a moment later clearly told them that the fleet was attacked by British submarines!

The sound of violent explosions still echoed on the surface of the sea, and the commander of the destroyer shouted an order to the signal man: "Hit two red flares!" ”

In a few moments, two red signal flares shot vertically into the sky, and ships within a radius of more than ten kilometers could see this signal with specific tactical information.

There are more than 40 ships of all kinds in the huge fleet, about one-third of which are warships and armed ships, and the rest are unarmed civilian ships, the larger ones are about four or five thousand tons, and the small ones are about three or four hundred tons.

At the urging of the battle alarm, the fighters on the destroyer were in their positions, and all the armament was ready to fire, especially the anti-submarine weapons located on the sides and stern of the ship, and in the frantic roar of the engines, the speed of the battleship increased from "cruise" to "battle", and the waves of water stirred up by the bow began to rush onto the deck......

"The Minoan sent a signal that the British submarine was 1,500 meters northeast of it!"

As soon as the lookout finished speaking, the black-bearded destroyer commander gave a decisive order to the first mate at the helm, and the battleship was transformed into a brave sheepdog, fearlessly pounced on the wolves that threatened the sheep.

The first to locate the enemy submarine and give a guiding signal was a patrol gunboat, whose main armament was a 37 mm machine gun, and although this weapon was unlikely to threaten the underwater submarine, the crew opened fire at the right time, and the column of water rising from the sea clearly pointed out the target position of the friendly ship.

After having the communications personnel report the enemy situation to the command, the destroyer commander decisively gave the gunners of the front main gun an order: "Aim at the firing position of the Minoan and fire continuously!" ”

This destroyer, with typical German features, was one of the first ships handed over to Ireland by the German Navy, and the biggest difference compared to the three classes built by Ireland after the war was that their guns were loaded by hand, and the rate of fire was more than half slower than that of the new destroyers equipped with semi-automatic loaders. Receiving the commander's order to fire, the only 105-mm single-mounted gun on the foredeck quickly let out the first roar, and the shells whizzed away, causing a large wave of water on the sea swept by the machine guns.

The destroyer commander shouted "Well done" with an excited expression, and the gunners, encouraged, finished reloading with burst speed and opened fire again. Since traditional naval guns rely entirely on manual aiming, they fire continuously in the state of high-speed movement of the ship, and the impact point of the projectile is often very different. The officers on the bridge looked sorry and annoyed as the second wave of water rose in the distance and deflected twenty or thirty meters, but their commander still loudly encouraged the gunners who were fighting hard.

Above this flotilla, several Irish warplanes have been circling and on the alert, their first task is to guard against a sudden attack by British surface ships, and secondly, to cooperate with escort ships in anti-submarine warfare. Seeing the red flares rising, they quickly lowered their altitude and tried to find the shade beneath the surface, but the turquoise waters of St. George's Strait provided good cover for the British submarines who were diving deeply, and they had to follow the guns of the escort ships to drop bombs, but there was no black oil stain in the rolling waves.

"Torpedo track found on the starboard side of the sea!"

The lookout's exclamation was not calm, but at least it was clear enough to make one understand exactly what he was observing.

The officers on the bridge turned their eyes to starboard, and the sight in sight made them gasp: good fellows, these torpedoes are coming straight for themselves!

With the speed and mobility of the destroyer, as long as the destroyer gave timely warning and operated accurately, it was not too difficult to avoid the torpedoes speeding from a distance of several hundred meters; when the thinking of the vast majority of people was stuck on how to avoid the torpedoes as much as possible, the shrewd and capable destroyer commander saw the enemy's intention to kill two birds with one stone, and he hurriedly ordered the battleship to turn to the left, and the guns of the whole ship opened fire on the torpedoes in the water.

Only then did it dawn on those who realized it later: even if the destroyer avoided these torpedoes, what should happen to the entire column of ships behind?

Four torpedoes struck at a rapid pace, forming a fan of four white wakes on the surface of the sea, apparently by a British submarine firing a torpedo salvo. They had less than a minute left for the officers and men of the Irish destroyer to pass by from the time they were spotted and the time they were mistaken, and the guns on board rained down like madness, but the experience of the predecessors and the judgments of experts showed that the chances of success in detonating the torpedo were extremely low—until the torpedo slipped under their noses, and the heavy gunfire failed to blow any of them, much to the chagrin of the officers and men on board.

Seeing the British torpedoes flying towards the transport ships carrying the equipment of the troops, on the bridge, an officer asked with a pale face: "Sir, do you want to send three green flares?" ”

The commander gritted his teeth and said: "No, once the formation is disbanded at this time, it will be easier for the British submarine to find an opportunity to attack!" Send the flag and let the 2nd detachment circumvent it on its own! ”

The officer carried out the order without hesitation, but with the astonishing speed of the torpedo, the fate of the attacked person was probably settled before the flag signal was issued. At this moment, a biplane seaplane swooped down from mid-air and dropped two aerial bombs mounted on its wings at the lowest point. The explosive power of these light aerial bombs was only slightly stronger than that of the destroyer's main gun shells, but at this moment they actually had an unexpected effect - their explosion immediately detonated a British torpedo, and a column of water that rushed straight to 100 meters was set off in the middle of the two water waves, which shows the terrible power of the submarine-launched torpedo.

The torpedo that exploded in the open sea did not injure a single boat or person, but on the contrary, countless lost hearts were inspired and motivated.

Immediately after, another biplane seaplane made a Osprey dive and dropped bombs on the sailing torpedo, but it was not so lucky. The bomb was dropped, and the backseat gunner continued to fire as the plane pulled up, but these efforts were completely futile.

The vast majority of civilian ships are low in speed and slow in turning, and when they see the flying torpedoes, the helmsmen try their best to turn to avoid them, and the soldiers on board are not willing to be appointed, they use machine guns, rifles and even pistols to greet the approaching torpedoes, but the fate is no longer in their hands. In the blink of an eye, a ferry ship could not be avoided, and the bow of the ship was blown away by a torpedo in an instant, and the other freighter was only a few dozen centimeters away from bad luck, and hundreds of people on board were shocked into a cold sweat......

Seeing that the ferry boat that was hit by a torpedo quickly capsized, and at least four or five hundred allied soldiers were facing drowning, the officers and men on the destroyer were dumbfounded, and their commander was no longer as calm as he had just now, but his eyes were full of fire, his face was hideous, and he squeezed out one sentence at a time: "The British will definitely pay ten times the price for this!" ”

The task of rescuing the drowning man was entrusted to the light gunboat and the armed fishing boat, and the escorting destroyers pounced on the two locations where the torpedoes were coming out, and under the guidance of sonar, they captured the whereabouts of the enemy submarine and positioned it more accurately, and then threw projectile and barrel depth charges into the sea one after another, and some destroyers even used up half of the depth bombs in one go.

After more than a quarter of an hour, the successive muffled thunders finally stopped, the boiling sea gradually calmed down, and the sound from the lookout instantly cheered up the crew of the destroyer.

"Look, there's oil and debris on the surface!"

Following the prestige, lumps of oil appeared on the sea surface in the direction of the stern of the ship, and the area was constantly expanding, and there was still a little debris on the surface of the sea, which was exactly the scene after the submarine was hit by depth charges.

Cheers were heard from several destroyers.

In a short time, more than a dozen planes flew in from the direction of the Irish coast, and unlike the normal escort seaplanes, they did not have pontoons under the wings, but fixed landing gear and wheels, which gave them higher maneuverability and payload, so that more aerial bombs could be seen in their bellies and under the wings.

Strong air support directly increased the tactical space of the escort ships, the destroyers concentrated to besiege another British submarine that was still absconding, the patrol gunboats correspondingly expanded the range of the warning circle, and a number of armed fishing boats reduced their speed to search for and rescue those who had fallen into the water near the capsized and sunken ships, and the panic that hung over the people's hearts was alleviated, and the surviving ships continued to sail to the Cohen Peninsula with heavily armed soldiers and various war materials. They faced mortal threats during the short voyage, and the elusive British submarines, high-speed torpedo boats, and British bombers that came and went freely had claimed hundreds of lives, but less than three percent of the ferry losses were still within the reach of the Coalition.

(End of chapter)