Japan Stunned When America's Hedgehog Mortars Destroyed 7 Subs in 12 Days скачать в хорошем качестве

Japan Stunned When America's Hedgehog Mortars Destroyed 7 Subs in 12 Days

Japan Stunned When America's Hedgehog Mortars Destroyed 7 Subs in 12 Days May thirteenth, nineteen forty-four. Fleet Radio Unit Pacific, Pearl Harbor. The codebreaker's pencil scratched across paper as intercepted Japanese characters transformed into English letters. Message from submarine I-sixteen. Scheduled rice delivery to Buin, southern Bougainville. Departure imminent. Lieutenant Commander Robert Williamson set down his coffee and reached for the secure telephone. Three destroyer escorts would intercept. The USS England. The USS George. The USS Raby. What none of them knew was that this single decoded message would trigger the most devastating anti-submarine hunt in naval history. The Pacific War had taught American forces that Japanese submarines were not just weapons of war, they were lifelines. Cut those lifelines, and entire garrisons would starve. The Imperial Japanese Navy's Seventh Submarine Squadron had established a patrol line stretching from Truk Island to the Admiralty Islands. Seven submarines. I-sixteen, RO-one zero four, RO-one zero five, RO-one zero six, RO-one zero eight, RO-one one six, and RO-one one seven. Admiral Soemu Toyoda's underwater sentries, positioned to detect any American fleet movement toward the Palau Islands or the Marianas. The USS England cut through Pacific swells at twenty-three knots, her Buckley-class hull displacing fourteen hundred tons of seawater. Lieutenant Commander Walton Pendleton stood on the bridge, studying the tactical plot. His ship carried one hundred and eighty-six men and an arsenal specifically designed to kill submarines. Two depth charge racks. Eight K-guns capable of hurling three-hundred-pound charges one hundred and fifty yards. And mounted forward of the bridge, the weapon that would make naval history: a twenty-four barrel Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar.