Word: merchantmen
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...battle. A pack of 20 subs had attacked two adjacent convoys. Land-based U.S. planes from Iceland, British and Canadian planes from England, escort-carrier planes teamed with British destroyers and frigates. After the eighth submarine was hit, the enemy kept their distance. "Ninety nine percent" of the merchantmen got through safely. Not a British warship was scratched. The British lost three planes...
Tensely the task ships waited for word. One hour after the takeoff it came: "Enemy taken by surprise." Kwajalein's roomy lagoon (80 miles long, 20 miles at the widest) was full of shipping: sampans, inter-island craft, seagoing merchantmen, tankers, warships. Said a U.S. pilot: "It was a dive bomber's paradise, and we turned it into a Japanese hell." The score after ten minutes of concentrated attack: two light cruisers, one oiler, three cargo transports sunk; one troop transport, three cargo transports damaged; grounded planes and shore installations hard...
...Churchill prepared their monthly statement on U-boat warfare, which in October went swimmingly for the Allies, sinkingly for the Nazis. U-boats were out in force. They not only failed to press home their attacks but were sunk in large numbers, as planes from U.S. "baby flattops" (converted merchantmen) pounded them silly. Allied production, plus a net gain of 170,000 tons of Italian shipping, put the Allies far in the black...
...damage. But eight new battle carriers of the 25,000-ton Essex class and nine new Princetons, converted to carriers from cruisers, have been launched and are or soon will be in service. Most of these 20 carriers can be used in the Pacific, for scores of small converted-merchantmen carriers can do the anti-submarine work of the Atlantic...
...tiny Norwegian port of Bodo the carrier's planes, thus handsomely escorted, scored heavily: they put at least twelve direct hits on eight merchantmen (ranging in size from 3,000 to 10,000 tons). The planes also buffeted a landing barge, a 500-ton ship, a 1,200-ton ore vessel. Lost: three U.S. planes, destroyed by anti-aircraft fire...