Word: merchantmen
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Last week the U-boats' return to the American seaboard was announced. Atlantic skippers told of twelve-hour running fights. Now Doenitz sent his raiders hunting in multiple packs. His U-boats attacked in waves-first to disrupt escorts, then to bore in among the helpless merchantmen for the kill. To supplement the work of the U-boats was a still-powerful German surface fleet, reportedly moved from Norway fjords, possibly operating again against Atlantic convoys...
...attacks on Oro Bay and Guadalcanal the Japs lost 31 planes. Liberators and Flying Fortresses of MacArthur's command, in three assaults on Kavieng, sank two Jap cruisers and a destroyer, damaged other warships and merchantmen...
...work, as the taut indifference of the strip-builders indicated, was urgent. How urgent was further pointed up this week by a Navy announcement that U.S. naval vessels had intercepted two escorted cargo ships headed for the Aleutians. The two merchantmen were not particularly significant. Their escort was. It consisted of no less than four cruisers and four destroyers. Such an inordinately heavy shield suggested that the Japs wanted to be sure those ships got through...
...Trondheim fleet actually includes two carriers, they are probably converted merchantmen (the Graf Zeppelin and Deutschland are not thought to be ready). The British feel that they could lick such a force. But the burden of keeping enough ships at hand to counter the many moves open to this fleet in being has a "momentous effect" on Allied strategy...
...second morning, Mitchell B258 dumped 500-lb. bombs on the enlarged target. Ten minutes later came Australian Beaufighters. Next another wave of Mitchells dropped explosives on dodging cargo ships and destroyers. This fight was for the kill. The Mitchells swooped low to strafe lifeboats and rafts. A destroyer, three merchantmen and a transport were sunk. Eight others were hit. One squadron of Mitchells, skip-bombing at mast level, got twelve hits, despite the nail of frantic Jap ack-ack. More Zeros appeared, but they too were shot down. Kenney's bombers were blasting at Lae, nearest Jap airdrome, with...