Word: tankerful
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Captain Olaf Eckstrom had been commanding the 8,272-ton, "heavily loaded" tanker Montebello only five hours when a torpedo ripped through the port side, under the bridge. It knocked out the ship's radio and power plant. In pre-dawn darkness the crew struggled with the lifeboats as the submarine opened up with its deck gun, scoring only one hit (in the Montebello's forepart) out of "eight or ten" shots. Despite strafing machine-gun fire, the 36 officers and crew pulled to safety, cursing the attackers. Said Captain Eckstrom...
...Frank Knox announced that in the Atlantic the Navy had "probably sunk or damaged at least 14 enemy submarines." In the Pacific, he added, "our naval forces have already effectively dealt with several Japanese submarines." Off the Pacific Coast, 200 miles north of San Francisco, a submarine sank the tanker Emidio by gunfire and torpedo a few miles off Blunt's Reef, then sank three lifeboats as the crew fled. The Navy said 22 crew members were missing. Farther south the tanker Agwiworld, 20 miles off Santa Cruz, was attacked by a submarine which appeared 500 yards away...
...Dutch knew there was no permanency to this, and they went straight to work. Part of the Dutch Air Force joined the British in Malaya. Dutch submarines sank four Japanese transports as they rushed 4,000 reinforcing troops to Cape Patani; next day the Dutch caught a tanker and a freighter. Just as they had been tough in negotiation, so now the Dutch of the Indies were proving determined in action...
...goddamit," griped a tanker, "we go so fast that in real war we'd squash those gunners before they could fire...
Apparently the British released torpedoes at point-blank range and followed up with gunfire. Somehow in the darkness, with radio locators or searchlights, they spotted every ship in the convoy. They sank nine and left the tenth, a tanker, blazing fiercely. For good measure they sent down (by Italian admission) two enemy destroyers. Presumably the Italian cruisers, fearful that a British battleship was near by, turned tail and fled. The entire British squadron got back to Malta unscathed...