Word: torpedoed
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...sailors on City of Flint. Had the U. S. followed another policy it might have been placed in the position of evading its responsibility to them. Unexpected refusal of the Russians to permit U. S. access to the crew opened a hole as big as the blast of a torpedo in the Russian case. Newspaper dispatches called the case a U. S. diplomatic victory. There could scarcely be a victory over such a problem; the outcome appeared rather to be an instance in which a simple demand for candor, and an insistence on simple humanitarian considerations, exercised an astonishing force...
...like a set recitation: "The British ships could not be seen distinctly, but one could determine the location by dimmed lanterns at the anchoring buoys. Repulse was partly covered by Royal Oak. Nevertheless her two forward turrets protruded. So I first aimed in their direction, then sent a second torpedo into the very heart of Royal Oak, then another, and another. I saw distinctly how water first spurted high before Repulse and then was followed by high red flames...
...charges thudded everywhere. But no light, no charge found Prien's raider and he wriggled out of the harbor as he had come, after executing perfectly a feat to rank with Stephen Decatur's burning of the frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli (1804), William Barker Cushing's torpedoing of the Albemarle in Plymouth, N. C. (1864), Commander M. E. Nasmith's penetration of the Dardanelles with the submarine E11 (1916), Commander Luigi Rizzo's sneak shot from a motorboat with a torpedo into the Austrian battleship Szent-Istvan at Trieste...
...story seemed to refute Prien's belief that he hit Repulse. Marchant told of four hits on Royal Oak. After the first explosion, he just had time to get from his hammock to the deck. Then followed the second, third and fourth blasts. Evidently Prien's first torpedo, which he thought hit Repulse (or some other ship*), did not go past Royal...
...submarine resting on the bottom can fire a torpedo in any direction it likes, and the course of torpedoes can be further directed by means of gyroscopes in their tails. The target's course and position can be calculated from, hydrophones. But warships have hydrophones too, and the British claim they can detect a submarine's position even when her motors are not running. Why Royal Oak or her escort failed to do so was another question. Evidently somebody blundered...