Chapter 387: Operation Hunger (11)

The sun gradually set in the west, and the sunset glow was reflected on the sea surface, swept into the waves by the wind and waves, red, like a piece of blood-red brocade, covering the sea surface.

But Hubert, who was in charge of the escort, was not in the mood to enjoy the scenery. Looking at the gradually sinking sun, his brows were tightly furrowed, and his eyes showed deep worry. He ordered. "Order the outer destroyers to be alert and not to be negligent!"

Because the German wolf pack likes to launch attacks at night, he has to be extremely vigilant. As long as they survive tonight, the fleet will be able to enter the patrol range of local aircraft tomorrow evening, and then they will be safe.

They have been worried and frightened all the way. Sometimes the lookout will mistake whales or anything else for German submarines because of nervousness, and then the whole fleet will be nervous for a while. But he can't scold the lookout. After all, if he really encounters a German submarine next time, the lookout's hesitation may bring disastrous consequences.

This feeling was so torturous that he felt that he had lost at least ten years of his life. He had secretly decided that after this trip, he would never take such a damn job again.

Boom! At this moment, an explosion was heard in the distance.

"!!" Hubert staggered and almost fell to the ground; what he feared was really what he feared. "Sound the alarm! Prepare for battle!!"

Just as the shrill battle alarm sounded over the transport formation, several white men on a cargo ship at the core of the formation were lying on the side of the ship, vomiting at the sea.

"Damn it, I shouldn't have eaten that dinner tonight, ugh!" A young man just complained and couldn't help vomiting a few more times.

Seasickness, car sickness, and airsickness are a very normal physiological reaction. Although it is called motion sickness in medicine, it is just an emergency response of the vestibular nervous system of the inner ear to external stimuli.

The long sea voyage on the Atlantic Ocean will make all seasick people feel uncomfortable, and this poor young man is one of them; he vomited bitterly and couldn't help complaining to the people around him. "We have to suffer this instead of taking a good passenger ship. I don't know what the higher-ups are thinking. Do they want us to vomit to death on the way or what?"

They are American pilots, or more precisely, British-American pilots, who are secretly going to support Britain.

The man next to him also looked unhappy, and he retched twice. There was really nothing in his stomach to vomit. "If we take a passenger ship, it will be a troublesome matter for the higher-ups if the Germans find out something." The long shaking on the sea made him lose his appetite, and he seemed weak when he spoke.

Because the last time the "New Jersey" passenger ship was sunk, the dissatisfaction of the American people has not subsided. In addition, the United States is still a nominally neutral country, so it is impossible to support openly, so Roosevelt can only support a group of pilots and fighters in secret like this; these things are only known to a few senior military officials, and even Congress is not aware of them.

"But what if we encounter..." Before he finished speaking, the young man began to feel something stirring in his stomach again. He retched twice before continuing to speak. "If we encounter that 'wolf pack', won't we all have to die here? We are going to resist the Germans, not to feed the fish in the sea."

"You are such a bad mouth..." Before he finished speaking, he heard explosions and shrill battle alarms from afar. They found that all the ships around them began to accelerate slowly, although this acceleration was not much faster. The pilots lying in the hammocks in the cabin looked at the red alarm lights flashing on the bulkhead with terrified and confused eyes.

"Wolf pack attack! Wolf pack attack!" A British sailor on the ship ran over quickly and shouted to several pilots. "Put on your life jackets quickly!"

"Oh, shit!" The pilots hurriedly put on their life jackets. Halfway through, someone suddenly reacted and cursed. "Shit, what's the point of wearing this? Can we survive if the ship is sunk?!" If this ship is hit and sunk, and they fall into the sea, the other ships will definitely not stop to rescue them at the risk of being attacked by German submarines. They will have to go to see God after soaking in the cold sea water for a few minutes; life jackets are useless at this time, it's better to drown directly.

The companion next to him comforted him. "Don't worry, we are now in the core position of the entire fleet. Unless all the ships on the periphery are sunk, it won't be our turn."

At this time, the destroyers on the periphery fired countless flares into the sky frantically, illuminating this sea area as bright as day. The sailors widened their eyes and scanned the sea carefully, hoping to find the submarine's periscope or the track of the torpedo. Some destroyers have even begun to fire their main guns at the distant sea. However, this action seems to be of no use except to boost courage.

Boom! Boom!

Explosions continued one after another. In less than a minute, six transport ships had exploded.

"Why haven't we found the enemy's submarine yet?!" Hubert was anxious, his clenched fists had turned white.

The adjutant next to him frowned. "Sir, this explosion frequency doesn't seem to be a wolf pack attack." If it was a wolf pack attack, they would definitely launch torpedoes from all directions, and at least a dozen transport ships would have been hit. But so far, only the six transport ships in the front have exploded, and the rest of the directions are safe and sound.

After he reminded him, Hubert also noticed something was wrong. "It's not a torpedo attack, is it a mine? But this is an international waterway, why would the Germans lay mines here?" Aren't the Germans afraid of accidentally hurting other neutral ships? "Is our route correct?" For a moment, he even suspected that they deviated from the original route from time to time.

But after asking several ships around, they all said that the route was completely correct and did not deviate.

This is indeed an international waterway. As for whether it will accidentally hurt neutral ships, the solution is also very simple. Just install a timing device on the mines, and after an hour, those mines that have not been detonated will also explode by themselves, so there will be no question of accidentally hurting other ships.

"Damn it! All ships stop moving forward!" Hubert urgently ordered the fleet to stop moving forward. If the Germans lay hundreds of mines ahead, how many ships will be left if they force their way in?

So he could only give the order to stop moving forward, but these were not small fishing boats that could stop at will; all the ships dropped anchors and the propellers began to reverse, but they still moved forward for dozens of meters and only gradually stopped after detonating more than a dozen mines.