Chapter 393: Operation Hunger (16)

In addition to the captured American pilot, the German Foreign Ministry also issued another statement, asking the United States to cooperate in investigating the attack on Dr. Albert. Foreign Minister Ribbentrop's words were quite tough, and he almost named the United States for revealing Dr. Albert's whereabouts to the British, which led to his death.

Dr. Albert is a leading figure in the scientific community and is widely respected by scientists around the world; if the United States is confirmed to be involved in the attack on Dr. Albert, the consequences will be disastrous.

This series of events made Roosevelt anxious and trapped both internally and externally.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the transport fleet that fled to the British waters like a lost dog encountered a minefield again more than 20 kilometers away from the port.

Boom! Boom!

The explosions sounded one after another, and Hubert was so sad that he wanted to cry and even wanted to die. The mines in the minefield were more dense this time. In just two minutes, more than a dozen transport ships hit mines one after another and began to sink slowly.

Fortunately, this time it was closer to the port, and the port quickly sent a minesweeper fleet to clear the mines. Most of the current mines are anchor mines. The minesweeper uses a steel cable with a cutter installed on it. The cutter is like an open pair of scissors, and the blade is very hard. There is a balance plate on it to keep it horizontal and open the blade to the outside during minesweeping. When the minesweeper is dragging the minesweeper forward, once it encounters the anchor mine cable, the minesweeper will make the cable enter the blade and be cut, and the anchor mine will float to the surface. If the cable cannot be cut, the mine can be dragged to the surface and then destroyed.

After a busy day, they destroyed dozens of mines and barely cleared a channel for a cargo ship to pass.

"Damn, how many mines did these Germans lay?" On a minesweeper, sailor John leaned tiredly on the side of the ship and couldn't help cursing.

The sailor next to him took over. "There are probably hundreds of mines in this area, which will keep us busy for a while." The most disgusting thing is that it is not enough to just clear the mines here. They clear mines during the day, and the Germans come to lay mines at night. I am afraid that this will never end until the end of the war!

As they spoke, a freighter that looked to be seven or eight thousand tons slowly entered the channel. It was indeed "slow". This freighter with a displacement of up to the limit was so slow that it gave people the feeling of an old man staggering. The sailors on the minesweeper looked at it and wanted to push forward, but they were more concerned about hoping that the freighter could safely pass through this minefield.

"Come on, hurry up!" In the anxious waiting, the freighter had already gone halfway. John silently encouraged it in his heart. At this time, the freighter blew the whistle and saluted the minesweepers on both sides with a majestic whistle.

Boom!

A thick column of water rushed up from the bottom of the freighter, as if cutting the freighter in half. The water column seemed to pause in mid-air for a second, and then suddenly slammed back into the sea, raising waves that affected the nearby minesweepers. The minesweepers, which were not very large in tonnage, were tossed in the waves like leaves.

John quickly grabbed the side of the ship and steadied himself, watching in amazement as the middle of the huge freighter's hull was deforming at a speed visible to the naked eye; the heart-wrenching sound of steel twisting made the sailors on the surrounding minesweepers squint their eyes involuntarily. It was obvious that the underwater explosion just now had damaged the keel of the freighter, and seawater was pouring into the lower cabin of the hull.

John saw that the ship might not be able to hold on for even ten minutes and would have to sink to the bottom of the sea. The sailors on the freighter obviously had the same idea, and they jumped into the cold sea water like dumplings.

"Hurry up and save people!" John shouted loudly, while picking up the tire hanging on the outside of the ship's string, and threw it out with his arms around the wheel, and other crew members also threw the life-saving supplies on the ship into the water.

The hull of the cargo ship was gradually broken. The middle part hit by the blast wave had sunk underwater. The rear part of the hull was tilted up, and the propeller that had stopped rotating was exposed to the water. Then a large amount of steam gushed out of the chimney. It seemed that the steam pipe of the boiler was broken. Then, because the cable was broken, the chimney bent under its own neutral action and fell into the water.

The sailors in the water swam out more vigorously. When the big ship sank, the water around the hull would sink with the hull, forming a large vortex, sucking in the surrounding things. The larger the ship, the larger the vortex. Once they were touched by the vortex generated by a ship of this tonnage, it was difficult for them to get out, and they could only sink to the bottom of the sea with the ship.

Fortunately, there were minesweepers nearby, and they rushed over to start salvaging the sailors on the sea.

After a while, the cargo ship completely disappeared on the sea surface, leaving only some oil stains to indicate that it had existed.

"Damn it!" John couldn't help but curse loudly. "What the hell is going on! We have already cleared all the mines, and we haven't seen the submarine's periscope! What are the Germans using to attack us?"

What they don't know is that Germany has laid not only traditional anchor mines, but also acoustic mines.

This is a mine equipped with an acoustic fuze, also known as a sonic mine. The non-trigger fuze of the mine that uses sound signals to operate is called a mine acoustic fuze. Depending on the source of the sound signal, the acoustic fuze can be divided into passive acoustic fuze and active acoustic fuze. Passive acoustic fuze is a suitable non-trigger fuze. The active acoustic fuze emits sound waves by the fuze itself. When a ship passes near it, the echo signal received by the fuze changes and causes the mine to explode.

At this time, the captain of the cargo ship who was rescued by the minesweeper started to curse. "How did you bastards sweep the mines? My ship sank!!"

The sailors on the minesweeper immediately stopped working. They worked hard for a long time to clear mines, but in the end they were pointed at their noses and scolded. Who could bear this anger, so they immediately scolded them back. The scolding soon escalated into a fight. The minesweeper sailor and the cargo ship sailor struggled with each other. The scene was very chaotic for a time. It was not until the captain of the minesweeper came over and pulled them apart that everyone calmed down a little.

At this time, there was a faint buzzing sound in the sky. Everyone raised their heads and saw a small black shadow flying slowly in the blue sky. "Damn, it's a German reconnaissance plane! It's very dangerous for us to stay here." That reconnaissance plane will definitely spread the news about the situation here; no matter whether the other party sends bombers or submarines, it is very dangerous for the transport fleet to continue to stay here.

Hubert also knew the seriousness of this matter. If there was a slight delay, the few remaining transport formations would probably be wiped out. But the explosion on the cargo ship just now made him hesitant, and he couldn't believe that only one fish slipped through the net. After hesitating for a long time, they had no choice but to take a detour. After losing several more transport ships, they left the minefield and sailed into the port.

In this way, of the nearly 200 transport fleets departing from Canada, only about 20 ships were left when they arrived at the British port, which can be said to be a heavy loss.