Chapter 546 North Carolina (4)

"Oh my God!"

When the two destroyers arrived at the place where the ship fell into the water, they saw that the sea surface was already blood red. No matter how the sea water rose and fell, it could not wash away the blood. The salty and humid air was accompanied by a pungent smell of blood.

Sharks usually bite people but do not eat them (there is also an opposite view that sharks will actively attack and eat humans). If a shark bites you, it will generally not bite you a second time. If they find that you are not a marine creature after a bite, they will let you go. The demonized great white sharks are even more picky about eating. They can tell whether the prey meets their nutritional needs, such as fat and protein content, with just one bite.

This is why few people are eaten by sharks.

But why do most people lose their lives after being attacked? For example, a great white shark is about 6 meters long, and it takes a bite, "It's not tasty, so I'm leaving." Then the bloody smell in the seawater can attract all the sharks within a few hundred meters, and then you can hear "It's not tasty," "What a crap," "It's so disgusting," and then you die...

As a result, the sailors struggling in the sea are miserable. The shark bites one and thinks it's not tasty, bah! Switch to another one, and this one is not tasty either! Bah! Switch to another one! This goes on and on, and the shark doesn't fill its stomach, but attracts more sharks around to try the taste.

"What should we do?!" Although the destroyers have guns and cannons, which can easily shoot and kill sharks wandering on the sea, there are also their own people in the sea, thousands of densely packed people. The sharks are swimming among these people, and opening fire rashly may hurt their own people. And there are so many people in the water, and their two destroyers can't accommodate them. Although a request for support had been sent to the base, the nearest port was more than 200 kilometers away, and it would take at least three or four hours for rescue to arrive. By the time they arrived, the people in the water would have already become sharks' food.

Seaplanes could be faster, but they couldn't carry many people, so even if they were all deployed, it would be a drop in the bucket.

The sailors on the destroyer could only shoot at the nearest sharks, and they had to be careful not to hurt friendly forces in the water.

Before they shot a few sharks, they suddenly heard a violent explosion in the distance.

Captain Thomas of the destroyer, who was directing the rescue work, felt a sinking feeling in his heart, because he could tell that it was not the muffled sound of a depth charge falling into the water, but an explosion on the sea surface.

Sure enough, when he looked over in the direction of the explosion, he saw thick smoke billowing from a destroyer in the distance, and it was obviously severely damaged.

Thomas' face turned pale, his feet softened, and he almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, the first mate next to him helped him up.

"How could this happen?! How could this happen?!" You know, destroyers are the nemesis of submarines. Submarines can only run away when they encounter destroyers. And most of them can hardly escape, and there is only one way to die.

But why can this submarine deal with its own destroyers with ease, and even sink a destroyer? !

The other destroyer was obviously panicked, moving zigzags frantically, and throwing depth charges randomly. But anyone with a little experience knows that it is quite stupid to throw depth charges without determining the exact location of the submarine. Although the depth charge explodes with an amazing momentum, it is indeed very scary for submarine soldiers (it is probably a small case to pee in pants. A more extreme example is a German captain who had a mental breakdown and committed suicide during a depth charge attack), but this is different from sinking.

The development of technology has also improved the performance of submarines. If the distance is too far, it can only scare them. For a 300-pound depth charge, the submarine can only be damaged if it is more than 30 yards away, and it can only be effectively destroyed if it is within 10 yards. Moreover, the explosion of the depth charge will interfere with the sonar for more than ten minutes, during which the sonar is almost deaf.

Less than five minutes later, the destroyer was also hit by a torpedo.

"Oh my God!" Thomas almost fainted. Sinking one destroyer was considered luck, but sinking two destroyers in succession, what was that? "Devil, this is the devil!" After muttering to himself for a few times, he suddenly shouted. "Quick! Full speed ahead! Get out of here!"

"Captain?!" The first mate was shocked. They hadn't salvaged a few people yet, and they were going to escape like this? Wouldn't this be considered escaping from the battlefield? They would definitely be court-martialed!

Thomas was almost insane, screaming hysterically. "If we don't leave, we will be sunk too! Go!"

In fact, the first mate was also trembling in his heart. The German submarine was too terrible. Now seeing the captain's reaction, he agreed. Even if he had to go to court-martial, he was still the captain. They were just obeying orders.

The order to go full speed forward was transmitted to the engine room. The destroyer didn't care about the friendly forces in the water and rushed forward. Many people who fell into the water were seriously injured by the bow of the destroyer. Another destroyer followed closely behind, leaving behind countless people who wailed, cursed, and asked for help.

During World War II, many destroyers had reached a speed of 30 to 40 knots and could maintain this speed for a long time; however, these four destroyers were Clemson-class destroyers built by the United States in the late World War I.

The "Clemson" class is the second batch of the famous "flat deck" four-chimney destroyers, which is an enlarged and improved version of the "Weicks" class. On September 8, 1923, 14 "Clemson" class destroyers collectively ran aground during sea trials, and 7 of them were damaged, resulting in the largest accident in the navies of various countries in peacetime.

Although the speed of these "old-fashioned" destroyers is only 30 knots, it is still a speed that submarines cannot match.

However, Kretschmer had no intention of letting them go. "Load oxygen torpedoes, No. 5 and No. 6!"

The new submarine was equipped with a fashionable gadget called a hydraulic torpedo reloading machine, and it only took about a minute to load a torpedo.

Soon, the two oxygen torpedoes were loaded, and the two torpedoes plunged into the water, chasing the two destroyers that had escaped 5,000 meters away at a speed of fifty knots (about 93 kilometers per hour). The sound induction mechanism on the head allowed it to discover the destroyers running at full speed at the first time, and it plunged into them without hesitation!

As mentioned earlier, the German oxygen torpedo warhead was loaded with air-fuel explosives. The torpedo hit the tail of the destroyer fiercely, and the residual high-pressure oxygen from the propeller was ejected, forming an air-fuel explosive powder-oxygen gas mass, which exploded violently. Its power can easily destroy large ships, let alone a small destroyer.

Looking at the two destroyers in the distance exploding one after another, Kretschmer couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. "Great victory!"