Sighting his target, Fred swung wide and low. Aiming at the white wake of the sub’s periscope he let go a depth bomb. It was a near hit and brought the sub to the surface but it seemed to the young flier that she came up shooting; at least, by the time they had swung back, the sub’s gun was barking.
“Hang onto your shirt,” Fred called to his gunner. “Get ready to mow ’em down, we’re dropping in on them.” At that he shot straight down two thousand feet, leveled off with a wide swoop, then sent a murderous hail of machine-gun bullets sweeping across the sub’s crowded deck. As they passed on, his gunner sent one more wild burst tearing at them.
On the sub men went down in rows. The sea was dotted by their struggling forms. Those who remained crowded down the conning tower. Then the sub crash-dived. For the time, at least, the tanker and its priceless cargo were saved.
But now there came a call from the big transport which carried a thousand men in khaki on its crowded decks. She too was about to be attacked. Sally, standing on the tower, watching, ready to blink signals, caught the message but could do nothing. The small English packet, the Orissa, also caught the message. Small as she was, and armed with but one gun, she moved swiftly in, cutting off the sub’s line of attack on the big transport.
As if angered, by this interference, the sub commander brought his sub to the surface, prepared to finish off the small ship with gunfire. But two can play with firearms. The packet carried a gun crew that had done service on many seas. The foam was hardly off the sub when a shell from the Orissa blasted off one side of the sub’s conning tower. The shot was returned but without great harm. One more shot from the Orissa’s plucky gunners and the sub’s gun was out of commission. Perhaps, after this beating, the sub’s commander planned to submerge and leave the scene of action. Whatever his plans might have been, they were never carried out, for a fighter from the aircraft carrier that had come to the rescue swung low to place a bomb squarely on the sub’s deck. The Orissa was showered with bits of broken steel as the sub blew up with a great roar.
This was a good start but there were many subs, some of them very large. Without doubt they had received orders to get that convoy at any cost, for they kept coming in.
Fred and his partner, still scouring the sea, discovered a sub slipping up on one of the liberty ships. Swinging low they scored a near hit with a bomb. The sub’s periscope vanished. Was it a hit? They could not tell. One more miss and they were soaring back to their own deck for a fresh cargo of death.
Seeing them coming in, Sally handed her blinker to Nancy and raced down to find out how things were going.
“It’s bad enough,” was Fred’s instant response. “We’ve lost one plane to AA fire but the pilot bailed out and was picked up by a destroyer. A sub scored a hit on one of the liberty ships but it is all shored up and holding its own. If only those big bombers from England would come!” His brow wrinkled.
“Well, I’ll be seein’ you.” He climbed into his plane and was once more in the air.