At 10 o'clock in the evening on December 27, 1942, a dark and shiny periscope once again poked out of the sea. After careful observation, it was found that everything was as usual. U-107 slowly floated to the water. After confirming its own safety again, it began to shoot and send telegrams as usual.

In recent days, this British and American transport fleet running towards Australia has probably vaguely noticed something. Since passing Madagascar on the 24th, it has been launching various types of anti-submarine operations. The two escort aircraft carriers have also taken off frequently to search the surrounding waters, with a total of no less than 100 times, but they returned empty-handedly because the U-107 is lurking in nearly 150 meters of deep water during the day, and it is impossible to find overhead aircraft. Even with the help of flares and ship searchlights at night, it is difficult for the aircraft to find submarines secretly floating in the corner of the vast sea. After landing at night, the British stopped this futile action.

Hasler knew that it was sooner or later that he was noticed by the enemy, because the submarine had to send reports every night. Although he had tried his best to avoid generating electricity at the same time to avoid being captured, the longer the time was, the greater the possibility of exposure. When the enemy fleet was large, it was nothing to harvest an unknown telegram occasionally, but in front of a large-scale fleet, inexplicable telegrams were always caught, and anyone would be suspicious. What's more, after the Indian Ocean War, the Kenyan escort command had issued a suspension order, and a large number of merchant ships were silted in India, South Africa, and Persian ports could not move, and the number of telegrams was reduced sharply. It was necessary to find that the radio waves scattered by the u-107 were greatly reduced.

However, there are still 4 days before the day the chief of the envoy must return, and the headquarters has no latest instructions, so he is determined to persevere.

After a while, he realized that he was wrong, and the telegrapher handed him back: This time he gave the u-107 not simply "having been known" or "received". It was a long command: According to the direction of your ship and the information of friendly forces, it is expected that the friendly fleet will arrive at the attack position at 6 a.m. on the 28th to launch an attack. We hope that your ship will seize the opportunity to launch an attack while ensuring its own safety. Give priority to destroy the enemy's escort aircraft carrier...

Are you finally going to start the attack?

Hasler was overjoyed and immediately passed the command through the sender: "Brothers, ready...the war begins..."

After so many days of day and night out, the submarine officers and soldiers had already adjusted their biological clocks and became extremely energetic at night. When they heard the attack, everyone looked excited - it felt no less than the satisfaction of the police who decided to arrest the thief after stalking for a long time.

The gunman waved his fist hard: "I have wanted to do it for a long time. If I hold it in, I'm afraid I can't help but shoot it..."

This is a "joke" that is a pun, and the sailors couldn't help laughing after hearing this.

With Hasler's order, the ferocious sea wolf opened its bloody mouth and began to pounce on the ship.

There are a total of 2 escort aircraft carriers in the southeast column, one is called Sangamon (, number cve26), and the other is Sawani (, number cve27), which is an escort aircraft carrier converted from the hull of the tanker (the tanker captured by the joint fleet uses the same hull as the tanker captured by the joint fleet), collectively known as the Sangamon class. Compared with the Borg class, this class is faster, has a larger displacement, a wider deck, and has more aircraft carriers. However, since tankers are also extremely needed, the class has only been rebuilt 4 ships and stopped the subsequent reconstruction plan. During this torch operation, all four ships were dispatched, but two were sunk by Uboats off the coast of Morocco. The remaining two ships were all used to advance to Australia. Admiral Jin's calculation was to use the two Sangamon classes to enhance the strength of the Pacific Fleet and replace the lesser Borg class, Nimitz also agreed with this.

"David, is that mysterious radio wave still there?" Standing on the deck of the flagship Dido-class air defense cruiser Charybdis, the commander of the Southeast Column, British Rear Admiral Burrös, looked at the dark distance, turned his head to ask his chief of staff.

"I caught it again today, but the time is different from yesterday."

"What do you think he is?"

"It's probably a submarine." David thought for a moment, "It's either Japanese or German - but I thought it's a great possibility to be Japanese. They injured our Ramiy half a year ago, and German submarines usually move in the Atlantic Ocean. They don't easily run into the Indian Ocean, let alone come to the South Indian Ocean to go wild."

"Are you responding to sea radar?"

"No." David smiled bitterly. "You should not have too high expectations for radar. You can search for sea targets that are 20 nautical miles away, and you still make mistakes."

It is very unreliable for sea radars. It is found that large sea targets, especially cruisers or above, have good abilities, but they are really not good at submarines. In the past two days, the British have been nervously allergic to the radar's continuous false alarms.

"I guess he hid in the water after sending the report." Burroughs sighed, "We have thought of countless ways in the past two days. How can we pull out this mouse?"

To catch the u-107, the Southeast Column really racked his brains and was simply doing everything he could, including taking the z-shaped route from time to time; deliberately creating the illusion of a transport ship's engine being damaged and left alone to lure the submarine to attack; allowing the destroyer to purposefully drop deep-water bombs during the journey; allowing the plane to search vigorously and shoot at the sea, drop bombs, etc. But these methods failed to impress the u-107. Every day, they still hid quietly in the water, and only came out to move at night, and the Germans were too lazy to even look at the British bait.

Because of these actions by the British, the Southeast Column was extremely slow. Basler thought that the Japanese fleet would not catch up with them at least 30 or 31 days, but it could catch up in the early morning of the 28th. At this time, the center of the Southeast Column was still in the large triangular sea area surrounded by three locations, the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory).

"Search all the planes from tomorrow morning to search carefully, and the range will be expanded to more than 100 nautical miles." David gritted his teeth and said, "I can't get it out."

"Well, I hope we'll have better luck tomorrow - the Royal Navy's luck has been so bad lately."

"The same goes for the army," David said worriedly. "The Germans were advancing in the Middle East very quickly. This evening the vanguard had already reached the Iraqi border. Our garrison troops had no power to fight back. The Iraqi oil field was obviously unable to be saved. If the Persian oil field could not be saved, the use of oil by the Royal Navy in the future will be a problem."

"We can only let the Americans bring us oil." Burroughs sighed, "We repeatedly emphasized the blockade of the axis. Unexpectedly, the British Empire was blocked first, and the Germans could still use coal to oil, and we didn't even have the ability."

At 3:40 am, it was the late night and the sleepiness was the highest, and the u-107 quietly touched the huge fleet, accurately attached it to the starboard side of the Sangamon, and crossed the bow of the other side by speed, stretching the distance to more than 6 chains.

"Left rudder 35 degrees."

"Yes! Left rudder 35 degrees."

The submarine with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons skillfully turned around.

"Torpedo prepared, set depth of 42 meters."

In less than 20 seconds, a sound came from the torpedo room: "The torpedo is ready."

"A 120-degree fan angle, prepare for 4 volleys!" Basler observed the target's movements tightly while letting the gunman nervously calculate the advance amount.

As the huge hull gradually entered the center of the sight, Basler decisively issued an order: "Torpedo, launch!"

After 4 "swoosh swish swish swish swish", four g7e torpedoes fluttered towards the target.

"Diver now." Basler knew that he had only one chance, so he didn't even think about loading and launching again, but everyone still had high expectations for hitting the target.

"17,18..." When counting until 33, a violent explosion came from the sea, and then two more sounds were soon heard.

"Success!" The cheers in the submarine were heard. Not to mention a mere escort aircraft carrier, three torpedoes in the battleships that were slightly older could not stand it. Now it seems that only one torpedo is off the target, and the aircraft carrier is finished. Sure enough, the hull of the Sangamon, which hit three thunders in a row, broke from the middle and immediately began to sink, and the alarm sounded on the sea surface.

More than 20 seconds later, another dull explosion came from the sea, and another transport ship was sunk along the outer edge of the aircraft carrier's original position. In terms of location, it was a long distance from the U-107, and it was obvious that the off-target torpedo caught the next unjust dead ghost.

This sound caused great misunderstandings to the ships of the Southeast Column, making them mistakenly believe that the submarines had moved to that direction. The destroyers drove over and threw the deep-water bombs down like desperately.

Although the u-107 was shaken by the explosion from afar, it was far away from the core area and did not pose any threat to the submarine. Now the u-107 slowly exited the sea in the opposite direction with a speed of 6 knots.

"You will be in a state of rampant for a few hours. When dawn, the Japanese will come to harvest you!"

At 5:45 a.m., 370 kilometers northwest of the Southeast Column, all the carrier-based aircraft of the First Guerrilla Detachment commanded by Tsukahara II43 had begun to warm up and prepare to take off.

Although he was very sure of sinking the Southeast Column, Tsukahara initially had great concerns, because although the oil problem was solved by capturing British and American tankers, after this battle, the fleet's inventory of ammunition, especially bombs and torpedoes, would drop to a very low level, which poses a great threat to subsequent combat.

But the Germans used another way to solve his worries.

...
Chapter completed!