Loss
On 23 September U-859 was running on the surface, within 23 mi (37 km) of Penang and the end of her voyage, when she was intercepted in the Malacca Straits by the British submarine HMS Trenchant, which had been forewarned of her arrival date and route by decrypted German signals. In difficult conditions with a heavy swell running and a second U-boat thought to be lurking, Trenchant's commander Arthur Hezlet carried out a snap attack using his stern torpedo tubes, hitting U-859 amidships. The U-boat sank immediately in 50 m (160 ft) of water with several compartments flooded, and 47 men drowned, including her commander.
Twenty of the crew did manage to escape however, opening the hatch in the relatively shallow sea and struggling to the calm surface. Eleven of the survivors were picked up by HMS Trenchant immediately following the sinking, and the remaining 9 were picked up by the Japanese after being adrift for 24 hours and were taken ashore to await repatriation.
Read more about this topic: German Submarine U-859
Famous quotes containing the word loss:
“Every nation ... whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The cheapness of man is every day’s tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we should be low; for we must have a society.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A gain is no joy, nor a loss any grief.”
—Chinese proverb.