Action
Undeterred by their presence however, the pack attacked as night fell; using the darkness to cover an approach on the surface, Prien penetrated the escort screen from the south to attack from within the convoy, while Endrass (who had learned his trade as Prien’s 1st officer), did the same from the north.
Over the next six hours, 13 ships were torpedoed; 6 by U-47 alone (4 of which were sunk). 10 ships were sunk from the convoy, and 2 stragglers were lost later in the day. These were Shirak, which had been torpedoed in the night, and Loch Lomond, sailing with the convoy as a rescue ship. Another, Athelmonarch, was damaged but was able to make port.
HX 79 had lost 12 ships out of 49, a total tonnage of 75,069 gross register tons (GRT).
None of the attacking U-boats were damaged.
Read more about this topic: Convoy HX 79
Famous quotes containing the word action:
“The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.”
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