Fate
On her return to Japan, just 50 miles (80 km) out from port, and not zigzagging, Michel was sighted by US submarine Tarpon, that attacked in one of the few instances of American submarines attacking a German vessel during World War II, hitting her with three torpedoes. Michel sank, with 290 of her crew, including her captain. The survivors, 116 in total, were able to reach Japan after a three-day journey in open boats. Scores of men had been left on rafts and floating wreckage, but the Japanese Navy reported that search aircraft had seen nothing. This caused some controversy amongst German Navy officers in Japan and at Naval Headquarters, with the Japanese seeming to have a blasé attitude towards possible German survivors. This event ended the war cruises of German auxiliary commerce raiders.
Read more about this topic: German Auxiliary Cruiser Michel
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Slowly ... the truth is dawning upon women, and still more slowly upon men, that woman is no stepchild of nature, no Cinderella of fate to be dowered only by fairies and the Prince; but that for her and in her, as truly as for and in man, life has wrought its great experiences, its master attainments, its supreme human revelations of the stuff of which worlds are made.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we’re absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)