SUNK WITH ONE BOMB

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20112, 5 December 1939, Page 5

SUNK WITH ONE BOMB

FATE OF BIG U-BOAT PILOT’S DIRECT HIT (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Dec. ’5, 9 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 3. A British coastal reconnaissance plane sank a U-boat with a single bomb. There were no survivors. When 150 miles from land, the pilot sighted a minute object on the horizon eight miles distant. With his binoculars he satisfied himself that it was an' enemy submarine, apparently of the large ocean-going type. So that he might approach unobserved, the pilot climbed into a cloudbank and stalked his quarry from there. When the U-boat crew heard the engines of the aircraft above them they made frantic attempts to close the conning tower hatch and to crashdive the submarine. It was too late. The pilot swooped down towards his target and released a ibom'b before the submarine could fully submerge. A flirect hit was scored, the bomb exploding on the base of the U-boat’s conning tower. Parts of the submarine and other wreckage were thrown high by the explosion and the sea surface became coated with oil over a large area. The aircraft remained over the position for five minutes to look for survivors, but none were seen. When the aircraft left the scene a long oval patch of bubbling, foaming water covered the spot where the submarine had been, Two members of the War Cabinet, the Lord Privy Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Hankey, were visiting the operations room of the Coastal Command headquarters when wireless messages announcing the destruction of the submarine .were received from the aircraft. Two British destroyers landed at a Scottish port five officers and 40 members of the crew of a Üboat.