Quote:
Originally Posted by Revus
It might be that I patrolled alot along the "suspected" shipping lanes from Tokyo or Osaka toward Luzon, and almost no time near the coast. Been trying to stay away from those minefields you made haha  |
Ah yes, at that point in the war, while will find targets near coast, especially the loners, the traffic lanes with convoys and the big targets further out to sea at that point in the war.
I recall being in the Bungo-Palau lanes (which pass through Area 8 as well) in area "Vestible" in the Phillippine Sea once (testing traffic) and was in patrol area for 29 days, with no contacts but occasional long range patrol plane lol Calculated with fuel had maybe two days of patrol left before had to head for Midway. Shift patrol to west again a little and boom, found a Southbound convoy. Multiple attacks over next 48 hours, sunk four merchants and an escort. Boat was banged up, but was heading home. Then ran into a northbound convoy, another running battle over 36 hours, sunk two big tankers in night surface attack, which were loaded with fuel judging way they blew up after one torpedo hit. Raced away but had to dive since the e escort was a full sized destroyer, could easily overtake my boat. Depth charged boat for 12 hours. Surfaced and made it to Midway with 2 percent fuel remaining lol. That was a an interesting patrol, hours of boredom, wondering if I screwed something up with the traffic I added lol then boom. It's a huge ocean out there , not easy to always find targets.
lol yes the minefields, good idea to stay away. I stumbled into once in 1945 down around one of the straits in Flores/Soembawa Islands, lucky I did not hit a mine, had to blow a few up with guns(which is a lot of fun by the way lol) to safely get clear. Let me know if you encounter any, hopefully you will see them first.