history · 04 November 1940 · 84 years ago
German submarine U-99 attacked British armed merchant cruiser HMS Patroclus 150 miles west of Ireland while she was rescuing survivors of HMS Laurentic, which was disabled by U-99 at the end of the previous day. U-99 fired torpedoes at 0022 hours, 0044 hours, and 0118 hours from the surface, and then dove to avoid attacks. At 0435 hours, U-99 resurfaced, sinking HMS Laurentic with a torpedo which detonated Laurentic's depth charges. Patroclus was sunk at 0525 hours, killing 56. British destroyers HMS Hesperus arrived and chased away U-99 with depth charges.
OnThisDay.net