[Paul Riley]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

I was banging away at a merchant ship with the deck gun, and did not pay attention to how close we were getting to her. I cut across her path, and the blow of the merchant crashed into our stern.

I tried to turn away from her, but we were pinned to her bow, and the ocean pushed our bow around, pinning us to the bow and side of the merchant, which was burning furiously from our shelling.

The ship then exploded, and took us with it.

Talk about close encounters!